Houston Men's Basketball Preview

Andre Owens

After a year of transition and uncertainty, the University of Houston basketball team looks to continue developing some young, but highly talented players into a consistent winning team in 2003-04.

Head coach Ray McCallum was on the verge of achieving that goal after leading the Cougars to 18 wins two years ago. The Cougars had advanced to the semifinals of the Conference USA Tournament and had played in its first postseason tournament in nearly a decade.

But, McCallum?s plans changed abruptly when three-year starting forward George Williams left as an early entrant in the NBA Draft, and two-year starting guard Marcus Oliver suffered a season-ending knee injury during a summer pickup game.

Instead of having three experienced starters, Houston began the 2002-03 season with just Louis Truscott as the lone returning starter, a pair of part-time players and a host of newcomers.

As expected, Truscott performed with Herculean effort and led the Cougars with 15.3 points per game, ranked sixth among national rebounding leaders with an 11.3 average and registered 16 double-doubles. Those feats earned him First-Team, All-C-USA honors after the season. Now, McCallum faces the task of having to replace him in 2003-04.

?It?s going to be hard to replace Louis because you knew he was going to get 11-15 rebounds per game,? McCallum said. ?We are going to have to replace those numbers as a collective team with our guards helping out on the boards.?

In The Backcourt
In fact, McCallum looks for his backcourt to be the strength of this year?s team with starters Andre Owens, Cedrick Hensley and Bryan Shelton returning. Houston also has Oliver and Kevin Barber returning in the backcourt.

Owens is Houston?s top returning leader in scoring, rebounding, assists and steals. He ranked 13th among Conference USA scoring leaders with 13.9 points per game and was third among Houston?s rebounding leaders with a 5.1 average in 2002-03. He also led the Cougars in assists and steals with averages of 3.2 and 0.9, respectively.

Hensley averaged 5.8 points and 3.9 rebounds per game while starting 17 games as a freshman last season. He also was Houston?s best three-point shooter with a .345 percentage (20-58) last season, and he shot over 38 percent beyond the three-point arc in 16 C-USA games.

Hensley showed flashes of stardom when he led the Cougars with 14 points versus fifth-ranked Louisville and netted a career-high 16 points in Houston?s 76-75 victory at Southern Miss. He averaged 7.0 points per game against C-USA teams.

Shelton averaged 4.8 points per game while starting 26 games for Houston; however, his greatest contribution may have come in the final five games of the season, when he was Houston?s starting point guard and allowed Owens to move back to his more comfortable two-guard spot. Shelton scored 19 points and handed out 13 assists during that span, while Owens averaged 18.8 points per game, led the Cougars in scoring four times and registered three 20-point games.

McCallum believes Oliver can provide Houston with some leadership, if he regains the same form he exhibited before the knee injury.

?He is a four-year player who led his team to the semifinals of the Conference USA Tournament two years ago,? McCallum said. ?We need him to show a young team how to win consistently at this level.?
Oliver has started 48 games in his career for the Cougars and was named to the Conference USA All-Tournament Team after averaging 18 points in three games. He was sorely missed early last season when McCallum was forced to insert Hensley into the starting lineup as a true freshman. He had a chance to shake off some of his rust in August, when he played for the Virgin Islands in the qualifying tournament for the 2003 Pan American Games.

While Barber was a freshman walk-on guard last year, he gained some valuable experience playing in 15 games and was instrumental in Houston?s victory at Southern Miss, when he came off the bench to score five points. Houston was struggling early in the game at Southern Miss, when McCallum turned to Barber. He came into the game, settled the team down and helped them rally to win the game. Later, Barber scored seven points and handed out an assist at UAB.

Even with Houston?s returning experience in the backcourt, what has McCallum is very excited about the 2003-04 season is the addition of his ?best recruiting class? since he has been at Houston.

?All of them come from successful programs and played key roles on teams that won 25 or more games in high school,? McCallum said. ?They were all highly recruited by high profile programs from around the country, and they fill each position on the floor.?

Heading the list is Lanny Smith, who was named the All-Greater Houston Player-of-the-Year ahead of NBA Draft entries Ndudi Ebi and Kendrick Perkins after leading Hightower High School to the state semifinals for the second straight year. Smith led the Greater Houston area in assists with 9.8 per game, ranked fourth in steals with a 4.1 average and averaged 12.9 points per game.

He gives Houston a key ingredient that was missing from last year?s team- a true point guard.

?Lanny will improve our ball-handling ability and run the team,? McCallum said. ?He has the ability to make every player around him better.?

Not many high school players shot the ball more accurately than Parker Pinkalla did at Strake Jesuit in 2002-03. Pinkalla is a 6-4 guard who led the All-Greater Houston area in scoring with 22.5 points per game and shot an incredible 69.2 (90-160) percent behind the three-point line as a senior. He also made 88.5 percent (161-182) of his free throw attempts in 31 games last year.

Andrew Francis is a 6-7 swingman who can play almost any position on the floor. He averaged 9.1 points and 2.8 blocked shots per game and helped Elsik High School finish the season with a 29-8 record as a senior. His size and versatility will be a welcomed addition to Houston?s roster.

McCallum also added Grega Nachbar to the roster over the summer.

Nachbar is a freshman point guard who averaged over 30 points per game at Cleje High School in Slovenia. He is the younger brother of current Houston Rocket, Bostjan Nachbar.

These newcomers should make Houston?s deep backcourt even stronger.

?The perimeter will be the strength of our team this season,? McCallum said. ?We should be a better ball-handling and passing team. We need to cut down our turnovers from an average of 17 per game to 12 or 13 per game.?

Up Front
McCallum is hopeful that improved ball handling and fewer turnovers will help offset the loss of Truscott?s rebounding prowess. The Cougars also must replace 6-11 center Jeremee McGuire, who averaged seven points and six rebounds per game.

Seven-foot senior Anwar Ferguson is Houston?s most experienced player on the front line after starting 14 games as a junior college transfer in 2002-03. Ferguson ranked second among Conference USA leaders in blocked shots with a 1.8 average. He also averaged nearly three rebounds per game, and McCallum is hoping that he can improve his production with increased playing time.

The other returning players up front are 6-7 sophomore Ramon Dyer and walk-on Aaron Anderson. Dyer is a 6-7 swingman who is comfortable fighting for rebounds against taller opponents, using his long arms and creating some steals, or knocking in a trey from the perimeter. He was limited to just 11 games and averaged 2.5 points and 2.3 rebounds while playing most of the season with a nagging knee injury. He did shoot over 38 percent behind the three-point line before undergoing off-season surgery. Dyer?s best outing came against Louisiana-Lafayette, when he registered 10 points and five rebounds. He also tallied seven points and seven rebounds at Texas Tech. McCallum expects him to play an expanded role on the team this year.

Anderson played in 18 games as a reserve forward and averaged 1.1 points per game. His best outing came at South Florida, when he scored seven points and grabbed four rebounds after Truscott got into foul trouble. He also had six points and three rebounds at UAB.

In addition to that trio, Houston returns a pair of walk-on players from last year?s team, Moshood Martins and Justin Kostohryz.

McCallum also signed 6-10 center Elijah Miller during the early signing period to help replace McGuire.

?He is very athletic and long like Jeremee was,? McCallum said. ?He gives us a 6-10 player who should develop throughout the season.?

Miller is a former teammate of sophomore swingman Cedrick Hensley at Heritage Christian Academy in Cleveland, Texas.

To bolster his front line depth, McCallum also added four walk-on players.

Andy Ikeakor joined the team last January as a transfer from Tennessee. He will become eligible in December after returning to his hometown from Tennessee last January.

?He could give us some much needed size and bulk we didn?t have last year,? McCallum said. ?But, he must stay healthy and develop some consistency in his play.?

Ikeakor led Houston?s Westbury Christian to four consecutive state private and parochial state championships before playing two injury-riddled seasons at Tennessee. He played only one game as a freshman before suffering a broken hand and played two games as a sophomore after suffering a mid-foot injury in preseason drills.

Then, McCallum added junior college transfers Terrence Morgan and John Taylor during the summer.

Morgan is a 6-11, 285-pound center who played at Southeast Community College in Beatrice, Neb., during the past two years. He is a Houston native who played football and basketball at Aldine Nimitz High School.

Taylor joins the Cougar roster after playing at Angelina College for two years. He was a First-Team, All-Region selection and District MVP as a senior at John Connally High School in Austin, Texas.

If the Cougars can develop strong and consistent play on the frontline, they could emerge as one of the better teams in Conference USA. There is no doubt that Houston has added some talented and versatile players. It remains to be seen if that will be enough to overcome the loss of a First-Team, All-Conference USA player in Truscott.

Looking At The Schedule
Some of those questions will be answered right away, when the Cougars open the 2003-04 season against East Tennessee State, which is coached by former UAB coach Murry Bartow. The Buccaneers return eight players from last year?s team that won the Southern Conference Tournament and played in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year.

Then, the Cougars plays inner-city rival Rice and intrastate rival Lamar before traveling to UTEP. Houston returns to Hofheinz Pavilion and opens a five-game homestand that includes Bethune Cookman, Washington, Chicago State, Texas A&M and LSU.

Washington is coached by former Saint Louis mentor Lorenzo Romar. This also marks the first time Houston and Texas A&M will play against each other since 1995-96, when both schools were members of the Southwest Conference.

Houston will play at Louisiana-Lafayette before opening its Conference USA schedule against 2003 NCAA Final Four participant, Marquette on January 7. The Cougars close out their non-conference schedule against Centenary on January 19.

There will be a new format in Houston?s Conference USA schedule, as C-USA foregoes its former two-division format and move to a 14-team division in 2003-04. Each school plays 13 games against each other and three other contests based on geography, rivalries and television.

In addition to Marquette, Houston has Conference USA home games against Cincinnati, DePaul, Charlotte, East Carolina, South Florida, Southern Miss and TCU. The Cougars will play C-USA road games at Louisville, Memphis, Saint Louis, South Florida, Southern Miss, TCU, Tulane and UAB.

Outlook
Like many coaches, McCallum likes to divide his season into four segments- the non-conference schedule, the conference schedule, the conference tournament and hopefully a national postseason tournament. Houston will be looking for its third straight appearance in the C-USA Tournament. The Cougars reached the semifinals in the C-USA Tournament two seasons ago and played in the NIT with an experienced team.

While most of Houston?s returning players are young, each has seen extensive action. The Cougars also regain the services of Marcus Oliver, a three-year starter who earned All-C-USA Tournament honors in 2002.

McCallum also added his best recruiting classes which Van Coleman?s Future Stars magazine ranks 36th nationally. The class includes players at all five positions on the floor, and each is versatile enough to play more than one spot. Cougar fans are hopeful this combination of youthful, but experienced returnees with improved talent and versatility will lead to another run in the C-USA Tournament and another postseason tournament. If the Cougars can accomplish those goals, Houston will have what it takes to develop into a consistent winning program.