kelvin sampson – Rush The Court

Kelvin Sampson Is Helping Houston Basketball Turn the Corner

Nate Kotisso — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 19:15:10 +0000

Kelvin Sampson walked into a postgame press conference last week and strangely had difficulty getting his words out. He appeared to be fighting a toothache or something like that, but he quickly explained himself. “I put a Tootsie Roll in my mouth,” Sampson said, smirking. “That was a bad idea.” As he puts together another college hoops reclamation project — this time at Houston — Sampson can’t help but feel relaxed enough to pop in a Tootsie Roll before a press conference. His Cougars had just finished off Tulane before 3,235 fans at Hofheinz Pavilion to move to 13-2 on the year. It was yet another [...]

Opening Weekend Hopes in the American

Jared Kotler — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 19:31:58 +0000

The American Athletic Conference has the potential to be one of the better leagues in the country this year. As the college basketball season is about to tip off, we take a look at one thing each American team would like to see coming out of their opening weekend of games.

UConn: Shonn Miller averages at least eight rebounds per game.

Grad transfer Shonn Miller looks to make his impact on the boards at UConn this year. (USA TODAY Sports)

A lot has been made this offseason about the group of fifth year transfers that Kevin Ollie has brought to Storrs. Most notable [...]

How Much Does Houston Miss TaShawn Thomas and Danuel House?

Mike Lemaire — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 17:01:25 +0000

As always, KenPom.com did the heavy lifting on the numbers.

Almost two years ago to the day, I penned a column on how much Houston missed its leading scorer, Joseph Young. Young had transferred to Oregon after the school fired his father from the position of Director of Basketball Operations and he is still lighting it up for the Ducks this season. Today I am going to revive the main idea of the column — that is, how much does Houston miss said player — and just plug the newer transfers in. Last season, junior TaShawn Thomas and sophomore Danuel House were far and away the best players on [...]

Is the Big 12 Ready to Become the Big 12 Again? The Basketball Viewpoint

Nate Kotisso — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 00:21:44 +0000

With TCU and Baylor each ranked among the top six of the College Football Playoff’s rankings heading into Championship Weekend, it looked as if the Big 12 had two strong candidates to clinch a playoff spot. As luck would have it, selection committee things behind closed doors happened, and the conference as a result was shut out of the CFP in favor of Big Ten champion Ohio State. Committee chairman Jeff Long hinted on Sunday that the fact that Ohio State had played and convincingly won a conference championship game gave the Buckeyes a competitive advantage over the Horned Frogs and Bears, the Big 12’s co-champs (for those of you [...]

AAC Bests and Worsts: Holiday Wrap-Up Edition

mlemaire — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 16:31:30 +0000

Let’s start by putting it bluntly — the teams in the AAC did not have a very good week. The conference’s final three unbeaten teams — Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF — all lost for the first time this season and the supposed standard-bearers for the conference — UConn, Memphis, SMU, and even Tulsa — all lost high-profile games and the Huskies were the only team with a realistic shot to win their game. We are now nearly a month into the season and UConn’s 11-point win against Dayton remains the best win by an AAC team. These are not fun days to be [...]

Random Thoughts On Houston’s Win Over Morgan State

Nate Kotisso — Sun, 23 Nov 2014 18:48:53 +0000

Houston‘s win over Morgan State marked the home opener for new head coach Kelvin Sampson at Hofheinz Pavilion. Yes, the box score will tell you the Cougars won by 15 but watching it in person, it did not feel like a dominating performance from Houston. They shot about the same percentage from the floor (32.9 percent for Houston; 33.3 percent for Morgan State). As it turns out, the Cougars also turned the ball over more times than Morgan State (23-19) and had fewer steals (9-12). So I was left with no choice but to write some random thoughts on last night’s confusing result and [...]

AAC M5: 11.20.14 Edition

Mike Lemaire — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 14:01:34 +0000

It didn’t take long for folks to start talking about whether Memphis’ Josh Pastner deserves to be on the hot seat after Tuesday’s abject disaster of a performance against Wichita State. It was longtime Wichita Eagle columnist Bob Lutz who was postulating about Pastner’s job security after he got a chance to watch the Tigers play firsthand in South Dakota. Lutz is paid to have strong opinions and stick to them no matter how ludicrous, but Pastner dismissed the criticism after the game. Lutz is hardly the only smart college basketball mind who is worried about the Tigers, though, and just the fact [...]

AAC Bests and Worsts From Opening Weekend

Mike Lemaire — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 16:31:38 +0000

“Bests and Worsts” is a new Monday feature where we will recap the best and worst from the previous week of college basketball in the AAC.

For as long as I can remember, DC Sports Bog has been doing its “bests and worsts” piece as an easy and fun way to recap Redskins’ games. I’ve always really loved the recurring feature and think it is an excellent way to summarize, in detail, everything that happened on Sunday. And because I am nothing if not unoriginal, I’ve decided to misappropriate the idea and use it for what I expect to be a weekly recap [...]

AAC Exhibition Impressions: Part II

Mike Lemaire — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 16:31:40 +0000

Yesterday we offered our initial impressions of UConn, Cincinnati, Memphis, and UCF in recent exhibition games. Today we are back with more quick-trigger analysis of games that hardly matter.

Depth May be an Issue for Tulsa Head Coach Frank Haith. Haith has never been afraid to roll with a very short rotation if his team lacks depth, and the Golden Hurricane may actually be better off playing that way this season because of the quality of their starters. In a recent exhibition game against Southwest Oklahoma State, the Tulsa starters played a lot of minutes and his bench looked painfully thin. Haith used an eight-man rotation that night but Keondre Dew [...]

One on One: An AAC Preview With Jason Smith

Walker Carey — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 19:15:36 +0000

Rush the Court is back with another edition of One on One: An Interview Series, which we will bring you throughout the preseason with previews of each of the major conferences.

With the college basketball season nearly upon us, we thought it would be a good idea to gather some expert opinions on the nation’s major college basketball conferences. As part of our national preview with the AAC, RTC correspondent Walker Carey (@walkerRcarey) recently had the pleasure of speaking with an AAC expert in Jason Smith (@TheCAJasonSmith), the Memphis Tigers beat reporter for The Commercial Appeal.

Rush the Court: Defending national champion Connecticut obviously [...]

Five Coaches to Watch in the AAC: Pastner, Brown, Sampson, Haith & Cronin

Mike Lemaire — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 16:31:04 +0000

In the coming week or two, we will be posting as much preview content as possible. We are continuing today with coaches to watch. There is still plenty more to come.

There are only 11 teams in this league so, in theory, you should be able to watch all of them closely without too much difficulty. But what makes coaching such a difficult and unique experience is that no two seasons are alike. Sure, old hats like Jim Boeheim and John Calipari probably know what to expect because they have seen so much in their careers. But even for those guys, every new [...]

AAC M5: Media Day Edition

Mike Lemaire — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 14:01:27 +0000

Yesterday was the AAC media day and the conference released its preseason coaches poll. UConn narrowly edged SMU as the preseason favorite, with six coaches picking the Huskies atop the league and the other five picking the Mustangs. Many other pundits expect a deep and talented SMU team to win the league running away, but it’s not really worth quibbling over when it’s clear the league coaches view the two teams as near-equal. For those who still want to pick nits, start with pointing out that somehow Cincinnati is ranked ahead of a loaded Tulsa team, and maybe while you are at it, [...]

Six Questions: Your Unofficial AAC Preview Primer

Mike Lemaire — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 16:31:10 +0000

The college basketball season is fewer than three weeks away, but more importantly, the college basketball preview season is in full swing. There are literally dozens of excellent previews out there for your consumption, so rather than duplicate the tried-and-true method for season previews, we just figured we would answer a bunch of questions that people may or may not want to know the answer to. There will of course be more focused content published here over the next few weeks, but we figured it best to start with a primer.

1. The conference looks different from last season, what the heck [...]

Houston’s Season Already in Serious Trouble Even Without L.J. Rose

Mike Lemaire — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 23:31:40 +0000

In a perfect world, Houston would be contending for the AAC title in new coach Kelvin Sampson‘s first season. Danuel House would be throwing down vicious dunks, TaShawn Thomas would be owning the glass, and L.J. Rose would be feeding shooters like Jherrod Stiggers and Torian Graham for open triples. Alas, the college basketball world is rarely perfect, especially during a coaching change. CBSSports.com reported earlier today that junior L.J. Rose, the team’s starting point guard and arguably its best player, has broken his foot and will be out until at least Christmas. That information completes the trifecta of bad news that [...]

AAC M5: Welcome Back Edition

Mike Lemaire — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:01:39 +0000

We are admittedly off to a slower start than some of the other microsites this season. In our defense, though, we were waiting for big AAC news to mark our triumphant return and we got that news on Monday when it was reported that SMU forward Markus Kennedy is still working to get academically eligible this season. The Mustangs are considered one of the league favorites, and Kennedy, a junior, is arguably the team’s best and most important player. The big man averaged more than 12.0 points and 7.0 rebounds per game and was a unanimous preseason all-AAC selection last season, [...]