Terrance Arceneaux Dunks The Doubts, Letting Houston Basketball Reach Higher — When a Slam Is Not Just a Slam For an NBA Level Talent

Sometimes a dunk is not just a dunk. When Terrance Arceneaux went in for a dunk in the University of Houston’s eighth game of the season, the eighth game of his comeback, he wasn’t just taking off. He was leaving plenty behind. Doubts. Hesitations. Fears.

“That was my first dunk,” Arceneaux tells PaperCity. “I’m happy that it happened on a fast break. That was my first dunk since being back. Since the injury. So I was happy it happened in a game.”

It turns out you can flush a lot with a slam dunk. Even most hardcore University of Houston basketball fans missed the true significance of that Arceneaux rim attack in a dominant win over Butler. But it quietly turbocharged Arceneaux’s already rolling comeback from the Achilles tendon tear that ended his season last December and set up months and months of often grueling and tedious work to get back.

“That gave me a boost to want to go dunk even more,” Arceneaux says. “Even during practice today, I dunked a couple of times. Just because. . . It definitely gives me confidence. It makes the game exciting again.”

Terrance Arceneaux makes an already elite UH basketball team more exciting. A lanky 6-foot-6 guard with an athleticism that jumps out, Arceneaux can raise the ceiling of what this Kelvin Sampson team can ultimately do. And everyone in Houston’s program knows it. This is a former four star recruit who only seemed to be starting to figure it out when he tore his right Achilles tendon barely a month into last season, his second in the Cougar program.

Now Arceneaux’s gaining more confidence by the game. In his health and the strength of that surgically repaired tendon. In the plan he and UH’s invaluable associate AD for sports medicine John Houston have tweaked and honed to make sure he can perform at his best. In his own game, which appears to be evolving faster than The Wild Robot did on that island.

“I think Terrance is having a really good season,” Houston associate head coach Quannas White tells PaperCity. “I talk to him about continuing to elevate. Coach has been on him since he got here, but he’s maturing. And he’s been showing the type of productivity he can have for us offensively.

“He’s another weapon for us. And I think as the season continues to go, he’s going to continue to get more and more comfortable.”

Part of that comfort level comes from The Plan, the keeping his right leg healthy guidelines that Arceneaux, John Houston and Kelvin Sampson lean on and revise regularly. Tweaks in The Plan have allowed Arceneaux to become much more effective in the second half of games.

“That was the biggest struggle at first,” Arceneaux tells PaperCity. “I would have like a great first half, a good warm down and then come out the second half and have like no push or pop or anything. Knowing that I’ve got that down now and seeing that it’s actually working — because at first I really didn’t know, I was like ‘Man, what am I going to be able to do?’ — that definitely gives me confidence.”

Arceneaux’s played well in the second half of UH’s last two games. More importantly, he’s felt that familiar spring in his step in those halves, felt like his explosive self. With two games left in Houston’s non-conference schedule (Wednesday night against Toledo and Saturday afternoon vs. Texas A&M Corpus Christi, both at Fertitta Center) before the 20 game Big 12 gauntlet begins, Houston’s X-Factor is finding a new level, a two half strong beat.

At the end of each first half, Arceneaux rushes into the locker room where the heating pad treatment immediately begins. John Houston’s jerry-rigged a contraption that combines heat and vibration that Arceneaux applies to his tendon. This device took some trial and error to come up with just the right combination, but Arceneaux feels like they’ve hit on it now.

MacGyver would be impressed. More importantly, Kelvin Sampson is encouraged.

“Terrance has the green light to step out of practice when (the Achilles) is bothering him,” Sampson says. “The thing I’ve noticed (lately) is I don’t think he stepped out of practice, except maybe once. And then he came back in. He’s practicing longer and that’s helping him.”

On a now 15th ranked Houston team that is full of veterans like guards LJ Cryer and Emanuel Sharp and sixth-year forward J’Wan Roberts, sixth man Terrance Arceneaux and second year forward JoJo Tugler, who moved into the starting lineup two games ago, are the ceiling raisers. The players who could jump this group to a national championship contending level again.

“I’ve seen Terrance play in high school and he was elite,” UH starting point guard Milos Uzan says. “And he’s getting more and more into that. He looks a lot more explosive. It looks like he has a lot more confidence in his leg. You definitely can see him playing at a higher level right now.

“And it shows in the game too. He’s getting better every game.”

“That gave me a boost to want to go dunk even more. Even during practice today, I dunked a couple of times. Just because. . . It definitely gives me confidence. It makes the game exciting again.” — UH guard Terrance Arceneaux

The Anatomy of a Slam Dunk

Many of Terrance Arceneaux’s teammates and even some of the coaches missed how big that flying breakaway dunk against Butler was to Houston’s No. 23. Arceneaux didn’t make a big deal about it. That’s not in this kid with an easy smile’s nature.

But Arceneaux’s parents and his older brother Byron sensed it immediately. Sometimes a slam dunk is not just a slam dunk. Sometimes it’s more of an exorcism. A rebirth at the rim.

“I knew that dunk meant something,” Eric Arceneaux, Terrance’s dad, tells PaperCity. “It says everything about how he’s feeling.”

“That was pretty cool,”  Lataisha Arceneaux, Terrance’s mom, says of the breakaway slam, triggered by an Arceneaux steal and recovery. “Gaining that confidence. He’s getting stronger, being more confident. Just trusting the process.”

Sampson is still trying to keep Terrance Arceneaux’s minutes per game into that 20 to 24 range, not wanting to stress that right leg too much too early. That is part of The Plan too. Every college basketball season is a long game. There’s no need to flash all your aces at the table this early.

But Terrance Arceneaux’s ability to get to rim, to deftly slice through a defense and score in traffic, using his long arms and quick moves to frustrate a defense, are going to be key for a UH team that can sometimes otherwise be very jump shot dependent. There is no one else on this Houston roster who can do quite what Arceneaux does.

“I want to be one of those guys who can push us even harder and farther,” Arceneaux says, standing near the NBA Wall at UH basketball’s practice facility, with clips of Kelvin Sampson players in the league now playing over the shoulder of someone who hopes to be one of The Next. “It definitely gives me confidence.

“And I want to give guys confidence to believe in me.”

That truly would be takeoff for a player who is trusting his ability to soar again.