The Houston-Rice hardwood rivalry hasn’t been one to disappoint in the five years Tom Penders has called the shots as the Cougars’ head coach.
Despite how much more talented and athletic the Cougars appear to be, the Owls have kept the scores close, at least until the final four minutes.
The Cougars need wins, especially at home, and will look to support from the student section to give them a much-needed home-court advantage.
‘Rice always plays it like it’s the biggest game of the year,’ Penders said. ‘We’ve got to be ready to match their intensity. We need the students to come out in droves. We’ve got to have that home-court edge.’
It’s what Penders has come to expect from the annual matchups.
The Cougars (13-7, 4-3 Conference USA) will begin the first of a two-game series with its inter-city rival at 8 p.m. Saturday at Hofheinz Pavilion.
Rice will take the court garnering a 7-14 overall record and a 2-5 output in conference play. The owls are only putting up 63.3 points per game this season, the worst in C-USA, and have only won two of its previous nine games.
Penders’ job as a coach is to get his relatively inexperienced team to understand how the rivalries work.
Records don’t matter, stats don’t matter and the talent gap won’t matter if everyone in the rotation is not ready to play full throttle for 40 minutes.
So far, it appears the Cougars have bought in.
‘I’m really looking forward to playing against them,’ junior guard Aubrey Coleman said. ‘It will be great competition. It’s a big game that’s going to depend on how we come out and establish ourselves. But we still have to go out there and have fun.’
Coleman’s wing-mate, junior guard Kelvin Lewis, agrees.
Lewis, unlike Coleman and the other four Houston starters, received playing time in both games the two schools played last season. He knows how intense the rivalry can get.
‘It’s a heated rivalry,’ Lewis said. ‘It (gets) a lot of respect around here. Every game we play, they’re coming in hard. We know what they’re going to bring. They’re going to bring a lot of intensity and a lot of toughness to the game, and we’ve got to be ready for that.’
The Cougars will give plenty of attention to Rice guard Rodney Foster. He lit up the Cougars for 22 points in his last outing at Hofheinz Pavilion, shooting 6-16 from three-point range.’ ‘ ‘
Penders and the Cougars know this won’t be a normal game. Neither will any of the remaining ones on the schedule.
The Cougars need to neutralize the Owls’ leading scorer if they plan on winning Saturday and continuing a chance to string together the winning streak needed to have a chance at landing in the NCAA Tournament.
‘I feel that the win Wednesday kind of put us back on track,’ Coleman said. ‘It gave us a positive attitude that we need to get to where we’re trying to go. We still have to take in one game at a time. Rice is the next game on the schedule.’
