Student Publications
University of Houston
151C Communications Bldg
Houston, TX 77204-4015
713.743.5350

©1991-2007
Student Publications,
All rights reserved.

Last modified:

Contact:
ktruitt@uh.edu

Sports

Cougars slaughter Bulls

Houston outperforms South Florida in major categories; 
Latham's solid defense propels Houston to home victory

Sam Khan Jr.
The Daily Cougar

It may have taken a while, but it looks like they've figured it out.

The Cougars look like a team that has developed a killer instinct, the ability to get a team down and keep them down.

They showed signs of it in their past couple of wins, and the evidence was apparent again Wednesday as they thrashed the South Florida Bulls 68-50 before 3,523 at Hofheinz Pavilion.

Besides shooting percentage, the Cougars outperformed the Bulls in most of the major stat categories, and many of the other ones too, like points off turnovers (31-9).

Brian Latham helped that category immensely, as he pressured Bull guard Brian Swift from start to finish, forcing Swift to turn the ball over six times. Latham picked up a career-high seven steals, to go with his 14 points.

Coach Tom Penders was highly complimentary of his junior guard after the game.

"I watch a lot of college basketball, and I don't think there is a better defensive guard in the country than Brian Latham," Penders said. "He sees what the other team is trying to do, then disrupts it. He's a super defensive player every night."

The Cougar's stifling defense forced 22 turnovers and held every Bull except forward Terrence Leather (17 points, 10 rebounds) to single-digit points. But Leather too caught the turnover bug, committing six of his own, one of which was impressively swiped by -- who else -- Latham in the final minutes.

"I saw (Leather) with his back turned, and he held the ball out," Latham said. "So I looked at it like it was food, and I was hungry, so I took it."

That type of attitude has helped Houston (16-10, 7-5 Conference USA), win four out of its last five, using its defense to stomp on opponents when they're already down. They made sure the Bulls (10-13, 3-9) suffered the same fate.

Senior guard Andre Owens (who finished with a game-high 20 points), and sophomore guard Lanny Smith (16), hit their shots early and helped the Cougars make sure it wasn't much of a contest from the start. Both gave Houston a complete effort on both sides of the court to jump on the Bulls to a 37-20 halftime lead.

The second half brought much of the same, as Houston pushed its lead out to 24 at one point, cruising to yet another win in the friendly confines at Hofheinz, where they're 11-1 on the season.

And while they know the task of winning out to get to the NCAA tournament -- or getting some respect nationally -- won't be easy, they aren't looking too far ahead in their focus.

"We can't look too far ahead," Smith said. "But we've really got no respect up to this point. I don't know if we've done enough to get talked about on ESPN, but if we go out and get a couple of games and get as far as we can in the Conference (USA) tournament, it's going to be hard for (everybody) to ignore us."
 

Send comments to dcsports@mail.uh.edu