After the win yesterday, i would like to attend.
Yes, at Fuddruckers again
Recap:
- Gets dismayed when he hears about how long its been since the last win. He’s only been at Houston for 2 games at Memphis, Rob Gray had never played there so he’s 1-0, Dotson is 1-0, pretty much all the guys on the team are 1-0 in Memphis
- UCONN game, had SMU hangover in the first half, but give UCONN credit as they have a good PG (Adams) and good lengthy big-men. Second half was different as the defense and rebounding were outstanding. Meyer was outstanding. Chicken struggled a bit, but injuries have been hurting him lately, the ankle is bothering him quite a bit. Davis isn’t back in game shape, plays hard, lot of warrior in him; extended minutes are tough for him. Bert played well yesterday. Close games up front by committee which works right now; keeps them from playing Dot up front/small lineup like they did in the first go around in conference.
- Taking care of the basketball is a priority and part of the culture. Second Half of the UCONN game was all about the culture of toughness.
- Memphis is the best team in transition because of Martin, pushes ball so fast. Hard to get in front of him. Second half, almost had to stop crashing the boards in order to get back.
- Transition game was tough yesterday because Gray only played 19 minutes and he’s the best transition guard. Was in foul trouble against SMU and foul trouble against Memphis which means adversity.
- Dotson’s athleticism isn’t his speed, but his jumping ability. Smart basketball is letting Dot create for himself.
- Same for Rob Gray who we try to get the ball in his right hand so he can drive downhill.
- Galen was the Player of the Game again. Makes everything work, does all the little things. Don’t pay attention to stats with him - had 8 assists and 1 turnover. Told him to pace himself in the 2nd half because he wasn’t going to take him out.
- Dotson asked to come out of the game in the 2nd half (Branham mentioned how Dot said he waved off CKS in the 2nd half), CKS told him to get one on a free throw or a dead ball. Wouldn’t take him out. Davis has to come out because he isn’t game shape, but Dotson can go and just has to suck it up.
- This is the 2nd to last show, next Monday is the last show
- What does reaching 20 wins in 2 straight years say about this team? Good players and good recruits. Not done building. One of the key recruits, Gabe Grant, drove in from Missouri to watch the game in Memphis. Got to meet with Gabe, think he’s grown a bit. Heir apparent to Dotson’s spot if he earns it.
- Galen and Rob Gray will be back next year. Adumwonyi is coming in and Van Beck/Brooks will be back. Like the guard group that will be beack.
- Devin Davis will be back. Fabian White will be special. Braeon Brady is a good scorer, plays like the Washington kid from Cincy, not quite the shooter. Good passer.
- Spacing the floor with shooters is the key though. Gray, Van Beck, Brooks are important. Tough stretch for Brooks because CKS has had to shorten the bench a bit. Armoni’s been working hard though.
- Excited about the future, always recruiting; somebody said recruitings like shaving, if you aren’t doing it every day, you’ll look like a bum (clarifies that you aren’t a bum if you didn’t shave and laughs about that).
- Talks about how when he came in people just assumed that UH was going to be mediocre. Didn’t come here to be mediocre. Nobody knows about the recruits until they come in (mentions the 4 commits and says that there will be others he can’t mention).
- Nobody knew about Rob Gray until they saw him, but the staff did because he was out there watching them before then. Tells a story how he went out to New Mexico to watch Gray play, Gray’s opponent was on a 29 game home streak, Game was tied at 72 with 9 seconds left, coach called a play for Gray, he makes the shot and runs to the other side of the stands and pounds his chest and jersey in front of the other team’s fans. Coach said he liked that kid; by the way, that was Gray’s 34th and 35th point. Gray is having a real good junior year and will have an even better senior year.
- Difference in teams and programs. Great programs don’t have to score to win. Mentions UCONN game and the 17 offensive rebounds. (Needles Jeremy about studying the stats a lot). Mentions how stats can be skewed at times.
- How can you be good at anything with out discipline and accountability. Don’t have that and you don’t win on the road. We go on the road and expect to win (6-3 last year, 6-2 this year). Cincy, SMU, and Houston win on the road.
- Biggest difference between SMU/Cincy and Houston at Home is Home Court Advantage. Around 10 minutes left in the half, the crowd is what lifts you. Memphis crowd did that yesterday. Have to have non-verbal cues on the road in games like that. At home, can call them out because its so quiet. Program has to grow.
- Best teams in the league have a great program; great coaches, players, fans that take pride in the progarm
Xavier Dupree
- No practice today, had film at 3 pm
- Majors in Sociology, hasn’t figured out what he’s going to do with it yet
- Interesting playing in hometown. Nice playing for the city, but there’s some issues at the same time
- Season went by fast, feels like he just met Valentine.
- Last season went by slow, but this season was fast
- Funniest guy on the team is either Val or Galen
- Galen’s nickname for Dupree is “Silent with it” because he’s so quiet
- Knew he wanted to play basketball in 7th grade; played with the 8th grade team
- Also played football, had to play every position because they didn’t have enough players. Like playing QB because of Michael Vick, but didn’t like playing defense.
- Favorite basketball memory, in JUCO he won Nationals. Enjoyed last season a lot.
- Favorite basketball player growing up was Kevin Durant until he went to the Warriors. Still like him as a player, but went to the “enemy.”
- Tries to sleep on airplane. Can sleep going to the city, but can’t sleep coming back because it’s usually nighttime and ready to get home.
- Likes everything about Houston
- Favorite TV show is Martin, but don’t have a whole lot of time for TV
- Listens to a little bit of everything when it comes to music
CKS:
- Every senior class is special, but this one is unique because I sold them on coming to Houston to help build something. A lot of these kids were recruited during that first year when we weren’t very good.
- Remember recruiting Xavier, had to go out to Paris, TX (just drove, didn’t have to go international. Remember going to Melbourne, FL to Kyle Meyer. Remember doing a ton of research and background on Dotson; remember going to Chancellor Khator’s office to go to bat; have to be careful sticking your neck out for people. Remember mentioning Dot’s name trying to find a negative reaction and just didn’t get one. Bert’s a little moody, told him that he (CKS) is the only one allowed to be moody. Everybody’s got Chicken stories. Grandmother Sampson would say that Chicken is a sweet child; great off the court, not so great on the court. All 5 will graduate in May, Bert’s already graduated. High character kids, extremely coachable.
- Looked at Armoni, still had high school habits, greatest gift to Armoni is that Dot kicks his butt everyday. Dot’s got great practice habits.
- Mentions greatest memories when coaching schools, went 12 straight years with winning records at OU because they recruited great kids. This class will be special because they’re good kids. Love X because he’s a great kid, smart, everyone likes him. Meyer can be annoying at times, Bert’s Moody, Dot’s serious; love them all.
- Mrs. Sampson wouldn’t like for you to call her Mrs. Sampson: goes by Karen. Hard to describe what she brings to the team, she’s fully immersed in the team. Example, recruits on official visit can come in for 48 hours, football weekends are fun because a lot of spirit and other things going on. When kids first came in, would only take to the office, but now take to the Taj Mahal (Development facility). Karen coordinates the point for when they stop by the house and gets all the info about the recruit; recruits feel immediately comfortable because she knows everything about them. She never stops recruiting. Chicken calls her Mama Sampson. Not supposed to play favorites, but she always liked Devonta (Pollard)
- Laughs because Jeremy asks him about his grandfather name and asks why they are talking about this with Cincy coming up. Name will be Papa K and Karen will be Mama Sue.
- Turnovers drive him nuts, doesn’t do well with turnovers. Called timeout yesterday to talk to Van Beck and told him that we wearing white and that it was important to pass the ball to the folks in white jerseys. At one point, he thought Van Beck was thinking he was Kobe Bryant instead of Kyle Korver; pass the ball Wes, quit trying to break the man down off the dribble, do that on the video games
- Depends on the matchup with Davis when they try to go to him in the post, didn’t go to Davis in the post against UCONN because of their length. He can shoot over 6’8" guys, but not 7 footers. Coming into the season, thought Devin would be a 12 PPG guy, but the injury really threw that off.
- Practice in Oct, Nov, Dec, time specific situations. Depends on the defender, depends on who they go to . Yesterday, the best defender was on Rob so they went to Dotson and he got fouled. Had to go make free throws, hard to make free throws in that situation - 40 minutes of playing, heart beating, ton of people screaming - he made one free throw. Tubby got the ball to half court; too easily in his opinion. Knew he’d try to go the rim with some screening action; how do you guard that? Put longest ball on the ball; decided Chicken because he’s longer than Bert. Told Chicken to keep bouncing not to just go up and then pause, need to be like on a pogo stick (Chicken’s from the Bahamas so he doesn’t know what that is). Chicken did his job so they had to go to the shot at the 3 point line. Galen had a knock of blocking shots in that situation and he did it again yesterday.
- Starts telling a story about the '92 junior Olympic team and Jeremy cuts him off for a commercial. Needles Jeremy about asking the Papa K stuff and then running out of time.
- The thing that helps Galen defend jump shooters is he uses the closest hand on the shooter (left to right and right to left). Contralateral movement.
- Cincy’s one word is that they have the best front line in the conference, physical, and unbelievable home court advantage. Will be like us next year as they’ll be out of their arena all next year as they’re building a new arena and playing at Northern Kentucky University so this is their last night in their arena and their senior night so their crowd is going to be pumped up for this one.
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Thanks for all your recaps, and what you do for this site overall, Patrick.
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Thanks for the recap. Good to see Sampson being positive about the return of Gray for his senior year – is he trying to convince Coog Nation or Gray?
And are the attendance woes starting to surface with Sampson now too? I still would like to see the coaches acknowledge the diehard fans that have seen the lows and stuck with their support even if it is just short blurb after criticizing the absent Coog fans.
Great recap, pray10.
I talked to someone about how Valentine is coming along. Apparently, Valentine is the strongest player on the team, and will fill Bert’s role next year.
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Thanks guys. I wish I had been doing them all year, but I forgot that I could access them on demand until last night. I cant do the interviews justice, though; CKS is an extremely good listen and throws humor in there quite a bit to make it interesting.
@CougarDave Gray said in his feature from the coaches’ show this week that he’s coming back next year. Things can change, but it sounds like he’ll be back.
As far as the attendance remarks, he wasn’t trying to shame the fans; most of the talk was in relation to building the program, not just a team. He says that once he gets the program where it needs to be he expects the attendance will grow and be on par with Memphis, Cincy, SMU, etc. It’s something he’s said since he’s been here.
This wasn’t said in a manner that our former football coach would say as CKS has no plans on leaving and has said he’d like to be at Houston 10 more years. He did mention early on (I don’t think I included it) how good the attendance was for the SMU game.
@CougarRed I can see that. I think CKS is excited about next year’s team; seemed really excited about his incoming recruits.
Thanks for the perspective and color around the comments. I missed that Gray said he would come back. I went to one of the shows in person in early January – my first since I attended a radio show back at Irma’s downtown when Maggard was here. I had to say it was a little confusing at Fuddruckers since there were multiple tables that said “Reserved” but it did not indicate if they were reserved for anyone in Coog Nation or if they were reserved for certain people. We sat in a booth nearby but it would have been more entertaining to sit closer.
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I went to the show last night. I get the feeling there is a group of regulars who show every week. I enjoyed it and Sampson was very entertaining.