March Lamb

Nothing but an overnight fancy: Maryland overpowers Houston 89-77 in NCAATourney

Hopefully, Aubrey Coleman, Tom Penders and the rest of the University of Houston's basketball contingent picked up some souvenirs in Spokane, Washington.

Because the memories of NCAA Tournament action itself will be very brief for the Cougars. No. 4 seed Maryland pushed aside the improbable 13th seed from the Bayou City 89-77 tonight in a first round game that was only really a contest for a half.

Houston ended one long streak of futility by getting here — making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 18 years. But another long run of misery continued — it's still been 26 years since UH has won a game in college basketball's showcase tournament.

Two steps forward, one smack into a brick wall.

It's fair to wonder how much Houston will get out of this brief taste of March. The program — and the school to a lesser extent — received more attention from the national press in the last six days than it has in years. But Penders, the coach that the Cougars administration was set to nudge out the door when the regular season ended with a 15-15 record, will be harder to get rid of now.

The 64-year-old Penders talked all week about how the most dangerous man in a fight is the crazy one who has nothing to lose, likening his Cougars to such a lunatic. It turns out that a co-champion from the powerhouse Atlantic Coast Conference with a do-it-all point guard, the size that upstarts like the Cougars lack and plenty of depth is awfully dangerous too.

Tournament-dream-killing dangerous.

Maryland (25-8) outlasted and overpowered Houston (19-16), getting a double-double from its 6-foot-10 center Jordan Williams (21 points, 15 rebounds) and an understated but effectively deadly stat-sheet-filling night from ACC Player of the Year Greivis Vasquez (16 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists). Houston actually had the better two-man show with Coleman (26 points on 9-for-21 shooting from the field, 7-for-13 unmarksmanship from the free-throw line) and Kelvin Lewis (24 points).

Unfortunately, college basketball isn't a 2-on-2 game. It's 5-on-5 and the Terrapins overwhelmed there. While Coleman and Lewis combined for almost 66 percent of Houston's points and only four other Cougars scored at all, Maryland received contributions from eight players. This particularly showed up on the boards as the taller Terrapins outrebounded Penders' four-guard scheme by an overwhelming 45-27 margin.

Any chance to negate the ACC power's brawn advantage was done in by Houston missing 12 of its 32 free throws. What is it with Texas teams and charity-stripe woes? Just the night before, the University of Texas blew an eight-point overtime lead because it couldn't hit foul shots.

Aubrey's Auxiliary

Coleman carried the Cougars early, scoring 14 points in the game's first 15 minutes. In many ways, this was Coleman's introduction to the college basketball nation and he wasn't going to disappoint. He dropped in a pull-up three from the wing, swung into the lane for a pretty jump stop floater, hit jumpers in transition.

Maybe, finally somebody would notice the nation's leading scorer. For even as he poured in points throughout the regular season, nobody outside of Houston (and few inside the city either for that matter) paid attention to the Cougars star, figuring Coleman was just a trigger-happy gunner on a middling, second-tier conference team. Until tonight, when Coleman held the sports nation's attention for several moments.

Still when Maryland built up a 37-29 first-half lead and appeared ready to start pulling away for the first time, Cougars guard Adam Brown is the one who provided the big jolt of hope.

Brown hit a double-clutch, hesitating heave from only a stride across half court at the first-half buzzer, pulling Houston within 39-37 at the break. Suddenly, Cinderella was back in Spokane.

Any magic evaporated during intermission though. The Terrapins came out like a hare, hitting their first five shots of the second half, essentially never looking back.

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Movie Review

Star TV producer James L. Brooks stumbles with meandering movie Ella McCay

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Emma Mackey in Ella McCay.

The impact that writer/director/producer James L. Brooks has made on Hollywood cannot be understated. The 85-year-old created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, personally won three Oscars for Terms of Endearment, and was one of the driving forces behind The Simpsons, among many other credits. Now, 15 years after his last movie, he’s back in the directing chair with Ella McCay.

The similarly-named Emma Mackey plays Ella, a 34-year-old lieutenant governor of an unnamed state in 2008 who’s on the verge of becoming governor when Governor Bill (Albert Brooks) gets picked to be a member of the president’s Cabinet. What should be a happy time is sullied by her needy husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), her agoraphobic brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), and her perpetually-cheating father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson).

Despite the trio of men competing to bring her down, Ella remains an unapologetic optimist, an attitude bolstered by her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), her assistant Estelle (Julie Kavner), and her police escort, Trooper Nash (Kumail Nanjiani). The film follows her over a few days as she navigates the perils of governing, the distractions her family brings, and the expectations being thrust upon her by many different people.

Brooks, who wrote and directed the film, is all over the place with his storytelling. What at first seems to be a straightforward story about Ella and her various issues soon starts meandering into areas that, while related to Ella, don’t make the film better. Prime among them are her brother and father, who are given a relatively small amount of screentime in comparison to the importance they have in her life. This is compounded by a confounding subplot in which Casey tries to win back his girlfriend, Susan (Ayo Edebiri).

Then there’s the whole political side of the story, which never finds its focus and is stuck in the past. Though it’s never stated explicitly, Ella and Governor Bill appear to be Democrats, especially given a signature program Ella pushes to help mothers in need. But if Brooks was trying to provide an antidote to the current real world politics, he doesn’t succeed, as Ella’s full goals are never clear. He also inexplicably shows her boring her fellow lawmakers to tears, a strange trait to give the person for whom the audience is supposed to be rooting.

What saves the movie from being an all-out train wreck is the performances of Mackey and Curtis. Mackey, best known for the Netflix show Sex Education, has an assured confidence to her that keeps the character interesting and likable even when the story goes downhill. Curtis, who has tended to go over-the-top with her roles in recent years, tones it down, offering a warm place of comfort for Ella to turn to when she needs it. The two complement each other very well and are the best parts of the movie by far.

Brooks puts much more effort into his female actors, including Kavner, who, even though she serves as an unnecessary narrator, gets most of the best laugh lines in the film. Harrelson is capable of playing a great cad, but his character here isn’t fleshed out enough. Fearn is super annoying in his role, and Lowden isn’t much better, although that could be mostly due to what his character is called to do. Were it not for the always-great Brooks and Nanjiani, the movie might be devoid of good male performances.

Brooks has made many great TV shows and movies in his 60+ year career, but Ella McCay is a far cry from his best. The only positive that comes out of it is the boosting of Mackey, who proves herself capable of not only leading a film, but also elevating one that would otherwise be a slog to get through.

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Ella McCay opens in theaters on December 12.

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