On March 3rd another season will come and go for the Houston Cougars and the Rice Owls. Neither team has a record that's worthy of any real national recognition, and neither team has a player that would raise an eyebrow at the annual NBA draft this June. That leads me to ask one simple question. Why?
Being an outsider, its easy for me to ask this question. I know nothing of the history of these two programs, well outside of the Phi Slamma Jamma days back in the 1980's with Olajuwon and Drexler. As far as Rice is concerned....I've seriously never heard of anyone ever coming out of that program.
In an area like Houston, in a city and a state filled with talent, is it that difficult to get these two programs on the rise? Do coaches refuse to come to H-Town to build up a program? With Houston joining the Big East and Rice being involved in the merged Mountain West/C-USA merger, both programs could benefit from the additional spotlight.
As for Saturday, March 3rd, its the battle for H-Town once again as this will be the last time Rice and Houston face each other as conference members. Make it memorable Arsalan Kazemi and Jonathon Simmons, H-Town will appreciate it.
Here are the conference standings for C-USA for the week of February 26th.
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