10 THINGS TO KNOW UH shooting runs hot and cold; Rice encouraged despite loss
Gray holds steady on inconsistent team
1 The Houston Cougars (6-2), who are shooting just under 50 percent (49.8) on the season, bounced back from their first loss against LSU (84-65) with a 105-61 blowout of Prairie View A&M last Saturday at home, then suffered another setback, falling 84-72 on Tuesday at Arkansas. The Cougars sizzled against Prairie View, shooting 55.2 percent, including 61.1 from 3 (11-of-18), but went cold on the road, finishing 27-of-62 (43.5 percent) from the floor against the Razorbacks. Rob Gray avoided the dropoff, scoring 22 points on 10-of-17 shooting. Next up is Rhode Island at 12:30 p.m. Saturday in one of four home games before the American Athletic Conference opener Dec. 28 against Connecticut.
Owls hanging tough
2 Texas Tech doesn’t miss. It’s fourth in the country in field-goal percentage at 52.3 percent through eight games. So even though Rice (6-2) blew a late lead and lost 85-84 to the Red Raiders last Saturday, snapping a fivegame winning streak, it was that close against a 7-1 Big 12 team is a good sign for the Owls, who still have three weeks to prepare for Conference USA play. They led 84-79 with 34 seconds remaining before Tech scored the final six points on a Keenan Evans 3-pointer and three free throws by Anthony Livingston (33 points), who was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 2.4 seconds left. G Marcus Evans led the Owls with 27 points and four assists and G/F Egor Koulechov supplied 25 points and six rebounds. They’re the team’s leading scorers on the season, too, with Evans averaging 23.1 points per game and Koulechov at 19.1 ppg. The Owls are shooting 48.3 percent from the field and 40.2 from beyond the arc. They return to action against Stephen F. Austin at 7 p.m. Saturday at Tudor Fieldhouse.
Delaney doing work for Sam Houston
3 Sophomore guard Cameron Delaney, a Killeen Harker Heights graduate who redshirted last season after transferring from Denver, came off the bench to hit five of six 3-pointers against LSU-Shreveport, sparking Sam Houston State (5-3) to a 91-59 win last Saturday. The Bearkats shot 55.9 percent from the floor and outscored LSU-Shreveport 57-26 in the second half. Delaney finished with a game-high 19 points and G Dakari Henderson, from Dawson, added 12 points for the Kats, who had 12 players score in the win. SHSU is back on the road to face Southern Illinois at 1 p.m. Saturday in Carbondale, Ill., before starting a stretch of three straight home games, and four in five games, next week.
TSU cools off after strong start
4 After starting the season 4-1, Texas Southern (4-4) is streaking in the wrong direction, dropping its third consecutive game 70-74 last Saturday at Southern Illinois. The Tigers trailed 36-27 at halftime and 43-34 early in the second half before storming back to a take a 51-50 lead on G Zach Loftin’s layup with 9:59 left. The game was backand-forth from there, but TSU still held a 70-68 lead with 1:30 remaining before Southern Illinois scored the final six points. The Tigers’ next chance to start a new streak is Saturday, but the schedule isn’t lightening up. They play at No. 11 Louisville, then play the next four games at Cincinnati, LSU, TCU and No. 4 Baylor.
Prairie View skid hits 4 games
5 Prairie View A&M (2-7) lost its fourth straight game Tuesday,
falling 74-55 at Kansas State, but that 19-point setback actually was an improvement after consecutive 40-point losses to Wisconsin (95-50) and Houston (105-61). The Panthers are shooting just 37.9 percent in their last three games combined, and they’ve been outrebounded 127-79 in that stretch. They still have four more road games before their next game in Prairie View, starting with Texas State at 4 p.m. Saturday in San Marcos.
Texas fails road test
6 The Texas Longhorns (4-4) lost 53-50 on Tuesday at Michigan in their first true road game after two neutral-site losses in the Legends Classic. They beat Alabama 77-68 last Friday but couldn’t maintain the momentum in Ann Arbor, Mich., with the lack of a true point guard clearly hurting the Horns down the stretch. They’re back home Saturday to face Long Beach State at 5 p.m. at the Erwin Center.
Aggies rebound from Wooden final
7 Texas A&M (5-2) handled Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 86-69 on Monday in its first game since falling to UCLA in the Wooden Legacy championship game. C Tyler Davis led the way with 25 points, eight rebounds and two blocks. The Aggies take on South Carolina State at 7 p.m. Saturday at Reed Arena after beating Denver 80-58 on Wednesday behind a seasonhigh 21 points from G JC Hampton.
Around the Big 12
8 Baylor (8-0) continues charging up the AP Top 25 rankings, going from No. 20 two weeks ago to No. 9 last week and fourth this week, with six first-place votes, leaving it right behind No. 3 Kansas (7-1). West Virginia (6-1) moved up 10 spots to 15th, and Iowa State (5-2) dropped from 19th to 25th.
Big 12’s ranked women
9 Baylor’s women are moving up, too, improving one spot to No. 3 in the latest AP Top 25. The Bears (10-1) battered Texas State 90-24 on Tuesday. Unbeaten West Virginia (9-0) also moved up, going from No. 16 to 13, but Texas (2-4) and Oklahoma (5-2) fell to 17th and 19th, respectively.
Game to watch: Houston vs. Rhode Island, 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Hofheinz Pavilion
10 G Rob Gray, averaging 19.8 points, and the Cougars (6-2) open a fourgame homestand against coach Dan Hurley, the younger brother of Bobby Hurley, and Rhode Island, which is off to a 6-3 start.