Men's Basketball

House’s late triple propels UH to win

Sophomore forward Danuel House nailed a 3-pointer with 22 seconds remaining to put the game out of reach. | Emily S. Chambers/The Daily Cougar

Sophomore forward Danuel House nailed a 3-pointer with 22 seconds remaining to put the game out of reach. | Emily S. Chambers/The Daily Cougar

Sophomore forward Danuel House lifted the Cougars to their first win of the season when he hit a 3-pointer with 22 seconds remaining.

The triple extended the score to the final, 76-70, and put the game out of reach for Texas State on Friday at Hofheinz Pavilion.

“It wasn’t a designed play; we were just trying to run a set to run some clock off and then attack to get a look at the basket,” House said. “We ran the time down and (sophomore guard) L.J. (Rose) found me at the top of the key, because my man went and helped, and I hit the shot.”

House came out aggressive with 17 points at the end of the first half, finishing with 24 points and eight rebounds, but the Cougars struggled defensively early on, allowing the Bobcats to grab 11 offensive rebounds and convert 16 second chance points.

“The one thing about this team — and part of it is kind of a double-edged sword — is they really believe in themselves offensively, which is good they have great confidence,” said head coach James Dickey. “We’ve got to understand that there’s another end of the floor, and we’ve got to do a better job of imposing our will defensively instead of just trying, ‘Well, they scored, so we’ve got to go down and score.’”

UH had 32 points in the paint, and in the second half, junior forward TaShawn Thomas had a streak of 10 consecutive points scored for the Cougars. Thomas contributed 22 points and seven rebounds.

“Coach Dickey always tells us to attack inside, and I kind of felt like when Texas State scored, they weren’t getting back, so I was trying to hurry into good position, so they could just throw it into me for an easy bucket,” Thomas said.

The Cougars would like to get more consistent stops, eliminate second opportunities in second-chance points and reduce points off turnovers.

They also realize that, with the way the games are going to be called with the new rules, they’ve got to hit their free-throws, Dickey said.

“We’ve got to mature as a team and understand time, situation, momentum and (the) score, and defensively, the expectation level has to be higher within themselves, just like it is from the coaches,” Dickey said.

[email protected]

2 Comments

Leave a Comment