We have five games left in the regular season and the AAC tournament to raise our ranking.
I’m excited about this team. We have a chance to finish the regular season 25-5.
Post season wins…2, 3, 4 more?
Does anyone believe Coach Sampson is not the best UH basketball head coach since GVL?
Highest ranking since 1984.
If we win an NCAA tournament game, it will clearly be our best season since 1984.
Been thinking this, but not yet ready to talk about it. Let’s discuss more after our last game is played, huh?
I wouldn’t want to play the Coogs right now.
This is not a flash in the pan, the facilities and coaching staff are in place to really build something here.
It’'s been a long time coming.
The curse isn’t broke until we go undefeated the week after being ranked. That means beating Memphis in front of 18k people for the second straight year.
They had a little more than 7K against Wichita St a few weeks ago…although they had 14K for Cinci about a month ago.
Point being, this environment should pale in comparison to Wichita St, Cincy…and then SMU, and then Temple and Tulsa…and then Memphis…at least this year. Memphis has lost a lot of wind that they had as far as fan support goes. And trust me, I realize we shouldn’t be casting stones in a glass house.
This team won’t be beaten by the crowd, but will be beaten by themselves…or the refs.
"Record last season: 21-11 | Record this season: 21-5 | Current seed: 9
The American is looking like a three-bid league, which is not what the conference was thinking would be the case back in October. Still, its top three teams are all ranked. Houston hopped into the polls this week after beating Cincinnati and winning at Temple last week. The Cougars have one of the key offensive players in the conference in senior shooting guard Rob Gray, who would be lethal if he could only bump his 3-point shooting numbers into the high 30s.
The Coogs are in year four under Kelvin Sampson, and no doubt this is his best team yet. The program hasn’t made the NCAAs since 2010. Houston’s not the total turnaround like a lot of other programs on this list, but to only have five losses entering the last week of February is undeniably a big jump. "
It’s crazy how many people keep referring to Rob as our primary or key offensive player this year. I love Rob, but this has not been a good offensive year for him. Yes, he’s averaging 17 PPG, but that’s fueled in large part by a good start to the season and two games in particular (37 against Drexel and 34 against Tulsa) that help to skew his average a bit. If you look back at the last 10 games, Rob has been our leading scorer 3 times, Corey Davis has led in scoring 5 times, Devin Davis twice and Armoni Brooks once (yes, I know that’s 11, but Devin and Corey both led in scoring with 16 each against Cincy in the loss). In that span, Rob has laid some serious eggs (7 against Temple, 8 against Tulane (ice game), 9 against Cincy in the loss, 2 against USF).
Now, the good thing about Rob even when he’s slumping is that at any moment he can go off, so teams have to respect him. That helps with spacing. But as far as scoring, Corey Davis has been a much larger “key” for us this year. I’m hoping–no praying–that Rob finds his touch again before the Big Dance starts. We’re going to need all the scoring threats we can get! Until then, we need to be using Rob as a decoy in pick and pops for Corey and Armoni who have been devastating from 3 this year.
Rob was money at the end of the Cincy game.
He gets lots of rebounds and basically controls the offensive flow.
Rob has become a team player. He doesn’t have the same percentages as last year but he is still a key player just like Robinson. All the players know their roles and that is why the team has been playing better than ever. If we ever see Rob going off for 30 points again, it will probably be in a losing effort.
I agree. I was hesitant to even post that, but it seems clear to me that most of these things are written by folks who do nothing more than look at W/L record and average stats. They don’t actually watch the games. Rob provides lots of intangibles, but for the most part this year, his tangible scoring has not been up to expectations. Not only is he struggling with his shot, but he’s pressing and forcing up bad ones. I could live with the lack of scoring, but the poor shot selection for a guy with his experience is frustrating. Credit to the team for winning a bunch of those games despite Rob not having his best stuff. That’s what’s been so impressive about this year’s team. They are gritty and determined.
Can y’all imagine Gray in the Penders offense, playing the O-Show/Aubrey/Fluff role? Dude would go for 35 a night.
But what would the rest do? OU has lost 8 out of their last 10 while their freshman guard leads the nation in scoring. People keep bringing up that Rob is slumping. Yet his percentages are still higher than what Coleman was shooting when he average over 25 points a game.
I’ll take a top 25 team over a decent team with one start player any day.
Really proud of this team. Exciting times and Go Coogs.
I rarely have issues with any shot Rob puts up. A lot of the tougher looks he puts up are usually closer to the end of the possession or when we are having a difficult time getting good looks. On the season his TS% is 55% which is fine considering he is putting up more shots in those situations by far than anyone else on our team and better than Davis and substantially better than Galen. The attention he draws by being a threat to take those looks also opens things up for everyone else. It would be nice if he could hike his 3pt % up to 36% or so. There’s still time.
“Two polls at the same time.”
Lol at Brad taking us there.