Barring a Selection Sunday Hail Mary, year 2 of the Tom Penders era at UH will end in similar fashion to year one. The Cougars are headed back to the NIT, which I suppose is a step in the right direction, considering the Cougars had not strung together back-to-back winning seasons since 1992-1993. While the record of the team indicates only incremental progress in a positive direction (18 wins to 19), the Cougars did make a tangible leap forward in terms of competing on a nightly basis. Last season the Cougars suffered 9 defeats by double digits and had a tendency to roll over at the 1st signs of adversity. This season Penders crew, suffered only 3 losses by 10+ and truly only failed to compete @UNLV and in a rare home loss versus Central Florida. The Cougars were 3-3 against NCAA tourney teams last year as compared to 2-4 this season, though this year 5 of these contests were played on the road.
The Cougars have become an elite defensive team in college basketball. They can keep the most talented of teams (see both Memphis games) from easy buckets when they play their best. Opponents FG% dropped from 45% in ’05 to just a shade over 40% this season. Their home court can potentially be an intimidating force as seen for both the Arizona and Rice games.
What needs to be fixed? Well for starters, a game plan for offense in the half court still
appears to be non-existent. Against bigger, stronger teams UH resembles an AAU team
more than a team receiving any coaching. Good teams don’t start their offense 35 feet from the basket (as in both Memphis games). UH won’t improve much more in this area unless they find a big man who on the occasional possession can find higher % shots than their current typical shot selection. If you can’t find a skilled big, your guards/wings must be much more adept at finishing and getting to the FT line. Cougar opponents attempted 80 more free throws this season, typically a sign of aggressive offense. Everyone has the green light in Tom Penders system, in fact players get yanked if they don’t shoot open looks. Your highest volume shooter (Oliver Lafayette) this season shot 29% in conference games. Don’t you at least put a yield sign up for a kid at some point? In my opinion the Cougars have an extremely talented PG in Lanny Smith, but they don’t really give him any semblance of an offense to run in the half court.
The Cougars lose their best offensive player (Ramon Dyer) and their best defensive player (Brian Latham) next season. Smith and Lafayette return in the backcourt and will likely be joined by San Jac JUCO gunner Robert McKiver. He’s supposed to be the missing piece in terms of an overly aggressive finisher who will get the FT line and finish in transition. Up front Jamar Thorpe will start with someone having zero experience, probably Richard Young until Texas transfer Deion Dowell is eligible. Penders should be able to apply more full court and half court traps with a deeper bench next year. Sam Anderson is a reliable front court replacement, and I’m assuming “Tree” Adeife can at least become a shot blocker next season. If he stays in school and doesn’t quit the team again, the enigmatic Lamar Roberson could become a scoring force off the bench. Corey Bloom is nothing more than a spot shooter at this point, and Tristan Martin probably won’t even be back with the team. I’m not drinking the kool-aid on any of the incoming recruits at this point. I don’t see a huge difference make in McKiver, Marcus Malone or Nic Mosely for next season. Texas transfer Deion Dowell is obviously an X-factor, but he really didn’t do much to impress in his limited opportunities at Texas. The Cougars will still be a ferocious defensive team, but I don’t know how much more they will improve in the half court. The ability to apply more pressing tactics could lead to more transition baskets.
Next November should be an interesting litmus test for how the UH program is progressing. In his 3rd season recruiting the local talent, Penders should have a good grasp on what’s out there, and I would assume that the high school players and their coaches know where the Cougar program stands. The local “Class of ’07” is so talented that there is a pretty good chance that the McDonald’s All-American game will be played in Houston. While Penders often pays lip service to recruiting on a national level, to this point he has recruited primarily JUCO players. He has found some good players, but no stars. With talents like Gary Johnson (Aldine), Jai Lucas (Bellaire), BJ Holmes (Hastings), DeAndre Jordan (Episcopal), and Mike Singeltary (Kingwood) all in his back yard, Tom Penders has to be able to pluck at least one of these potential stars to show that the perception of the program has truly changed for the better. The Cougars were incredibly entertaining at times this season, and with a little luck will be headed to a 4 letter tourney (NCAA) as opposed to a 3 letter tourney (NIT) next season.
2 comments:
I am assuming that Wex had little input to this post. If memory serves, he is a UT alum from the Tom Penders era. That is what I am, and the complaints with UH sound EXACTLY like those we had just about every year.
The team was often (always?) held back by a poor half-court offense. The half-court offense was poor due to the lack of a good low post player, which led to poor perimeter shot selection and some abysmal FG% nights. On those nights the team could lose to some much lower ranked teams. Those types of bad losses that keep a bubble team out of the tourney.
However, when the 3-pt shots fell, those UT teams looked tremendous. The hot-shooting and defensive pressure went hand-in-hand. There were nights when you left the building wondering if this might be a Final Four contender. Most seasons I felt that there were no more than 5 teams in the nation whom UT could not beat if the 3-pt gunners were hot.
Of course, most nights the performance was somewhere in between these extremes. Texas would finish most seasons near the top of the conference, get a 5-10 seed in the NCAAs, occasionally make a Sweet Sixteen run, but never truly contend for the title. This was a huge improvement for Texas after the Bob Weltlich era. But I was convinced by the mid-90s that a Tom Penders' Texas team would never be among the nation's elite. He raised the program as high as he could. But someone else would have to take it all the way to the top. Hopefully, Rick Barnes is that guy.
I think a similar result would be great for the Penders era at UH. But I also expect that Penders will take them no higher than a consistent tourney participant. In order to do so they will need to play the type of fundamentally sound half-court basketball that you want to see. Penders history suggests that that won't happen under his watch.
Here is hoping that UH, Rice, UT, and yes, even A&M can keep the local talent around and each turn into real players year in and year out in the NCAA tourney.
Wex here and u r correct on both counts. I had no input on this post and I was on the 40 Acres during the Penders era. And you are saying the exact same things i've been saying since those days. Penders' teams play their asses off.
High intensity and high pressure, but also poor shot selection and horrific ball control. He is appealing to extremely athletic hi-flying & scoring players which means the programs likley crush the weaker teams, yet can't seem to get over the hump against highly TALENTED teams. might beat once in awhile when the shooting is strong, but for the most part a reasonably talented major program will likely top Penders group.
All that being said, there is no way that UH could have found a better coach for this program. He is doing a phenomenal job, literally rescuing a program that was floundering under a succession of seriously overmatched head coaches (brooks, drexler, mccallum).
UH will have multiple NCAA tourney appearances during Penders tenure, but not likely a ton of long appearances.
----- WEX
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