The game was over by the end of the first half. Freshman point guard Desmond Wade made sure of that.
The 5-8 Wade inflicted Alcorn State with so much pain and frustration in the first 20 minutes of the Cougars’ 110-57 massacre of the Braves, they never recovered.
Wade finished the game with 14 points, nine assists and three steals. His performance inspired his teammates and determined the game’s outcome.
When asked whether he prefers to set up teammates for easy buckets or shut down the opposing point guard, Wade seemed to be at a loss for the first time all night.
"I like to do both. Defense wins championships," Wade said. "For us to be a good team I think we’ve got to… ."
Junior guard Aubrey Coleman cut him off mid-sentence. The junior college transfer cashed in on a couple of Wade’s passes and finished the game with 20 points and eight rebounds, but wasn’t about to let the freshman mess this one up.
"He shuts people down. That’s the reason why we’ve been winning," Coleman said. "It all starts with him. Put pressure on the guards, and we just cut off the wings. It all starts with him, and we just feed off of it every game."
The smallest player on the court led a defensive assault that resulted in 17 Alcorn State turnovers.
Wade also put the clamps on Brave senior Jumane Reed and forced the opposing point guard into five turnovers.
He was the catalyst for giving the Cougars their first double-digit lead of the game when he picked Reed’s pocket, pushed the ball up the court for the fast break and fed it to sophomore forward Horace McGloster, who accidentally dunked on teammate junior center Nick Mosely in the process of completing the alley-oop. Houston took a 35-25 lead with 7:48 remaining in the first half.
The Cougars outscored the Braves 16-7 from that point and took their first 20-plus point lead when senior guard Dashaun Williams came off the bench to rip an Alcorn state guard, and went coast-to-coast for the fast break layup, to give the Cougars a 53-32 lead with 2:34 remaining in the first half.
Houston head coach Tom Penders said his freshman phenomenon wasn’t the only one with a solid defensive performance. Junior guard Kelvin Lewis topped off his 23-point, six-rebound performance with two steals and held Alcorn State’s best offensive weapon to 11 points.
"The kid that he guarded, Troy Jackson, had 24 (points) against South Alabama," Penders said. "They just got frustrated. They couldn’t get the looks that wanted to go down and Kelvin was a big part of that.Penders gave the Braves a heavy dose of UH center Marcus Cousin en route to padding his team’s 59-36 first half lead. Wade and the other guards fed it to the 6-11 senior, who scored 8 points in the first three of the second half’s minutes to put the Cougars up 69-39.
Cousin finished with his second double-double of the season, scoring 11 of his 17 points in the second half. The big man also had 11 boards.
The Cougars improved to 3-1 on the season and will not play their next game until Nov. 29 against North Texas.
