Joseph Young drives to the hoop. | Courtesy of UH Athletics
For the second time since 1987, the Cougars hold a 4-0 record. The Cougars defeated Louisiana College 106-59, a 47 point victory.
The Wildcats were the first to get on the board with a 3-pointer by senior forward Romanaski Williams 40 seconds into the game. Head coach James Dickey said the Cougars were outplayed early.
“I thought they outplayed us the first five minutes of the game and the first five minutes of the second half,” Dickey said. “That’s disappointing. We gave up a few too many points, so we have to do a little better defensively.”
The game was tied with 16:38 remaining in the first half after a layup by senior guard J.J. Thompson and a jumper by sophomore forward TaShawn Thomas made it into the net. A free throw put the Wildcats ahead but that quickly changed with a tip-in by sophomore guard Joseph Young. The one point lead turned into two and then three thanks to freshman forward Danuel House.
“I thought Danuel did a great job driving the ball,” Dickey said. “He hit the free throw line eleven times in the game, but we have to continue working on the free throws.”
The Cougars led 55-26 at halftime. They hit the century mark with three minutes left in the game with a jumper by Thompson.
Six players reached double-digit points. Redshirt freshman Jherrod Stiggers came just a point short, scoring 9 points. Thomas at the lead scored 22 points.
“There were a lot of positives,” Dickey said. “The one thing that jumps out from this team that is so important is we have a lot of guys who can play and do a lot of things, so the team chemistry is extremely important.”
Going forward into the season and Sunday against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 2 p.m., Dickey highlights team work as a driving force.
“We have a lot of guys who can play,” Dickey said. “I don’t care about anything but one stat and that’s to get the W at the end of the day. We have to keep our focus right on what is importance and that is that we encourage each other, not worry about playing time, the number of individual shots and to remain positive.”
It’s amazing that the Coogs won by 47, knowing that the free throw shooting was horrible. House proved his 5 star rating by being the only superb free throw shooter. Coach has got to have free throw practice. Those points can be critical in close games with much better teams.