81-72 at Hofheinz We were up by 19 at one point, but LSU rallied towards the end. Great win against a major conference team. Bring on Washington!
Nice to see that both Rice and UofH are having good seasons so far in b-ball. I think it's obvious that Penders is one heck of a coach as he's already made a huge difference with that team. Speaking of Rice, are they ever going to get a new arena?
Academics come first at Rice. Only if a donor steps it up and offers cash will a new arena be built, despite our ginormous endowment (bigger than any other school in Texas' endowment). That's how we got a new baseball stadium. Tommy Reckling (who sits near bigtexxx's season tix at the stadium) paid a lot of money to get the new place built.
CONGRATS UH! Always like to see LSU lose a game. bigtexx.. Speaking of the baseball field.. I've gotta make it out to a Rice game this May.. I've been wanting to... I told our baseball coach that I wish we would play Rice.. get a little academic rivalry going.. instead of playing the baylor series we are playng now.. we also got a great new park thanks to an alum stepping up with the funding
more on UH.. I would love to see them get better quickly.. It's a shame that a city as big as our doesn't support our local teams as much as we should..
The crowds are not that bad. Tonight was very loud, much louder than I've heard in Toyota Center for some time. We do not average much less than A&M or even UT in some of their out of conference games. Tonight UH had over 5,100, which to me is not that bad considering the records of the UH teams over the past few years. Hofheinz holds 9,000, and the only reason the athletic department covered up the endzones was they wanted the crowd to be closer between the baselines. When the demand comes to remove the covers over the seats, they will.
Translation: the attendance is bad. (By "crowd" I meant: lack of) 5,100, while maybe the best of the season (or past few) isn't nothing to brag about. And I'm not blaming UH.
Success builds a fan base, success builds tradition and those two together puts fannies in the seats. Houston is not a college town. The Cougars must win often enough to warrant people to spend their dollars on the product. Same goes for the Rockets. Even after the Rockets won two NBA titles and the Oilers had packed up and left, the majority of Houstonians listed football as their favorite sport. Baseball was second and basketball third. If the Coogs continue to play this well and beat teams like LSU, it won't be long before they start putting more people in the stands. Hofeinz is an awesome place to watch a basketball game and it can be deafening when full. That low ceiling really helps make it loud.
A few more wins like this one and they might reach a similar status that the Texas A&M Corpus Christi squad has...a single vote in the USA Today/ESPN poll. Actually, A&M-CC has an (extreme) outside shot, if they can play competitive against OK St. and run the table, at potentially being considered for an at-large bid come March. The Islanders appear to have a pretty decent team.
I'm pretty sure UT and A&M have bigger endowments, but Rice does have a pretty huge one for sure...especially for the size of the school.
*snicker* 2003 Figures: Rice $2.9 billion University of Texas at Austin $1.6 billion Only if you take the endowments for the entire University of Texas system (9 Universities) and the entire A&M system (10 universities) would they be larger than Rice's. On a per student basis, it's really a laugher. WELL ENDOWED INDEED
And, supermac, if it puts your mind at ease, I will assure you that he parlays this endowment into getting laid plenty, my friend.
