UH heads toward opener with smaller lineup

[IE]

Who needs big? Not UH

Tom Penders has small team with talent to aim high


From the moment James Naismith decided to hang the first peach basket 10 feet above the YMCA floor, size became a valued commodity in basketball. Bigger was better, and everyone was looking for big guys.

Well, almost everyone.

Indeed, most coaches relentlessly search for space-eating 7-footers, players whom the late Marquette coach Al McGuire colorfully described as "aircraft carriers." Cougars coach Tom Penders is content with relative PT boats ? smaller, quicker and agile guards and swingmen.

That will again be evident tonight when the Cougars play their season-opening game at Rhode Island.

This latest edition of the Cougars will look similar to last season's guard-centric squad that finished 21-10, losing to Missouri State in the second round of the NIT.

Not coincidentally, it's beginning to resemble some of the teams Penders trotted out during his program-establishing days at Texas, where his smaller-is-better philosophy reached its zenith in the late 1980s with the triple-threat attack led by Lance Blanks, Travis Mays and Joey Wright, which was billed as "BMW ? the Ultimate Scoring Machine" by Longhorns publicists.

This year's Cougars will be powered by a similar engine.

Penders, who values speed and quickness over size, often will have four guards on the floor this season, teaming three star recruits ? 6-3 Robert McKiver, 6-5 Marcus Malone and 6-3 Robert Lee ? with 6-3 Oliver Lafayette, the Cougars' leading scorer last season.

There's also 6-3 point guard Lanny Smith, who is recovering from toe surgery and might wind up redshirting, and 6-0 guard Charlie Jones, who will play significant minutes this season, too. Add versatile 6-6 swingman Dion Dowell, a Texas transfer who will be eligible in December, and you will have a lot of relative shorties running the floor for the Cougars.

"There may be times when we have five guards on the floor at the same time," said Malone, a smooth passer who transferred to Houston from Lee Junior College after spending his freshman year at DePaul. "People may ask how we're going to match up (with bigger teams), but they have to match up with us, too."

Firepower no problem
Even without Smith, who is a preseason All-Conference USA first-team member, the Cougars will bring plenty of firepower. Lafayette averaged 15.7 points last season, but promised he will be more efficient this time around, driving to the basket more for layups and pull-up jumpers.

"I had to stop relying on the 3-point line so much. It was making my percentages look bad," said Lafayette, who shot 36.4 percent from the floor last season. "I plan to go to the rack more, getting fouled and just being more aggressive. And with this team we have now, we'll be running a lot more."

McKiver will assume the point-guard role when the Cougars are pushing the ball, with Malone making more of the decisions in the half-court game. But McKiver's best asset is his shooting ability, with off-the-dribble 3-point range.

"I think the potential is here for us to be very good," said McKiver, who averaged 17.9 points last season at San Jacinto College. "I think we have a lot of weapons, a lot of guys who can do a lot of different things well. Obviously, if we can all jell together, it should be a great season."

According to Lee, a bull-like guard who averaged 20.1 points and 6.2 rebounds at Seminole (Okla.) Junior College, jelling shouldn't be a problem.

Keep everybody happy
"We all have complementary skills," Lee said. "We have 'Fluff' (McKiver), who can score, but he's a good point guard, and Marcus is a great passer. It's not like we just brought in a bunch of scorers who all need the ball. We should be able to keep the ball moving and keep everybody happy."

Including Penders.

"We'll be fine offensively," Penders said. "Right now, I'm worried about defense. We're not yet where we need to be defensively. But the good thing is that if someone doesn't want to play defense, then there's going to be another player on the bench who will be happy to get the opportunity for more playing time."

 

[IE]

Men's basketball: Penders' return a real test for Rams

The former URI coach is looking forward to the challenge of the Running Rams tonight.



SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- Tom Penders has heard the reports about how the University of Rhode Island basketball team is changing its playing style this season. As a former Rhody coach, he likes the idea of running more, which is what URI hopes to do.

"URI basketball always has been about running. All I heard about when I was young was Frank Keaney and how his teams ran," Penders said. "We ran when I was there (Penders coached the Rams from 1986-88)."

Penders, who returns tonight with his Houston team for a 7 o'clock game at the Ryan Center, promises everyone will see plenty of running tonight.

That's nothing new for Penders. Through his successful career, Penders has built his teams around speed and pressure. His team, which won 21 games last season and played in the N.I.T., is expected to be an NCAA tournament-caliber club this season. It has been pegged as the team most likely to challenge Memphis for the Conference USA title.

"We're progressing. We're building something here," Penders said.

Penders, who earlier this year became a grandfather -- his son, Tommy, a former Narragansett High star now coaching high school basketball in Texas, had his first child -- finds players who can run and gun and press. He likes what he has.

"If we get healthy, we have a chance to be really special," he said. "It's a deep team. We're very athletic. We've got some kids who can score. I felt last year that one of our weaknesses was that we weren't a great scoring team. Ninety percent of what we got came off our defense."

URI fans will not see the Cougars at full strength. Two of the team's best players will not be available. All-conference guard Lanny Smith had toe surgery and Dion Dowell, a transfer from Texas will become eligible in the second semester.

Still, the Cougars have more than enough talent to be a major challenge for URI, the first major test of where the Rams stand in their transformation.

With such a young team, Rhode Island figures to take some time to grow. The areas where the team figures to have the most problems, rebounding and defending the interior, will receive their first real test tonight, and the Cougars are every bit as fast, if not faster, than the new Running Rams.

URI is still learning about itself, and many of the surprises have been pleasant. The performance by Kahiem Seawright in the opener is an example.

Seawright showed flashes last year, indications that he would be a solid player. But, like so many freshmen, he was inconsistent. Against Stonehill, with Jimmy Baron out with a strained knee, Seawright stepped in and was outstanding.

He provided interior help, which is where he will be needed, with 10 rebounds. But for the first time, he showed the ability to move to the perimeter, too. He hit several jumpers in the 15- to 17-foot range.

"I feel more confident. Last year I wouldn't have shot those jumpers I took," Seawright said.

Add Seawright's work to the performance of junior college transfer Joe Mbang (17 points, 7 rebounds in the opener) and there are indications URI could have an improved inside presence.

Tonight the Rhode Island side should learn even more about what it has in store this season.

 

[IE]

URI is shifting gears to uptempo


There are times when a coach has to make a difficult decision, knowing he is going to make people unhappy, but feeling it is something that has to be done. Then again, there are times, such as what URI coach Jim Baron is doing with his team this season, when a coach makes a decision that brings nothing but smiles.

The Rhody players make no secret of how happy they are with Baron's decision to have them run more this winter. Not surprisingly, they love it.

"We have the guys to run now. We all want to run," said co-captain Will Daniels. "It's like playground basketball."

"I'm kind of surprised coach Baron wanted to change like this," offered point guard Jon Lucky. "It's real hectic, a lot of pressing, up and down, up and down. There can be a lot of turnovers, but we're getting better and better every day. I love this style. It's like AAU basketball. It's going and going and going, not so much play calling. It's running."

"It spreads guys out a lot more, gives guys a lot more space to create for themselves," said Jimmy Baron, the coach's son and starting guard.

Welcome to the return of the Running Rams.

The players are not likely to be the only ones who will like the change. Through URI's history, the times of greatest success have been when the team ran. It began with the race horse basketball invented by Frank Keaney when URI led the country in scoring nine times in the 1940s, went through Ernie Calverley's teams in the 1960s, to Tom Penders' squads in the 1980s to the Al Skinner and Jim Harrick clubs in the last decade.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that simply by running the good times will return. With an extremely young team, with very little size, URI has been picked to finish 11th in the 14-team Atlantic 10. But whatever happens in the win-loss columns, it certainly looks as if it is going to be more fun watching the team.

OFFENSE

Baron decided to make the change to a more uptempo game for two reasons. For one, the bigger, stronger, slower players he has had the last several reasons have moved on. They have been replaced by leaner, speedier guys.

Equally importantly, though, the Rams simply have not had the shooters to become involved in offensive battles in the last two years. The team has been near the bottom, not only in the Atlantic 10 but also in the nation in 3-point baskets.

The new guys not only can run better, Baron is banking on the fact that they will shoot better, too. That's not to say the team will become 3-point crazy. There is still only one pure shooter -- Jimmy Baron.

But there are far more guys who can be dangerous from the perimeter. Players like Daniels, Parfait Bitee, Lucky, Joe Mbang and, if and when they are cleared to play, Delroy James and Keith Cothran.

The team wants to run at every opportunity. But even when it does set up in the halfcourt, Baron is employing many sets with only one player in the paint and four on the perimeter.

DEFENSE

Even with most of the focus on offensive changes, Baron has been careful to make sure his players know that he has not forgotten how much he stresses defense.

Still, the defensive style is changing, too, with the team extending the court with presses and traps through their early games thus far. Eevery indication is that the Rams are not going to be afraid to gamble, that they will be willing to give up an occasional easy basket as long as their gambling, scrambling defense also leads to an occasional easy basket for them, too.

Perhaps the biggest defensive challenge, though, will be to protect the interior. With the late loss of center J.R. Moore -- he returned to Oregon to be near his mother, who is battling cancer -- the team has no defensive stopper in the middle.

The team figures to be vulnerable against teams with good inside players.

SCHEDULE

It's hard, maybe too hard.

For a team that is a likely post-season contender, playing Houston, Boston College, Providence College and DePaul, among others, before Atlantic 10 competition would be a good test. For a team dominated by first- and second-year players, it looks to be a bit much.

Trying to equal last year's 14 victories would seem to be a reasonable goal.

 

[IE]

@ pinnacle

Houston U / OVER 145 +104
Rhode Island

could worth a look tonight...