Houston rockets past FR (01/08/07)

HOUSTON, Ohio - Sixty-nine percent will earn a student a D in most classes - not exactly a sparkling mark.

But on the basketball court, it doesn't get much better.

The Houston Wildcats showed off their shooting touch Saturday night, hitting for 69 percent from the field and 67 percent on 3-pointers as they handed Fort Recovery a 77-61 defeat.

"You're not going to win any games giving up 47 second-half points, allowing a team to shoot 69 percent from the floor, 67 percent from the 3-point line and 77 percent from the foul line," said Indian coach Brian Patch, "and put them there 15 times in the second half. And at that same time, not really moving and not really getting any loose balls, getting out-rebounded (30-14) and not really giving much of a defensive effort as we did."

The 16-point loss marked the first consecutive set-backs for the Tribe this season following Friday night's defeat at home against Minster.

Fort Recovery (6-3) looked good early when it forced nine Houston turnovers in the opening quarter, scoring 11 straight points during one stretch and holding a 21-15 lead after eight minutes. But when they held onto the ball, the Wildcats rarely missed, going 6-of-8 from the field in the opening period.

And when Houston stopped giving the ball away - it had just seven turnovers after the intermission - it put on a scoring clinic.

The Wildcats scored the final eight points of the first half to pull within 31-30. And after the Indians scored the first seven points of the second half, the home team went on a 16-2 run and never looked back.

"We turned the ball over early in the first half ... and sometimes the motors are running too fast so we've got to settle them down," said Houston coach John Willoughby. "In that time-out we just tried to settle them down, get the ball moving, and again we emphasized the pass from one wing to the other instead of around the horn."

The talking points during that short break in the action paid off for the Wildcats as they hit eight of their 10 attempts (80 percent) from the field in the third quarter and went 18-of-24 (75 percent) in the second half.

Leading that effort was Brandon Hughes, who made his first nine field-goal attempts. He didn't miss a shot until there was just 3:35 left in the game, and he finished 10-of-12 for 21 points. Nine of those came during Houston's huge third-quarter run, and then he turned over the offensive reigns to Dustin Schwable in the fourth period.

Schwable drove to the basket at will, scoring six straight points as the Wildcats pushed their lead into double digits. He had 14 of his game-high 22 points in the final eight minutes, and was nearly as good as Hughes from the field hitting 7-of-9 (78 percent).

"That's almost Oden-like, isn't it," said Willoughby, referencing the Ohio State center in praising Hughes' 83-percent effort from the field. "The way they were playing defense we had to swing the ball a little bit more. ... We were trying to emphasize the cross-court pass to try to open up the middle.

"Brandon is a big key. Teams have to double-team him."

Fort Recovery had it's chance to build a lead as Hughes spent the entire second quarter on the bench after picking up his second personal foul late in the first. Instead, the lead slipped to just one point at the half, and the Indians had no answer for Houston's inside game in the second half.

"Our defense didn't step and our offense didn't step up," said Patch. "We didn't move ourselves very well. We didn't move the ball very well. We didn't handle it. We seemed like we were rushing. We had 12 first-half turnovers. It just didn't seem like we were making very good decisions with the ball. Obviously we've got to do a better job of that."

In addition to their double-digit points, Schwable and Hughes finished with eight and five rebounds respectively. Fort Recovery's entire team had just 14 boards, 16 fewer than the Wildcats.

Brad Grillot and Dan Estes led an efficient outside effort for Houston to compliment Schwable and Hughes inside. Grillot buried three 3-pointers and finished with 10 points, and Estes went 2-of-3 from long range and scored 16 points while also dishing out five assists.

Patch said he hopes his Indians can use the weekend struggles against Minster and Houston as a building block after the squad won six of its first seven games.

"Hopefully our kids learned that we're never as good as what we think we are," he said. "There is always room for improvement. Never get too high on yourself.

"Also, hopefully they learn to never get to low on themselves because the season is 20 games, not just these two that we had this weekend. We've got to have some mental toughness.

"We've got to work on defending better. That's two games (in a row) that we've given up 70 points. You're not going to beat anybody doing that."

Clint Tobe's 19 points led Fort Recovery, Toby Metzger had 12 points and Bobby Rammel finished with 11. Aaron Kahlig totaled four rebounds and four assists, and Metzger also had four assists.

Junior varsity

Second-quarter domination powered the Indians in a 49-37 victory over Houston.

Fort Recovery trailed by one after the opening period, 11-0. But, they out-scored the Wildcats 20-5 in the second quarter en route to the victory.

Brent Faller shot 4-of-6 to share the Tribe team high of 11 points with Josh Wendel. Wes Kahlig contributed 10 points.

Wendel racked up 10 rebounds, Kahlig had seven boards and Frank Thien totaled five steals and three assists.

Travis Mullen paced Houston with 11 points to go along with five rebounds. Matt Ryan had seven points and seven rebounds, and Kevin Roeth finished with eight points, three assists and two steals.

Freshman

Craig Tobe's 26 points were not enough to lead Fort Recovery to victory as it lost 61-47 to the Wildcats.

Tobe powered the Indians, grabbing 10 rebounds in addition to scoring more than half of his team's points. Cody Fiely added 15 points.[[In-content Ad]]