The largest student turnout of the season, by far, came out to support a UH squad that desperately needed that ‘extra something’ for Wednesday’s contest against the Texas-El Paso Miners.
Undoubtedly, a large majority of them made their way to Hofheinz Pavilion Wednesday night – for the first time this season – to give a sidelined Aubrey Coleman support, while cheering on the Cougars in a crucial Conference USA matchup.
They’re left with the taste of a gritty 62-55 loss to the Miners in their mouths.
They watched a UH team that was supposed to be overmatched without its most complete player on the court cruise to a 34-25 lead at the half.
In the second half, they witnessed the same team show just how much No. 12 contributes to the fluidity of the Cougars’ offense and rebounding.
‘That’s something that (Coleman) does for us is get the long offensive rebounds and the ones that hit the floor,’ UH head coach Tom Penders said. ‘We missed that part of his game, obviously. He makes everybody better.’
The Cougars held the Miners to 38 percent shooting from the field, but they had a hard time finishing off defensive plays. The Cougars were outrebounded by the Miners 51-34. Seventeen of those Miners’ rebounds were of the offensive variety.
‘The kids fought defensively,’ Penders said. ‘They played their hearts out defensively. Part of defense is grabbing the defensive boards, and we did not clean up enough of those’
UTEP caught fire to start the second half, jumping out to a 41-34 lead. They came out of the break on a 16-0 run that was highlighted by a sophomore guard Randy Culpepper four-point play with 17:24 left on the clock.
‘We came out with momentum, but we did not sustain the lead that we had,’ said DaShaun Williams, who got the start for Coleman and finished with 13 points and eight rebounds. ‘That first five minutes of the second half they had a good run. We tried to counter it, but it was not enough in the end.’
The Miners targeted senior center Marcus Cousin and junior guard Kelvin Lewis in the second half. Each had hot starts at the beginning of the game, but cooled off after the half.
Lewis finished with 11 points, while Cousin picked up another double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds. Cousin had trouble adding to his nine first-half points due to zone defense and double teams.
Penders countered the Miners second half run by using a packed student section to his advantage. The students’ support helped the Cougars attempt to claw their way back from what would turn into a 54-41 deficit with 10:43 left in the game.
Penders ushered the crowd of 3,917, half of which were students, to get rowdy. This is something he hasn’t been able to do all year due to low turnout, but tonight Penders’ team fed off of the crowd’s energy.
With momentum on the Cougars’ side, Williams took a chance and reached. It worked. He picked senior guard Stefon Jackson’s pocket and went coast-to-coast for a layup that cut the Miners’ lead to 56-55 with 4:46 remaining.
That play capped off a five minute 12-0 run by Houston. Unfortunately for the Coleman-less squad, the run was also the pinnacle of the second half for UH.
‘(The students) helped us climb back into it,’ Penders said. ‘We were down by 12 or 13 and got it back down to one. If we could have gotten over that mountain, just one step over that mountain, we could have pulled it off.’
‘ The Cougars continue their conference schedule when they travel to Tennessee to face Associated Press No. 18 Memphis on Saturday at noon. The game will be broadcasted nationally on CBS College Sports.
