University of Houston Athletics
Ravon Justice Accepts Prairie View A&M Head Job
4/13/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
HOUSTON -- Houston Cougar women's basketball assistant coach Ravon Justice has been named as the seventh head coach in Prairie View A&M Lady Panthers women's basketball history, the program announced this week.
"I am incredibly happy and proud for Ravon," head coach Ronald Hughey said. "This is an amazing opportunity for her and shows how hard she has worked in her career and for the University of Houston and how loyal she has been to the Cougars. She will always be a part of our family, and we wish her the best in all of her future endeavors."
Justice came to the Cougars prior to the 2010-11 season to serve as an assistant coach, and Houston's recruiting coordinator, and immediately made an impact, helping the Cougars sign a top-40 recruiting class in the nation.
That same season, Justice also helped the Cougars to an undefeated Conference USA regular-season championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2004-05 while playing a key role in leading point guard Porsche Landry to Conference USA First-Team honors.
Houston will now set its sights on building one of the top assistant coaching staffs in the country. Earlier this month, the Cougars announced that Rutgers Hall of Famer Victoria Picott would join the staff as an assistant coach. Hughey will begin a national search for Houston's newest assistant coach.
"This is an amazing opportunity for us to build a special coaching staff. With the addition of Coach Vicky Picott, we have a chance to open up on a national level and make our coaching staff great."
REGENTS APPROVE RENOVATIONS TO BASKETBALL ARENA
The University of Men's and Women's Basketball programs moved closer to a new competition home facility when school regents approved the start of the design process for the renovation of the Houston Basketball arena during its meeting Nov. 19.
Regents approved a project budget of up to $60 million with an anonymous donor pledging a $20 million gift to facilitate the arena's renovation.
Design work is scheduled to begin in March 2016 with construction starting one year later. Plans for the Cougars' home facility during the 2017-18 season have not been finalized and will be announced at a later date. The renovated facility is expected to be ready for game competition for the beginning of the 2018-19 season.
"This project has been long overdue, and we are grateful that Dr. Khator and our Board of Regents saw the need for this step with our basketball arena," Vice President for Athletics Hunter Yurachek said. "We look forward to starting the design process in the next few months and creating a facility that will provide the highest level of amenities to our fans and a significant home-court advantage for our Men's and Women's Basketball student-athletes."
Preliminary estimated capacity for the renovated arena will be reduced to 7,420 from its current seating bowl of 8,479. However, initial plans call for the court level to be raised three feet with fan seating moved closer to the court as part of an emphasis to improve the overall fan experience.
More than 2,000 premium seats will be developed to give fans the ultimate luxury seating options. That total includes a preliminary design of 1,750 club seats, 20 loge boxes with four seats in each, two open-air suites with 32 seats per unit and 90 courtside seats.
The arena's concourse level will be expanded to improve circulation with significant upgrades to the sound system, video board and arena seating.
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