Both Roberts and Francis were poor FT shooters in their early seasons.
In 2026 they were perfectly acceptable. In the final few seconds vs Duke J’Wan calmly stepped to the FT line and hit both shots, giving UH a 68-67 lead.
Tugler can also do this. Like the other Big Men he can improve his FT shooting. If he gets to 65% that is good enough.
Tugler 6-6 down the stretch vs Auburn and never shot like that again from the line.
I think Tug will be a more explosive version of Fabian.
The last #4 I can remember was guard Ken “The Juice” Williams, Milby High School, and older cousin of Rob Williams.
Juice loved to shoot. Good player during his time.
https://x.com/UHCougarMBK/status/1928451581164605873
CKS starting off the 2025-2026 Season with a Free SUV?
Is he getting NIL money too?
Cenac’s on campus.
Toughness starts now
As we prepare for the 2025-26 season, here are key improvement areas for each of our returning and incoming players.
Starting a new convo since we know the roster
Sunday, June 1, 2025, is the first day UH starts building it culture for the 2025-2026 season. How many time during the season have we heard from Coach state “This team doesn’t start with practice in the fall leading up to the first game. It starts in June.” Its work in the weight room, cardio, basketball drills, strategy. Its time out of the limelight on hot summer days, that yields benefits in February and March. Its older players telling younger players “trust the process.”
157 days until the first game.
I’d add improved ability to penetrate the lane against good defenders. At times there appeared to be a force field at the free throw line when he tried to turn the corner.
I want Jojo to improve FT shooting and continue to develop offensively.
Once again… Great work.
Never to early to get hyped
I think this also applies to Sharp in a major way. If I’m right & Sharp fills LJ’s role (w/ Harwell at the wing), that’ll allow both Los/Eman to be more aggressive at driving to the basket in order to draw those fouls. And at 6’3, 210lbs, not only does Sharp possess the physical tools to be an effective driver, but he’s also shown the ball skills necessary to do so. Getting downhill & drawing those fouls was one thing Los & LJ just didnt do very well imo.
I do NOT want Ramon jacking up 3s at will 
I think his main contribution to this team will be his intangibles like his experience, leadership in practice, & mentorship off the court. He’ll be the ever present reminder to the new guys of the culture CKS has created here. He’s a veteran leader and also the “glue guy” every championship team needs in their locker room.
Things I would not worry much about:
“More aggressive rebounding”, “rebounding mindset”, “more relentlessness & physicality”, “learning rotations”, “improved defense”, and “physical readiness.” All of those come with the territory & I believe they’ll all be addressed in short order. After all, this is a Kelvin Sampson coached team; they’ll be ready.
As for everything else, I pretty much agree with you.
Ramon Walker is who he is at this point and with how deep our roster is (reason Pop Isaacs left because CKS only runs a 8 man rotation) i don’t see RW being part of it unless its a blowout or injuries mount.
I agree with your first point, but I don’t think he needs to improve on drawing fouls (physicality). I think he’s already great at drawing fouls when he drives. The real area for improvement is tightening up his handles and being more aggressive off the bounce. Improving his handles and then being willing to attack off the dribble, in my opinion, unlocks Sharp’s scary potential. He goes from a good college player to a First-Team All-American with serious draft potential.
To me, the core issue is agility, handles, and willingness. The low assist numbers and lack of fouls drawn are just symptoms of that.
This is where I completely disagree. If Ramon is just the “intangibles” guy and not scoring, he’ll barely see the floor and will get passed up — just like Cedrick Alley did. He was already jumped by Sharp two seasons ago and was starting to get jumped by Mercy before his injury.
I want Ramon jacking threes and driving — because he can make them. Most people who’ve only seen him play at UH view him as a glue guy with no real offensive threat. But the odd part is, in any setting outside a UH uniform, Ramon is a dominant scorer. He’s not exactly choosing not to score here — it feels more like he’s subconsciously afraid to make bad plays. But this is the same guy who averaged 25 a game in high school, with plenty of threes.
Not sure if you were around last summer (I posted this before), but Ramon played in the Houston Pro-Am “NEPL”, a summer league featuring top pros and NCAA players from the Houston area. Despite having a couple overseas pros on his team, and other UH players like Sharp on the roster, Ramon led the team in scoring. I clipped together a bunch of highlights from that one game:
You even see him running point in some of those clips — another thing he’s afraid to do here: dribble.
To me, it’s clearly subconscious. The Alabama game made that obvious. Sharp and Milos had both fouled out, Mercy wasn’t playing well, and LJ was clearly exhausted. That should’ve been Ramon’s moment to step up for the team. But as soon as he touched the ball he’d immediately pass it out to LJ and get out of the way. And LJ went 0-for-10 in OT! Even coach admitted LJ was gassed.
I’ve said this before: some of our players play like they’re afraid to be the reason we lose, while others play like they know they’re the reason we’ll win. That fear is normal in new players but Ramon just never stopped playing scared.
To reach his potential, he has to take ownership of the team and develop the mentality: “They’re going to win because of me.”
Ramon hit back to back 3s during the scrimmage against A&M last year. He definitely has the ability to score.
Could we say that Milos withdrew from the NBA draft from one main reason?
Scoring. I love Milos, he has all of the tools to indeed get to the next level. IMO his main area to improve is to be a consistent scorer. It did not happen in clutch times (March Madness) It did not happen either in his NBA “evaluation”
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