Cougars prep for Boeheim’s zone
INDIANAPOLIS — Late in the University of Houston’s secondround comeback against Rutgers, Quentin Grimes missed a pair of free throws. What happened next is a snapshot of what the Cougars do best: Fabian White Jr. tipped the second miss to Dejon Jarreau, who passed to Grimes. Grimes stepped back well beyond the arc and drained a 3-pointer.
Just like that, the Cougars went from possibly no points off the missed free throws to three points — “unscripted points,” as coach Kelvin Sampson calls them — as the Cougars pulled within one possession with 2½ minutes left. UH staged a 10-point comeback to squeak by Rutgers 63-60.
“That’s a big part of who we are,” Sampson said. “It’s what we emphasize.”
“Unscripted points” is a term likely to be heard plenty Saturday night as the second-seeded Cougars (26-3) face 11th-seeded Syracuse (18-9) and its vexing 2-3 matchup zone in the Sweet 16 at Hinkle Fieldhouse. A win would send the Cougars to the Elite Eight — against the winner of the other regional semifinal between No. 8 seed Loyola Chicago and No. 12 seed Oregon State — for the first time since Phi Slama Jama reached the national title game in 1984.
“We have a chance to make history,” said UH All-america guard Quentin Grimes, who is averaging 20 points in NCAA Tournament wins over Cleveland State and Rutgers. “We have a chance to do something special that hasn’t been done (at UH) in a long time. We have a great opportunity to show the world how good we are.”
But first the Cougars must break the code of the 2-3 zone that Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim has been perfecting for decades. It’s like learning a foreign language you may only hear a couple times a year. It’s the triple-option of college basketball — few, if any, schools run it, and those that do don’t come close to how the Orange infuriate teams. You might have a better chance of helping Stefan Thomas guess his password to access a stash of $220 million bitcoin than game plan for the 2-3 zone.
“You don’t just roll out of bed and play 2-3 zone the way they do,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, whose Mountaineers lost to Syracuse 75-72 in the second round. “He’s the best that’s ever coached the 2-3 zone and they’re the best to ever play it.”
Rather than a quick turnaround between the first- and secondround games, Houston had five days to devise a strategy for how to approach the 2-3 zone. Sampson said the Cougars typically play 5 or 6 teams that play zone, among them Central Florida, Tulane and Tulsa.
“One of the advantages against teams like ours, we don’t ever work on zone offense,” Sampson said. “The only time we ever work on zone offense is the week we play somebody that plays zone. From October to November, December, unless we are playing somebody that plays zone, we don’t work on zone offense.”
Sampson concurs with Huggins: “Jim may be the best ever teaching the 2-3 zone.”
Sampson has seen Boeheim’s 2-3 zone firsthand in the NCAA Tournament. In 2003, Oklahoma was a No. 1 seed and lost to Syracuse 63-47 in the Elite Eight, denying Sampson a return trip to the Final Four. The Sooners shot 5 of 28 from 3-point range.
The Cougars rely heavily on outside shooting, taking an average 25 3-point shots per game. Grimes, a All-america guard and the AAC’S co-player of the year, leads the team with 91 3s and sophomore guard Marcus Sasser is second with 66. The team’s next deep threats are Cameron Tyson (35) off the bench and Dejon Jarreau (29).
“You’re going to settle for long 3s a lot,” Sampson said. “That doesn’t mean you’re not running your offense. It might be the only shot you get that possession. You’re not going to sit here and scheme up a great shot every possession. Forget that. Nobody does that. I’ve watched them play Notre Dame, North Carolina State, Duke, every one of those teams struggled and they watch it twice a year every year.
“So, if somebody in the tournament struggles, what about the teams in the league that struggle against it? Every team in the ACC struggles against that zone. Now some of them have been successful. We see it once a year.”
Sampson has offered a reminder all season that the Cougars are not a good first- or even secondshot team.
“They are going to force you into some bad possessions,” Sampson said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t win the game. We had some horrible possessions against Rutgers’ man-to-man. We have bad possessions against any kind of defense. If we have a bad possession, it’s not going to be just because of the zone. It’s because we struggle sometime.”
That, forward Justin Gorham said, is when the Cougars must go to what makes them one of the best teams in the country. The Cougars are third nationally in offensive rebounds (14.4); the Orange have struggled on the defensive boards this season. UH leads the nation in field-goal percentage defense (37.3) and is fifth in 3-point defense (28.3), which will be critical as they attempt to contain 6-6 guard Buddy Boeheim, who is averaging 27.5 points and has 13 3s in two tournament games.
“We’ve got to find him wherever he’s at and put a body on the big fella and play to our culture,” Gorham said. “Defend and play hard.”