University of Houston Athletics
Women's Basketball Begins Season Preparations
10/11/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Oct. 11, 2006
HOUSTON - With the start of exhibition play just over two weeks away, the University of Houston women's basketball team will open up preseason practice Friday at Hofheinz Pavilion.
The Cougars, 12-17 (8-8 C-USA) a year ago, boast the return of four starters and a talented class of newcomers. Practice is slotted for a 7 p.m. CDT opening. UH opens up with two home exhibition contests, facing Lake Truck on Oct. 29 at 2 p.m. and the Houston Jaguars on Nov. 10 at 7 p.m.
Houston grabbed the fourth spot in the preseason coaches poll with 99 points, including one first-place vote. Rice was tabbed as the preseason favorite with 142 points and 10 first-place votes. Tulsa and SMU tied for second with 113 points each and the Golden Hurricane received one first-place nod. The poll was voted upon by the league's 12 head coaches and released by the league office Wednesday.
"The poll is realistic," head coach Joe Curl said. "There was some respect shown there. If anything, it motivates us because we would like to end up in the top spot here in the next three or four months."
Junior Tye Jackson (Houston, Texas/Westfield HS/Purdue), a First Team All C-USA honoree a year ago was named to the league's preseason All-Conference squad. Tulsa's Jillian Robbins was a unanimous selection as the league's preseason Player of the Year. Joining Jackson and Robbins on the preseason All-C-USA squad are Janielle Dodds of SMU, UAB's Carmen Guzman and Lauren Neaves of Rice.
Along with returning four starters, the Cougars have the only pair of teammates, Sha'Ratta Hawkins (Houston, Texas/Jesse Jones HS) and Jackson, that averaged better then 15 points per game a year ago. Jackson led UH with a 17.7 ppg clip, while Hawkins netted a 15.1 ppg average.
"Jillian Robbins had an outstanding season last year," Curl said. "I think that if Tye (Jackson) puts together the kind of season we know she can, she'll be right up there for the postseason award. Hawk (Sha'Ratta Hawkins) should be there as well, and I think some of our recruits can earn some honors as well."
Jackson, an All-America candidate, took part in the team trials for the 2006 U.S. U20 National Team last spring, the only C-USA player to do so. She finished with 30 or more points on two occasions last season with a career-best 37 coming against Rice on Jan. 15.
She also had 35 points at UAB on Feb. 26 and failed to reach double digits in scoring only twice in 22 games while netting eight 20-plus point games. In the UAB contest, Jackson tallied 27 second-half points, including hitting for UH's first 24 of the half. She also dished out 119 assists, ranking second in C-USA with a 5.4 assists per game average.
Two of her season averages, points per game (fourth) and assists per game (second), rank in the top five all time in the UH record book. Jackson had a pair of double-doubles on the season and also had two games with double-digit assists.
"I am excited to start practice Friday," Curl said. "We're going to have to find ourselves and the true identity of this team in the first couple weeks of practice. Once that's established, we're going to have to prove it in the early part of the season, win or lose."
The Cougars' early-season schedule borders on brutal, with road trips to Duke, TCU and West Virginia and home games against Texas Tech and Michigan State slotted for the first five matchups of the season.
UH set school records last season with 157 three-pointers made and 548 three-point attempts.
"We took a lot of jump shots last year, came to rely on it too much," Curl said. "We want to be a slashing, make them guard us and foul us kind of team. If we rely on our jump shots, we're going to end up in fourth place."
Houston opens up the regular season on Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. CDT, facing off against Texas Tech at Hofheinz Pavilion. It is the first meeting between the two former Southwest Conference rivals since the 1996 season, which featured three contests, all Texas Tech wins.
