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Sports

Cougars look to revive home-court magic

UH must keep up defensive intensity, as tough UCF guard tandem makes its way to Hofheinz Pavilion

by CHRIS ELLIOTT
The Daily Cougar

To the untrained eye, UH head coach Tom Penders' defense may seem like a straight-up, high-pressure, man-to-man scheme, but it actually requires all defenders on the floor to have the awareness to switch assignments at a moment's notice and accurately rotate to prevent easy layups or open jump shots, as well as the ability to jump gaps. 

Penders said some key players are finally beginning to grasp how he expects the defense to run. It has shown in the team's last three games, in which the Cougars have forced an average of 18 turnovers, scored 17.7 points off of those turnovers and, in turn, shot 47 percent from the field, seven percentage points higher than their season average. 

The Cougars, who have won two out of their last three games, will look to put together their first win streak since Nov. 22 at 7 p.m. tonight at Hofheinz Pavilion against Central Florida.

And according to Penders, things will continue to run smoothly as his team begins to take care of business defensively. 

"We get easier baskets," Penders said. "You get some turnovers, easy buckets and you get going. If a guy's struggling a little bit and is able to get a couple of easy buckets off turnovers, they break out of (the slump). They get their confidence back real quick."

There's a reason why last year's team led the NCAA with 8.1 steals per game and rarely found itself out of a game, even when it was struggling offensively. It thrived off forcing turnovers and scoring in transition.

"The shots don't all have to be 15- to 25-foot jumpers," Penders said. "You get a couple of layups in there. You get a couple of drives to the bucket. You get a two-on-one fast break. You get scoring that way."

Penders said junior point guard Robert "Fluff" McKiver has improved immensely on the defensive end thanks to some extraordinary effort in practice, and this combined with the team's sudden offensive stability should lead to some wins.

"Dion (Dowell) and Jahmar (Thorpe) are cooking. Fluff's been cooking all along and Oliver (Lafayette's) been quietly putting up some numbers and playing really well," Penders said. "He had a tough time out against Memphis, but after that he's been playing really well. Marcus Malone has been giving us some great defense. Robert Lee has been giving us some great defense, but they're also capable of doing some more stuff offensively."

Junior guard Malone and senior guard Lafayette will do their best to contain Golden Knight guards Jermaine Taylor and Mike O'Donnell, who average a combined 25.6 points per game. They've also been dead-on accurate from behind the arc, shooting at around 48 percent for the season.

With his team entering a stage in the season where every game is a must-win, Penders said he would like to see Hofheinz Pavilion feature the same type of intensity the 2005-06 Cougars benefited from.

"We really need to have a great student turnout at home," Penders said. "Everywhere we go, we're facing that, and we need to establish that again. Last year in the second semester, we went on a run and we won nine out of 10 and we had a lot of home games. More than anything I credited our student turnout. Hofheinz became a home court."

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