[Sly Fox]

University of Houston
Houston, Texas


UH Hoops Official Site



Hofheinz Pavilion
Opened in 1969 - Seats 8479 (Closes in 2018)


Kelvin Sampson
3rd Season as UH Head Coach


2016-2017 Schedule/Results

• 11/05 - UNC Pembroke ....................................... W, 94-67
  11/11 - Morgan State .......................................... W, 93-52
  11/16 - Angelo State ........................................... W, 84-72
  
  Gulf Coast Showcase at Estero, FL
  11/21 - vs. George Mason .................................... W, 93-56
  11/22 - vs. South Dakota ..................................... W, 85-58
  11/23 - vs. Vermont ............................................. W, 72-71
  
  11/26 - Cornell .................................................... W, 83-53
  11/29 - @ LSU ...................................................... L, 84-65
  12/03 - Prairie View A&M ..................................... W, 105-61
  12/06 - @ Arkansas .............................................. L, 84-72
  12/10 - Rhode Island ........................................... W, 82-77
  12/17 - UT Rio Grande Valley ............................... W, 83-58
  12/21 - Liberty .................................................... 7:00 p.m. CT

Key Player

• 
  #32 Rob Gray
  6' 2" 185 lbs Junior Guard (JUCO Transfer)
  Thru 10 Games: Averaging 20.4 Pts, 3.6 Rebs & 3.3 Assists + 19-of-40 (47.5%) on 3-Pt Attempts

[Purple Haize]

I thought Sampson was still 'show cause'. Shows how much I kept up.

[Cider Jim]

The question that FF want to know is, will SLY be in attendance???

[Sly Fox]

I will be there with my entire crew tonight. Sorry I missed the game in Beaumont but seeing the Flames in such a historic gym tonight against the alma mater of so many of my friends was impossible to turn down.

[Cider Jim]

We are expecting a full report, if your busy holiday schedule permits.

[Sly Fox]

Hopefully I'm reporting an upset.

[Cider Jim]

According to DishNetwork, MASN will be showing the LU-Houston game at 8:00 tonight.

[Cider Jim]

LU lighting it up with the 3-ball, only down 20-19 with 8 minutes left in the first half.

[Cider Jim]

LU only down by one point at the half, 35-34 (and Dawson hasn't even scored yet).

http://www.uhcougars.com/gametracker/la ... artschool=&

[jinxy]

Our offense is a joke. We might be the most one dimensional team ive ever watched. Also mckay just wants to play little man ball and we have nobody that can challenge the rim or rebound. It is tough be a fan of this school....lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose

[Cider Jim]

Final Score: 77-54. Houston ended with a 21-2 run.

http://www.uhcougars.com/gametracker/la ... artschool=&

[Chippy]

Our offense is a joke. We might be the most one dimensional team ive ever watched. Also mckay just wants to play little man ball and we have nobody that can challenge the rim or rebound. It is tough be a fan of this school....lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose

You may want to consider another school to root for. Homesley's loss is huge. He's the only one with the talent to penetrate and get to the hoop and without a legitimate big man, yes, we are one dimensional but that's the cards McKay has to work with right now. It also makes it hard when we are not getting anything from our senior. With Homesley I thought a top 3-4 finish in BSC was very possible; not so much now given we lost our most talented player for the year. Frustrating but not the end of the world.

[jinxy]

I would if i could ha. Not that easy. I would also ditch the redskins while i was at it.

Im not convinced he wants the big man were looking for yet. Thats part of my problem.

[BJWilliams]

CHippy is right...we are playing the hand we are dealt right now. If you ever want to jump off the proverbial cliff jinxy, that is your prerogative. If you take a look at the box from this one, we were 7-21 on non-3s, while the Cougars were 15-25...that's 16 points right there. That said, the talent is definitely there, if the first half is any indication.

We get a few days to celebrate Christmas with family and then its time to make the money in Big South play.

[walksports]

Totally different look earlier this evening than Monday night. Even though I thought everyone hustled against Lamar, I thought I was watching a totally different team this evening.
While Pacheco-Ortiz played just five more minutes tonight than Monday, it felt as if he was the key in moving the ball around better in the first half against Houston. I really didn't remember him having any impact against Lamar at all.
Early on, the Cougars forced the Flames - with much more athleticism than Lamar - to exhaust the shot clock on nearly every possession, but Liberty continued to move the ball to work to get an open shot. Gardner played a completely different game, nailing his two three's in the first half. If he could ever get a soft jumper down inside the paint just inside the free throw line, he'll be dangerous. He had that open look a couple of times, but didn't pull the trigger on it.
He also went into the paint this evening offensively much more controlled than he did Monday night. If they can develop that further, he may be able to help out inside.
You have to hope Cabbil takes a lot from this game in that he had a better game tonight against better competition. If he does, you have to think that's going to be an asset in conference play.
Dawson nor Reid were the factors they were Monday night.
Some of the 3's that the Cougars hit in the second half were really long-range - 2-3 feet beyond the top of the arc - and they just capitalized to build the run in the second half when Liberty went cold.
In four minutes, Houston turned a 4-point game (56-52) into a 20-point lead as Liberty missed nine shots and committed a turnover.
One offensive rebound the entire night is rather telling. It wasn't until middle of the second half that I could recall that it seemed as if they were trying to crash the boards offensively.
Cougar fans I talked to after the game that walked up to me were impressed (and totally surprised) with the first-half shooting.
We were kind of surprised that Liberty didn't burn a timeout after the Cougars pushed it back to eight, 60-52, to kind of cut off Houston's momentum somewhat.
If they can find the right combinations on the floor at the right times and work to rebound a little better, there's potential there.
Still the thing that bothers me is McKay's floor presence when things start to go south. His body language gives the impression that he thinks they're defeated. It discouraged me even!
I may get to see another game in person (Radford on 2/4 at home) later in the season.
Get behind these young men ... I was encouraged by a lot of what I saw Monday night and tonight (and I only went out because my daughter's a student).

In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

[Sly Fox]

walksports gave a nice summary. I wasn't in Beaumont so I'll pass on those comparisons.

Georgie really impressed me this evening. While UH was draining threes from well outside the arc in the first half, his energy created opportunities that allowed us to hang with a very talented Coogs squad. His family flew in from Puerto Rico and that probably contrubuted to his spark. Lovell & Brock also really looked sharp until things went south.

For about a 3-4 minute stretch in the second half, we let some lopsided refereeing take us out of our rhythm. You could see the frustration on their faces and they never recovered. We couldn't buy a basket with really no inside threat. Our jumpers simply stopped falling.

Big shout-out to local boy Kemrite who really did a nice job defending the much larger Chicken Knowles who was an HCYA teammate of Justin Jackson at HCYA ... yeah, that HCYA. Kemrite was disruptive defensively in the first half and converted that into some offensive energy. But even he lost his stroke in the second half offensive meltdown.

Caleb's absence was every bit as significant as we all feared when he went down. When we started chucking up threes in the second half, there was no one making an effort ot get ont he glass. I assume that part of that is by design with the Pack Line. But it was brutal to watch u getting nothing but iron and running back on D while the ball was bouncing around the rim.

I'm not as down on this crew as others in this thread. That was a really strong Houston lineup and we give them all they could handle for 3/4ths of the game in spite of them really firing from three. I believe we can really do some damage in conference especially if #22 finally wakes up. We know what he can do and it is puzzling to see him so disconnected out there on the floor. Hopefully it clicks again for him soon. We really need his production especially without Caleb.

I posted a slew of pics on Facebook if anyone is interested. If you don't know me, you can look up the FlameFans FB page.

[flamehunter]

I saw the pics Sly - thanks for posting them. Nice looking crew you got there.

[ballcoach15]

We did not come out of locker room to play in second half.

[Sly Fox]

I saw the pics Sly - thanks for posting them. Nice looking crew you got there.

Thanks, I agree completely!

[flamehunter]

We did not come out of locker room to play in second half.

We came out and took a 5 point lead.

[lawrenceq]

You can't knock down threes all night. This team needs a rim protector/rebounder/scorer in the paint -- two would be great. Dawson left his game in the 15-16 season. That's all I got. I only caught the end of the first half to the end of the second half.

[BJWilliams]

Apparently to ballcoach the definition of "came to play" would involve a huge run and us taking a big lead or something...

This is a very young squad, that's something that we have to continually remind ourselves. Last year's bunch massively overachieved, especially come conference play. We still need to exercise patience with them as well as Coach McKay because this is a building process that we are undergoing. It took Coach Bennett (who McKay worked with) until his FIFTH season before UVa won the ACC. I am not gonna jump off a cliff because we don't have 10 wins at this juncture. We're gonna have some highs and some lows this year and probably for the next couple years as these guys that come through the program grow and mature and get more familiar with the system. There will be some major wins and head scratching losses, but I think McKay has a chance to create something special on the mountain and I look forward to supporting him as he does and Im sure most everyone else shares that sentiment.

[PAFlame]

Remember, it could always be much worse. McKay is by no means the greatest coach out there, but he's a good one, and one I'm glad is Liberty's coach. We could have very easily hired a bad coach like Mizzou's Kim Anderson or someone crooked like Kelvin Sampson, but we went with a better coach in McKay.