ElViento: Hey everybody, we’re famous! Sort of. National college football blog College Football Zealots e-mailed us recently, asking for our take on the upcoming Cougar football season, and I was happy to oblige. You can check out what I had to say here, and see if I did a fair job of previewing the team.
Okay, on to less self-congratulatory and more analytical (-ish) items.
The Cougar baseball team dropped a game against Rice on Tuesday, a game which was played for little more than pride. Rice got off to a 3-0 lead in the first half of the first inning, only to watch the Cougars storm back with a 5-spot in the bottom of the second. That lead held for a few innings, and all of the sudden it was “Oh-my-God-where-did-our-lead-go-and-why-is-our-third-string-catcher-pitching?”
(I wish I was making that last part up, but I’m not that funny. It actually happened.)
The final was 15-5, but it doesn’t count as a conference game, so it’s kind of a whatever. That’s what type of a baseball season this has been for UH. We lose to Rice by ten, get swept in the Silver Glove, and the only reaction I can muster is a shrug of the shoulders. And baseball is my favorite sport. If that’s not a desperate plea for a new coach this off-season, I don’t know what is.
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I know I’m not breaking any news on this one, but it came out recently that freshman forward Bryce Clark and junior forward Kahmell Broughton will be transferring out of the Houston basketball program. They join Desmond Wade in that decision, leaving the Cougars with six returning scholarship players: Zamal Nixon, Maurice McNeil, Nick Haywood, Adam Brown, Kirk Van Slyke and Kendrick Washington. There has been much speculation over Van Slyke’s health this off-season, so the list may ultimately be down to five.
In light of that, what is a reasonable expectation for Cougar fans to have of first-year head coach James Dickey? From where I am sitting, I only really want to see two things:
-The Cougars remain competitive. We shouldn’t be going 4-12 in Conference USA, or anything. It’s not that deep of a conference. Say what you will about Tom Penders, but if you don’t think he could grab a dozen kids from the campus rec center and field a competitive team in C-USA, you’re lying to yourself. Remember what he did in the 2008-09 season with zero returning starters?
-The incoming freshmen show promise. In fairness to Coach Dickey, he is trying to throw together a recruiting class at the last second. But we’ve been told that he’s a great recruiter (and we passed on a couple of great recruiters to hire him), and Dickey has repeated that he’s not going to throw out scholarships just to fill a roster, so I want to see it. I want to see hope for the future.
How about you, Cougar fans? What do you want to see from Dickey and Co.?
Oh, this doesn’t really relate to next year, but I’d also like to see Chris Colvin transfer to UH. A national top-100 player out of high school, Colvin spent one year at Iowa State, before opting to transfer this off-season. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t announced a destination yet. Houston could look like an attractive option, as we figure to run an up-tempo style of basketball (which Colvin has expressed an affinity for) and we hired Daniyal Robinson as an assistant. Robinson was the assistant for the Cyclones who guided Colvin to ISU in the first place.
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I’m also way late on commenting on the Cougar softball team, whose season ended with a C-USA tournament semi-final loss to eventual-champion East Carolina recently.
After the Cougars came within one game of reaching the College World Series in 2008, the expectations were high heading into last season. Basically the entire lineup returned, but without ace pitcher Angel Shamblin, the season ended disappointingly. Without a doubt, 2010 was a step back in the right direction. The Cougars ended up with a 30-24-1 record against a brutal non-conference schedule. A number of freshmen (including Bailey Watts, Brooke Lathan, Reina Gaber and Ashleigh Jones) showed a lot of promise for the future. On a team without a senior, there were only a couple of regular contributors who were even upperclassmen.
But most importantly, the pitchers looked good. The 2009 team proved (in case anybody wasn’t already convinced) that softball is a pitching-dominated sport. You can’t win without an ace. Watts and junior Amanda Crabtree both had solid seasons, and showed flashes of being that shutdown pitcher that Houston needs. Under head coach Kyla Holas, the Cougar softball team looks like it’s in great hands for the future.
That’s all for me for now. Hope to see you somewhere, praying for a series victory over ECU this weekend by the Cougar baseball team.
Go Coogs!