Legal Commentary

Local college hoops update

By Tom Kirkendall

Normally, when a team shoots 4-12 from the field on two-point goals in a college basketball game, that's a pretty good indication that they were thoroughly throttled by the other team.

Unless, that is, the team shoots 18-43 on three-point goals during the same game. Which is what the Houston Cougars did this past Saturday night in pummeling SMU by 22.

The Cougars are now 19-5 (8-2 in Conference USA) and, absent a bad streak at the end of the regular season, appear to be a good bet to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since the 1991-92 season. The Coogs' RPI has settled at 50 for the time being, which should be good enough to qualify for the NCAA tournament so long as the team maintains that RPI for the remainder of the season. Remarkably, it has now been almost a quarter century since the storied University of Houston basketball program last won an NCAA Tournament game.

Meanwhile, down on South Main, Chronicle columnist Jerome Solomon agrees with me regarding Rice basketball coach Willis Wilson. As noted in my earlier post, if Rice fires Wilson before he has had an opportunity to recruit players to -- and have his teams compete in -- a reasonably modern facility, then Rice will make the hypocrisy of former Rice football coach Todd Graham look benign in comparison. Besides, does the Rice Administration really want the Marching Owl Band to have an opportunity to comment on such an unfair firing?

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on February 18, 2008 (boomark / email).