THE END OF THE LINE
Shooting slump sinks Coogs’ championship dreams as Bears roll on
INDIANAPOLIS — The University of Houston’s best season in 37 years finally ended in the Final Four.
With a numbing thud. Baylor is one heck of a basketball team, and Scott Drew’s Bears are leaping into the 2021 NCAA Tournament men’s championship game against Gonzaga.
The Cougars?
They were down 45-20 at halftime Saturday inside Lucas Oil Stadium. And it was worse in person.
“Baylor is clearly the best team we’ve played,” UH coach Kelvin Sampson said. “They may be the best team in the seven years I’ve been here.”
Sophomore guard Marcus Sasser sank five 3-pointers in
the game’s initial 20 minutes. But the rest of the Coogs were 1-of-15 from the floor and 0-of-6 on 3s, while Sampson was barely able to get anything positive out of a team that entered the contest having won 13 of its last 14 and dropping only one game since Feb. 3.
It ended as 78-59 Baylor, giving the state of Texas a team in the season’s final game. The Bears will face either No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga or UCLA on Monday in Indy. UH (1984) and Texas Tech (2019) were the last two to make it that far, but none has won since Texas Western in 1966. The Cougars had hoped to be the one.
Sampson rebuilt UH’s once-broken program. He created a tough, team-first group that thrived on relentless rebounding and 40 minutes of defense.
Reaching the Final Four reconnected the 2020-21 Coogs with the program’s peak in the Phi Slama Jama era of the early 1980s.
But Sampson’s trademark sideline fire was quickly erased Saturday. Instead of shouting out instant in-game adjustments and constantly pushing his Coogs, the 65-year-old coach often stood near the middle of the court with his arms folded or on his hips. In the final minutes, Sampson pulled junior guard Quentin Grimes in close and held a private conversation before UH’s best scorer left the game.
Sampson described the halftime and postgame locker room as “really emotional.”
Sasser thanked the coach who helped lift the Coogs higher than they had been in almost four decades.
“We wouldn’t be this far without him. He pushed us to the limit,” said Sasser, who recorded game highs in points (20) and minutes (39). “You can see that it paid off. We just fell short. He was just telling us that we had a legendary season.”
Baylor (27-2) kept flicking UH (28-4) away with the championship game just 40 minutes away. The South Region’s No. 1 seed turned an early 8-6 deficit into a stunning 39-12 run, overpowering the Midwest Region’s No. 2 Cougars on both ends of the hardwood and exposing a clear difference in on-court talent.
UH advanced to the Final Four by beating Nos. 15, 10, 11 and 12 seeds. The Coogs barely edged Rutgers, needed 35 minutes to create separation from Syracuse and almost blew a 17-point lead against Oregon State.
UH’s comparatively easy path to one of the last four spots in an unprecedented March Madness — the entire tournament was confined to Indiana; cardboard cutouts filled the first section of seats Saturday inside a socially distanced NFL stadium — became a weak link against the tested and proven Bears.
But the Coogs’ real problem was their only true weakness all season: shooting.
Sampson consistently acknowledged in March that his squad relied on second and third shots set up by winning the board battle. That old-school system prevailed against Cleveland State, Rutgers, Syracuse and Oregon State.
Baylor, which hadn’t appeared in the Final Four since 1950, flexed on the Coogs and did what true title contenders do.
While the Big 12’s Bears were shooting 58.1 percent from the floor and a smooth 50 percent on 3s, the American Athletic Conference’s Final Four entry was connecting on only 33.3 percent of its shots and being outrebounded 21-12.
“I’m so impressed with Baylor. … I don’t think I’ve seen a team with five guards at that level,” Sampson said. “No dropoff. They were good at both ends.”
Without Sasser, UH had nothing on offense. DeJon Jarreau and Grimes were a combined 3-of-14 shooting with seven turnovers while Baylor led 52-32 with 14 minutes remaining.
UH simply couldn’t keep up with the Bears.
The Coogs fought for and reached an elusive stage they hadn’t seen since 1984.
Then Sampson’s team was blown out by a much stronger Baylor squad still fighting for a national championship.
The 2020-21 Cougars are finally done.
But what a run it was, especially during the madness. What a special and memory-filled year it became.
“You may never go to another Final Four. Those are hard to get to,” Sampson said. “Look at all the teams that have never been to one.”