No. 3 Houston stays unbeaten with 89-55 victory over West Virginia
HOUSTON (AP) — L.J. Cryer scored 20 points, Damian Dunn added 14 points and No. 3 Houston improved to 14-0 with an 89-55 win over West Virginia in the Cougars' inaugural Big 12 contest on Saturday.
Cryer scored 16 points in the first half on 6-of-7 shooting, including four 3-pointers, as Houston shot 58% as a team and took a 48-22 lead into halftime. Cryer has scored at least 20 points in five games this season.
“We focused on defense, and I felt like we were going to get out into transition and get easier shots,” Cryer said. “Just being locked in on defense will make you dialed in on offense. I felt like because I was defensive focused today that's why the ball was going in.”
Ja'Vier Francis had 13 points and five rebounds, and Jamal Shead had eight points and 11 assists for Houston, which shot 53% overall, including 9 of 18 on 3-pointers.
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said the first Big 12 conference game didn't feel any different to him.
“We wanted to win for sure, and there's an excitement about playing our first conference game,” Sampson said. “Now we go play our second one. I don't spend a lot of time with the hoopla stuff.”
Houston extended its home winning streak to 14 games. The Cougars improved to 14-0 for the third time in school history, joining the 1967-68 and 2018-19 teams.
The Cougars forced 12 turnovers and turned them into 14 points. Houston also had a 48-20 advantage in points in the paint.
“We had a really good plan against their zone,” Sampson said. “We knew exactly how we wanted to attack their man-to-man (defense), and then, when they went zone, we just flowed right into what we had worked on. Our kids are unselfish. Everybody understands their role, buys into it and accepts it. Our defense got us going early, and we fed off that.”
Patrick Suemnick had 12 points and five rebounds and Noah Farrakhan added nine points for West Virginia (5-9, 0-1 Big 12). The Mountaineers shot 32% and were 4 of 23 on 3-pointers.
RaeQuan Battle, who had led the Mountaineers with 27 points per game, finished with four points on 1-of-9 shooting.
“That was an impressive performance defensively,” West Virginia interim coach Josh Eilert said of Houston. “I thought we could maybe create some advantages in the game play, but they did a masterful job defensively in their game plan in terms of what they did to us and what they took us out of.” No. 2 KANSAS 83,
TCU 81 LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Hunter Dickinson scored with 3.4 seconds left to lift No. 2 Kansas past TCU 83-81 on Saturday.
Dickinson, who led Kansas with 30 points, hit a pair of free throws after a flagrant foul on TCU's Ernest Udeh Jr. with less than a minute remaining to tie the game. Dickinson then followed Dajuan Harris Jr.'s miss in the final seconds.
Kansas (13-1, 1-0 Big 12) also got 18 points from KJ Adams Jr. Kevin McCullar Jr. had 16 points and Harris scored 10.
TCU (11-3, 0-1) was led by Trevian Tennyson with 24 points. He was joined in double figures by Emanuel Miller with 20 points and Micah Peavy and Jameer Nelson Jr. with 10 points each.
Kansas did not have a field goal from anyone outside of Dickinson, McCullar or Adams until Harris hit a layup with 16:04 left in the second half.
The Jayhawks couldn't shake the Horned Frogs in the first half. Their largest lead was just six points (30-24). Each time Kansas tried to pull away, TCU responded. The Horned Frogs took two late leads before Kansas got a jumper from McCullar to take a 41-40 lead into halftime.
Dickinson led a trio of Jayhawks in double figures in the first half with 18 points.
Both teams shot better than 50% in the first half. TCU was 17 of 33 (51.5%), while Kansas had as many makes with one less attempt for 53.1% from the field.
No. 6 KENTUCKY 87,
FLORIDA 85 GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Aaron Bradshaw may have earned himself the green light moving forward.
The 7-foot-1 freshman hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 1:27 to play — just his third of the season — and No. 6 Kentucky rallied to beat Florida 87-85 on Saturday in the first Southeastern Conference opener between the rivals in 26 years.
Bradshaw finished with 10 points and seven rebounds for the Wildcats (11-2), who won their fifth in a row and ninth in 10 games.
This one went Florida's way for most of the afternoon, right up until coach John Calipari called a shot for his big man coming out of a timeout. Bradshaw set a ball screen and then got the ball back for a straight-on trey that was nothing but net.
It silenced many of the 10,000-plus on hand in the O'Connell Center.
“It was fun. I like that," Bradshaw said. "That's a really good team. I find it real, real gratifying. It was real fun. I'm not going to lie. It was real fun playing in front of them and against them.”
Bradshaw entered the game having made two of three from behind the arc, so the Gators knew he could shoot. But he surely wasn't atop the watch list.
“If you would have told me they were going to need a 3 from their freshman big to dagger you guys, you'd probably live with that," Florida coach Todd Golden said. "He beat us with that shot. We didn't really beat ourselves with that shot.”
The Gators (10-4) led by as many as 11 in the first half and were up for nearly 30 of the 40 minutes. But they went cold down the stretch, going scoreless for nearly three minutes in the waning minutes, and then fell behind on Bradshaw's shot with the game tied at 76.
Kentucky never trailed again, thanks partly to Reed Sheppard hitting six free throws in the final 19 seconds to ice it.
Antonio Reeves led the Cats with 19 points, and D.J. Wagner added 14. Sheppard also had 14. Kentucky made 12 of 13 from the charity stripe after missing the front end of consecutive oneand-ones late.
“This is where you find out where you are right now," Calipari said, praising his team for never backing down in a hostile environment. “I don't care if they're young. They're dogs. They have a will to win.”
Florida's six-game winning streak came to an end. Zyon Pullin and Walter Clayton led the Gators with 23 points apiece. Riley Kugel added 15 off the bench.