The sounds of balls bouncing off the hardwood resonated throughout the Thomas Assembly Center Saturday as the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs and Lady Techsters tipped off preseason basketball practice.

Tech's Lady Techsters started things off at 9:30 a.m. followed by the Bulldogs at 11 a.m.

Bulldogs coach Keith Richard said he was pleased with his squad's initial workout.

"In our first practice we really tried to give this team the big picture and showed them how we wanted them to play," Richard said. "They responded well, and now we'll go in, break down film and see where we need to go from here."

The Bulldogs, who went 15-15 last season, will open the 2004-05 camp gain against Louisiana-Lafayette at the Louisiana Classic Tournament in Baton Rouge, La., on Nov. 19.

It was a challenging opening practice for the Lady Techsters, who were without the services of five of 14 players on their roster. Included in the group of missing Techsters is All-American Erica Taylor, who is expecting her and husband Jermain's first child in mid-December. Taylor isn't expected back until mid-January at the earliest.

The challenge was made even tougher when one Techster left the floor with a slight injury early in the practice session.

"Obviously we knew we had a tough situation coming into the first practice," Techsters coach Kurt Budke said. "We had three healthy guards coming into practice and one hurt her back a little. It's to the point where we can't rotate and move people in and out, and that makes it tough."

Budke said he even considered pushing practice back due to his squad's current health.

"We seriously thought about pushing the start of practice back a week in order to give a few of our players a little more time to get healthy," Budke said. "And we'll take a couple of days off after this practice to help allow for that to some degree. We'd like to continue the flow and practice again tomorrow, but right now we have to get healthy.

"I had all of this practice thing planned out for the opening two weeks, but
we've had to scrap all of that and come up with a different plan. We'll plan things day-by-day until we can get a little healthier."

The Techsters, who went 29-3 last year, will open this season on the road with a Nov. 24 contest at Mississippi.