chance at reclaiming glory
Back in December, when the Cougars were 7-0 and in the middle of their best start since the days of Phi Slama Jama, I constantly caught myself looking forward to what next year would be like for UH: thousands of screaming fans, breathless coeds, television cameras everywhere, analyst after analyst saying, "Watch out, Kansas!"
And in the middle of it all were three clean-cut guys named Donald, Moses and Rashard leading the team to huge wins as they romped and stomped their way to the Final Four.
Yes, that would have been great. But now that dream has turned to dust.
Due to the firing of UH men's basketball coach Alvin Brooks, that dream has evaporated. Sure, Alvin hasn't been the most successful coach in the last five years, but he has an unparalleled knack for going out and recruiting some of the best talent in the nation.
That's exactly how he managed to sign high school stars Donald Emanuel and Moses Malone Jr., along with All-American and national player-of-the-year hopeful Rashard Lewis. If those three guys were to join an already youthful squad next year, that alone should have bought Brooks time to put together, quite possibly, a team to make noise in the NCAA Tournament.
But thanks to losing 19 of the last 21 games, somebody thought that it was time to let a good man go.
The Alvin Brooks era at UH will officially end on April 3, but for the new kids coming in, it's over before it begins. Malone and Emanuel have insisted that the main reason they were coming to UH was because of Brooks. Now that he's gone, they're reviewing their options, which inauspiciously sounds like a "No."
Lewis even took it a step further by saying flatly, "They're definitely scratched off of my list."
Geez, you have a guy averaging 29 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks while shooting 75 percent from the field - a guy who will probably win the national player of the year award, a guy who will most likely go to the NBA one day - and you turn him down? Well, I guess once-in a-lifetime chances are common to a lot of struggling Division I schools.
Brooks is (or was) a real class act in coaching, and it's a real shame he was put out the way he was, being fired before a conference tournament. Now, with three of the country's best wanting to go elsewhere and a fine man now relegated to faxing résumés in search of a new job, I can only hope in vain for those days to come around again.