Coogs rectify sloppy first half
Rob Gray scored 20 points, and Corey Davis Jr. continued his hot 3-point shooting as the University of Houston overcame a sloppy first half for its sixth win in a row, 88-66 over Fairfield on Wednesday at H & PE Arena.
Coming off a 26-point blowout of Arkansas, UH (7-1) committed 14 turnovers in the first half and allowed Fairfield of the Metro Alantic Athletic Conference to pull within 47-38 less than four minutes into the second half.
“Once we settled in the second half and (after) Coach (Kelvin Sampson) gets on us in the locker room, we know we have to eliminate everything we did wrong in the first half,” said Houston forward Breaon Brady, who had 10 points and eight rebounds.
UH gave itself a generous cushion with an 18-2 run midway through the first half and never led by fewer than nine points the rest of the game.
But during one timeout, Sampson told his team “we’re wearing white (jerseys)” after several bad passes led to turnovers.
“Just mind-boggling, idiotic passes and plays,” Sampson said. “Just stuff that drives you nuts. We just stopped being idiotic is what we did.”
The Cougars got the message, committing only four turnovers over the final 20 minutes. They also resumed their hot shooting by making nine straight shots in the second half.
UH shot 55.2 percent for the game and was 11-of-16 (68.8 percent) from 3-point range. Gray made seven of 10 shots, while Davis had 16 points and was 5-of-7 from beyond the arc.
Davis, a transfer from San Jacinto College, is 10of-19 from 3-point range in the last two games.
Devin Davis had 11 points and nine rebounds for the Cougars, and Wes Van Beck added 10 points, including three 3-pointers.
Tyler Nelson led Fairfield (3-5) with 17 points.
UH plays at Saint Louis on Saturday.