DEFENSIVE FOCUS NAME OF GAME FOR BEAVERS, COUGARS

The formula has been simple all year for Houston under Kelvin Sampson: play with toughness, get after teams defensively and go to work on the glass.

It has carried the Cougars within a win of the Final Four — and it’s working pretty well for Wayne Tinkle’s Oregon State squad in its surprise NCAA Tournament run, too.

Decades have passed since the second-seeded Cougars or 12th-seeded Beavers last reached the national semifinals — or made it anywhere close, for that matter. But their meeting today in the Midwest Region will send one team through to the tournament’s final weekend, and both should rely on a similar defensiveminded approach considering how their tournament success has come so far.

“We know how good Oregon State is,” Sampson said Sunday. “So we’re going to have to play good. They’re a lot more like us in that they get on the boards with athleticism and they play physical — should be a very good ballgame. We’re looking forward to it.”

It’s no major surprise to see Houston (27-3) emerging from the bottom half of the Midwest bracket, securing the program’s first trip to a regional final since 1984 amid the famed “Phi Slama Jama” era. The Cougars joined No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga and region top seed Illinois as the only teams in the top 10 of KenPom’s adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency rankings entering Sunday.

Yet little else went to plan in the Midwest. Loyola Chicago took down the Illini.

Eleventh-seeded Syracuse beat third-seeded West Virginia.

And most surprisingly, there are the Beavers (20-12), still alive with a chance to become the lowest-seeded team ever to reach a Final Four.

The same team that was picked to finish last in the Pac-12, then lost at home to a Portland team that finished at No. 327 in the NET, has won six straight games. That included a run through the league tournament to secure an NCAA bid unlikely to come otherwise. In the tournament for just the second time since 1990, Oregon State is now chasing its first trip to the national semifinals since 1963.

And much like with Houston, they’ve won three NCAA games primarily through defense and rebounding (plus-27 in the tournament).