Arizona at Houston

Every year this game promises to be an exciting up and down affair and every year it starts not so. This game was the crowning of Jerryd Bayless as an impact player, let alone an impact freshman.

Without Bayless Arizona looked like an NITish team, with Bayless in the line-up they looked like a good NCAA team. Bayless was a gift for Kevin O'Neill, because he has a player with similar mentality and toughness, which helps propagate and distribute the toughness throughout the team. And I'm not saying that just because he had a career high of 33 and "owned" the Houston defense for a good chunk of the game.

Unlike Bayless, Mayo does not have this type of an impact on his team, and that is perhaps the #1 lesson that OJ "Ooops, I'm not the next Michael Jordan" Mayo needs to learn.

Back to the game, Jordan Hill was Gulliver in the paint, but when he got in foul trouble (see what I was talking about w.r.t. foul troubles?) Fendi Onobun was a great match for the smaller or lean Houston forwards. Plus it was a homecoming game for him.

Nic "Hoops" Wise started the game and I hope O'Neill realizes that he needs to start Nic "Hoops" Wise if he wants the team to have good starts instead of falling behind. Brillmaier is a solid rotation player, but they put baskets to score, and with Wise on the floor it gives Bayless more options.

Houston is perpetually in an "almost there" status. Turnaround Tom has turned them around from the *gasp* Clyde Drexel coaching era, but they are nowhere near the Guy Lewis era. Speaking of which, the coach himself, along with some of his star pupils, like Clyde Glyde Drexler, Don Chaney and Big-E (what?) were there en masse to watch the game.

The most impressive player on the Cougars roster was freshman point guard Zamal (not Jamal). At times he was running like a kitten on Red Bull (don't try this at home please!), but he gave Bayless a taste of his own medicine, and none of the Arizona guards were able to stop him.

Unfortunately for TT (Turnaout Tom) that was about it. Other players had flashes and good moments but no else was able to deliver consistently. And TT has a lot of plaeyrs on the behch. Part of the problem of course was that Arizona was able to control the tempo, with conventional and unconventional ways, which did not allow TT to scramble the game. He did have a segment in the middle of the second half where the game got scrambled, the fans got wild, and the Cougars made a small comeback, but that was not enough.

What do I mean by controlling the tempo in unconventional ways? Arizona was pushing the ball to the frontcourt, not necessarily to score every time, but to prevent Houston from scrambling full-court. Aye! Almost reminds you of the Ben Howland philosophy of using the fast-break for defensive purposes!

What have they done with my Pac-10???