After just their second loss of the season one week ago in Lubbock, the Cougars are locking in and fine tuning their style of play until their next ranked opponent one week from now. Houston was able to re-discover their defensive identity with a home win over the Cincinnati Bearcats 76-54.
Returning home from their 79-70 victory over the TCU Hornfrogs in Fort Worth, Houston was able to extend their home win streak to 16 and win 38 straight games against an unranked opponent.
Last outing, freshman center Chris Cenac Jr. had a career high 14 rebounds and carried that momentum early Saturday morning. Cenac went three for five beyond the arc and scored 13 points all coming in the first half.
“It’s hard to switch on him because he’s such a good offensive rebounder, and we have small guards so that’s going to be a pretty significant mismatch,” Cincinnati’s Wes Miller said.
Scoring a total of 69 points in the last two games, freshman guard Kingston Flemings cooled down, leaving room for other guards to close the gap. Wings Mercy Miller and Isiah Harwell combined for 20 points, accounting for all of Houston’s bench points.
Senior guards Milos Uzan and Emmanuel Sharp maintained their consistent offensive output as well, with Sharp having 13 points and Uzan adding 16.
But what was more pleasing to coach Sampson, was both of them having three steals.
“Everything starts with our point of attack and then it flows down from there,” Sampson explained. “We’re not the same team we were a month ago, teams don’t stay the same, you either get better or get worse and we’re improving. We have guys that go in and our defense is not taking a dip like it was a month ago.
This showed as the Bearcats could only muster 20 points in the first half while the Cougars forced 19 total turnovers and scored 26 points off of them.
Team pressure did not let up, dictating Cincinnati’s offensive pace which resulted in multiple shot clock violations and also pushed the Bearcats to take bad shots. Junior forward Joseph Tugler took this opportunity to log a total of three blocks.
The Cougars largest lead of the day extended to 30 with six minutes left in the second half, largely due to Milos Uzan.
“Trying to be the coach out there on the floor, hold the guys accountable, hold myself accountable. That’s how you extend leads,” Uzan said. “That’s how you go from 10 to 15, that’s the jump we’re trying to make. We go up 10 not to just relax but to make sure we play with the same intensity.”
Houston will have two quality opportunities to maintain their intensive play this upcoming week. First back at the Fertita Center, Wednesday night against UCF (who just beat Texas Tech 88-80). Then, on the road to Provo, Utah for a long awaited clash with AJ Dybansta and the 13th ranked BYU Cougars Saturday February 7th (who just lost to Kansas 90-82 in a draft lottery matchup).
The Houston Cougars closed out the month of January with a 7-1 record now sitting at 19-2 overall and second in the Big 12 behind the Arizona Wildcats.
Delivered by Le’Raun Peron
