Meet Howard Moore
Experience: Fourth season
College: Wisconsin, ‘95
Career record: 33-62
2013-14 Season Outlook
-The Flames finished the 2012-13 season 18-16 (7-9 Horizon League).
-In the Horizon League preseason poll, the Flames are predicted to finish seventh in the nine-team League.
Career Background
-The Flames won 18 games for the first time in six-years during the 2012-13 season.
-Advanced to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) last March and secured the program’s first-ever postseason win over Chicago State.
-UIC accomplished the nation's 12th-best turnaround from the 2011-12 season.
-Moore was named a finalist for the Ben Jobe Award, given annually to the top minority coach in Division I men's basketball.
-The first two seasons of the Howard Moore era produced wins over in-state rival Illinois, Rhode Island and Evansville.
-Moore was an assistant coach at Wisconsin, his alma mater, for five-years before accepting the top job at UIC before the 2010-11 season.
The 18-wins last season was the first time in six years the program has won that many games, and it also included a trip to the CIT where the Flames collected their first-ever postseason win. How can the program build upon that success?
I think what it does is it makes our returning guys hungrier and puts them in a position where they have a taste of practicing and playing in March, deep in March, which is what we want to have. But obviously we want to continue to grow and dance and the goal is the NCAA Tournament. With Hayden [Humes] and Marc Brown and guys that played a lot of minutes that are returning, I think the biggest think is for those guys to keep reminding the other guys to finish strong so we can continue to grow.
The Flames held their annual Red vs Blue annual scrimmage on Oct. 11. What are some of your takeaways from the scrimmage?
The biggest thing is trying to see how guys play with the lights on with the crowd. The thing about the Red vs. Blue scrimmage is it allows us coaches to get an early evaluation of players, with rotations, combinations and see how guys play in certain situations.
The squad is picked to finish seventh in the Horizon League Preseason Poll, representing the best finish since 2008. After the team went 18-16 last season, what are you expectations for the season?
Our expectations are always high, I don’t look at the polls whether we are in first or last, I wouldn’t care. But it also gives an indication of where people perceive you, and people are kind of questioning where we are how good will this group and how much of an impact the new guys will be. But we don’t worry about that.
UIC hosts Northwestern on Nov. 20. How exciting is it for another Chicago area school, a Big 10 school, to come into the UIC Pavilion and take on the Flames?
It’s great. It was fun last year for us to go to Northwestern and compete and play pretty well. To have that group come to our place this year is going to be extraordinary. We know it’s going to be a hard fought game, but the biggest thing is just having a quality schedule where we have Big Ten opponents that we play.
Your quest has been to make UIC Chicago’s “blue-collar college team.” Why is this something you’re striving for?
Chicago embraces that type of mentality and embraces that type of team. Look at the Bulls, Chicago fans could really embrace that team because it is the embodiment of what the city is about. We like that, that’s how I like to coach; blue collar guys diving on the floor, taking charges, running down loose balls, playing tough minded defense. That’s really what Chicago is all about, and we just want to be the college impression of it.
You played at Wisconsin from 1990-95 and coached under Bo Ryan from 2005-10. What lured you down Interstate-90 back to you hometown?
I grew up here. I’ve always known about UIC. I think it’s tremendous academically and provides a lot of opportunities to young people. It’s also in the heart of the city, the location of UIC and advancement and development of the campus makes it a sleeping giant. I think with the program being on the rise, the facilities continuing to advance, I think the sky is the limit for what UIC can offer. We are in a tremendous League; I think the Horizon League is a great League with great coaching and great basketball. It has all the elements to be a tremendous situation.
At the 2013 UIC Freshman Welcome Dinner, you performed the “cha-cha-slide” with some of the incoming students. After breaking down the tape, how would you rate your "cha-cha" performance?
It wasn’t by best cha-cha performance, I was a little apprehensive. But if you catch me at a family outing it’ll probably be a little better, little sharper. But the funny thing was I was standing right there when the song came on so I kind of got thrust into it, but I couldn’t let the young kids show me up, instincts kind of kicked in and that’s where it went. It also shows the players that I am human, I do have a lighter side and I can have fun.
Before joining the Division I coaching ranks in 2000 you worked as a sales representative for a pair of Chicago-area corporations for three years. Talk about that experience?
I also joked that my high school coached kind of tricked me into coaching. I was in sales, but I’ve never been a money driven person. I knew I could be successful and I had a good track record at the sales company I worked for, but the biggest thing was I wasn’t extremely happy. Some people would come in bragging about their month and I was just kind of like, I want to know which basketball team is doing what. Checking out practices and going to local universities to get an idea. So once I got the opportunity to work at my high school, my high school coach said, “Hey, you have a good feel for this, the kids respect you, you have a good demeanor and you should really consider coaching.” At the time, I was single and didn’t have a lot of responsibilities so it was easy for me to pack up a van and pursue my passion and it’s definitely turned out for the best.
Talk about the addition of senior guard Kelsey Barlow, who was named to the Preseason Horizon League Second-Team before playing a game in the Horizon League. Barlow transferred from Purdue and averaged 8.3 points per game for the Boilermakers during the 2011-2012 season.
I see his Big Ten and NCAA Tournament experience as a player giving us another boost. His talent is definitely there, he’s a tremendous athlete but he also has very good basketball IQ and really understands the game. He is a very unselfish player, even though he can average double figures easily, the biggest thing with him is he can find teammates and make plays for others. Plus, he’s a tremendous defender which is a big part of our team, our identity, is being a strong defensive team and he’s really going to enhance our perimeter defense.
Off the court, what are some of your hobbies?
I’m a big family person. Whenever I have so called free time, whenever that is, I like to spend time with my family. I have two young kids that are seven and four. My wife and I try to do as much as we can with them. With me being gone so much, it’s difficult, you miss so much as a father so you try to spend as much time with them. My parents are right here in the Chicago land area, so we spend a lot of time at their place out in the suburbs. I just really try to enjoy as much family time as possible.
