Houston holds off upstart Beavers
Houston overcame a blown 17-point lead to hold off Oregon State 67-61 on Monday night in the NCAA Tournament, reaching the Final Four for the first time in 37 years.
Quentin Grimes hit a 3-pointer with 3:21 left to break a 55-all tie. The second-seeded Cougars (28-3) spent the first half building a big lead behind a dominant defense, but they spent the second half hanging on as the 12th-seeded Beavers tried to add one more surprising result to a Midwest Region bracket beset by upsets.
Grimes’ 3 from near the top of the arc finally steadied the Cougars, and Houston knocked down enough free throws down the stretch while holding Oregon State without a basket during a critical 3 1/2 minutes.
That sent the Cougars on to the national semifinals to face Baylor.
It wasn’t always pretty, with Houston shooting 29% after halftime and 32% for the game. Yet it also exemplified the program’s rugged defense-first identity under Kelvin Sampson, who has led Houston to accomplishments it hadn’t matched since the famed “Phi Slama Jama” days of the 1980s.
Marcus Sasser scored 20 points to lead Houston while Grimes added 18. Fittingly, it was DeJon Jarreau — the American Athletic Conference’s defensive player of the year who led the effort that stymied Oregon State star Ethan Thompson — who was named the most outstanding player of the Midwest Region.
Jarreau finished with 10 points, eight rebounds and eight assists two days after flirting with another triple-double and shutting down Syracuse’s Buddy Boeheim
in the Sweet 16.
BAYLOR 81, ARKANSAS 72 >>
Baylor reached the Final Four for the first time in 71 years, getting 22 points from MaCio Teague and a dominating defensive performance from Davion Mitchell to beat Arkansas.
The South Region final was a reunion of former Southwest Conference programs aiming to join another (Houston) in the Final Four.
The top-seeded Bears (26-2) had not been able to get over the Elite Eight hump in two previous tries under Scott Drew and appeared to be barreling toward a blowout.
The Razorbacks (25-7) revved up the Mus Bus after some early sputtering, trimming an 18-point lead down to four.
The Bears ran away from there, right into next weekend’s Final Four against the Cougars.
Women
UCONN 69, BAYLOR 67 >> Paige Bueckers scored 28 points and top seed UConn
used a huge run spanning the final two quarters to beat No. 2 Baylor and reach a 13th consecutive Final Four.
UConn has made the national semifinals every season since 2008 and won six titles during that span. The Huskies will face Arizona on Friday night. The Wildcats are playing in their first Final Four after beating Indiana.
The Huskies (28-1) trailed 55-45 late in the third quarter before scoring 19 consecutive points, including 10 by the freshman phenom Bueckers, who became the third firstyear player to make firstteam All-America.
Baylor (28-3) wouldn’t go away as Bueckers went cold in the final minutes. ARIZONA 66, INDIANA 53 >> Aari McDonald scored 33 points and No. 3 seed Arizona beat No. 4 Indiana to earn its first trip to the Final Four.
McDonald, the Pac12 player of the year, did everything for the Wildcats, from slashing drives to a banked-in 3-pointer. She briefly left the game with a twisted ankle with 2:35 left, but limped back on and scored six more points.