Tom Penders
Tom Penders
Thomas Vincent "Tom" Pendersis a retired college basketball head coach, who last coached from 2004 through 2010 at the University of Houston. He is from Stratford, Connecticut and has a 649-437 career record. As a college athlete, Penders played both basketball and baseball for the University of Connecticut, and is one of the few players to have competed in both the NCAA Tournament as well as the College World Series...
pool spends time
He spends more time in the pool than on the court.
good missed opportunity seven six
When we were up by 10-0, we missed six or seven pretty good looks. We just didn't put them away when we had the opportunity to.
came coach embraced fall hated hoping people slowly
We started slowly with attendance. Because I was a hated coach from another school, some people came hoping I would fall on my face. There were other people that embraced me.
decided pace playing quick reasonably shoot small
We decided to go small and quick and get them playing at a pace that they were uncomfortable with. Of course, you have to shoot reasonably well to set up our press.
given happy shown team
We've shown a lot of resiliency. I've been real happy with this team because we haven't given up on the season.
conference missouri ncaa six talking valley
I think the Missouri Valley Conference is good, but I don't know who's talking about (five or six NCAA bids) and in what bar.
bad boo cities depends easy market people team
It all depends on what market you're in, as to how easy it is. In some cities and towns, a team can be bad and all the people will show up to boo the coach. In Houston, they just don't show up.
excited feels honored nice potential university
I'm honored and pleased. I'm more excited about the potential of this program, so it's nice that the university feels the same way.
coaching defensive difficult great job open team
I thought we did a great job defensively. We really made it difficult for UCF to get open looks. I've said that I've been coaching for 32 years and I've had some great defensive teams, but I've never had a team that was better defensively than this team.
basketball exciting fans floor help home putting team tournament winning
I think we're doing our job, putting an exciting basketball team on the floor, a winning basketball team on the floor -- a tournament contender. It would help if we had at least 6,000 fans at every home game, but I'm not going to chastise those who haven't been here.
basketball chance fall guys inside nice north shoot texas unless warriors win
I think that North Texas is a very nice basketball team. They can shoot it, their big guys are like warriors inside and they are a cohesive team. ... Unless they fall apart, I think they have a chance to win their conference.
beat came empty house maybe rent
We have to look at this as a payback game. They came into our house ? and granted, it was an empty house ? and beat us. Maybe I'll go down there and rent some fans.
defense east foul game island minutes played solid teams
We played 40 minutes of solid defense. We didn't get in foul trouble. We want to play teams like Rhode Island and (teams in) the Big East where you know how the game is going to get called.
almost build great jump maybe program trying
Yeah, it was disappointing. You want to be in. I'm not about to jump off a building, though. We've had a great year. It was almost one of those years, and maybe that will make us hungrier for the future. We're trying to build a program here.