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Opinion

Cougar stands were empty for a reason

Paul Brewer 
Guest Columnist

It's no secret that the UH men's basketball team had difficulty drawing crowds this year. The average attendance was a paltry 4,279 people per game out of the possible 8,500 seats that Hofheinz Pavilion provides.

This was a constant thorn in head coach Tom Penders' side, as evidenced by his Daily Cougar opinion column "Fans could help put UH in tournament" (Feb. 13). In it, he implored fans to attend the games, stressing their importance to the overall score of the game, and said that a large crowd amounts to "at least 10 (extra) points" for the Cougars. This heartfelt plea actually inspired me to the point where I was contemplating skipping an almost impossible-to-skip class, putting my grades and future on the line so I could attend the game against South Alabama the next day.

However, it was his attitude in the following day's newspaper that really caught my attention and made me rethink my plans.

In the article "Resurgent Cougars to face hot Jaguars" (Sports, Feb. 14) concerning the South Alabama game, Coach Penders seemed to realize his nice-guy act wasn't getting the fans to the games any quicker, so he decided to resort to the next-best way to get what you want: whining.

Penders is in dire need of some explanation as to why exactly the fans weren't showing up in the first place.

The answer lies in the stats: 144th in free throws attempted; 255th in three-point percentage, yet second in attempts; and a dismal 320th in field-goal percentage.

These are not the statistics of a team that I, or anyone else who has any idea of what quality basketball is, would want to watch.

It's as simple as this: I feel a certain amount of loyalty to the University and its athletic teams, and it pains me to no end to watch my basketball team lose not because we have less talent than other teams but because other teams are simply more disciplined.

Take the Feb. 14 South Alabama game, for example. The Cougars shot 40 three-pointers and made only 10 of them. However, UH made 13 of 25 shots inside the arc and lost by only five points.

There is a problem here. Common mathematical sense will tell you to shoot more of the jumpers you make 52 percent of the time instead of the ones you make 25 percent of the time. If UH had taken a handful more two-pointers in the South Alabama game instead of some of the more ill-advised threes, the Cougars could have won relatively easily.

And this wasn't an isolated incident. 

This was an unfortunate trend that one can see in almost every one of UH's losses, and it's exactly why I and perhaps others did not show up consistently to watch the games. 

It's vastly frustrating to watch our team lose a close game in which it wasted possession after possession because of wanton three-point shooting. It's just simply not quality, entertaining basketball. It is ulcer-inducing.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Penders has an incredibly talented squad returning next year, with a good recruiting class and a couple of key players coming back from injuries and ineligibility. I guarantee that if he still uses his leadership to instill discipline into the team and thus run an offense that makes sense, the Cougars will be able to compete better and not take themselves out of games like they did this year. 

And as soon as Penders starts doing that, perhaps then the fans will start showing up. I know I will.

Brewer, a political science junior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu