Cougars hit bottom vs. league’s worst
Houston had no answer for East Carolina’s 3-point assault Wednesday night.
It likely cost the Cougars any chance of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Tremont Robinson-White had five of East Carolina’s 11 3pointers to help the Pirates stun the fifth-ranked Cougars 82-73 at Minges Coliseum in Greenville, N.C.
ECU had been 0-17 all-time against top-five teams.
“This one will haunt me for a while,” UH coach Kelvin Sampson said after the Cougars had their eight-game winning streak snapped.
There was plenty of blame to go around in UH’s worst top-tobottom
performance of the season. The Cougars were outplayed, outhustled and nearly outrebounded by the last-place team in the American Athletic Conference.
Sampson pointed the finger at himself.
“At end of the day, it comes down to the coach, man,” Sampson said. “The coach has to do a better job of getting his
team ready to play. Obviously, I didn’t. I have to stand up and say, ‘You know what? You have to do a better job in these situations.’ You always point the finger at yourself and ask, ‘What could I have done better?’ ”
Jayden Gardner had 21 points and 15 rebounds as the Pirates did what no team had been able to do this season: exploit the Cougars on a rare off night. East Carolina shot 47.4 percent and made 11 of 24 3pointers against a UH defense that entered first nationally in points allowed per game (56) and opponent field-goal percentage (36.2).
ECU entered the game shooting 32 percent from beyond the 3-point line but made 10 of 18 to begin the game. That was quite the turnaround for a team that hadn’t won in a month and has struggled offensively most of the season while dealing with COVID-19 interruptions.
ECU had lost nine in a row to the Cougars.
“Sometimes you just don’t have an explanation. I wish I knew why,” Sampson said. “We might’ve stopped it. It just seemed like we were a step slow all night, especially getting after those shooters.”
Robinson-White had 17 points, J.J. Miles added 14, and Bitumba Baruti chipped in 13 for ECU.
After leading 40-37 at halftime, the Cougars (15-2, 10-2 AAC) quickly fell behind in the second half and only briefly regained the lead. After ECU took a 51-43 lead, DeJon Jarreau and Marcus Sasser hit back-toback 3s and Reggie Chaney made a pair of free throws to tie the game at 51.
ECU led for the final 12plus minutes as the Cougars never made a serious challenge the rest of the way, missing 15 of their final 18 shots. ECU led by as many as 11 points in the second half, the largest deficit for the Cougars this season.
Jarreau had a game-high 25 points for UH. Sasser added 17, and Justin Gorham finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds. It was his ninth straight game with double-figure rebounds.
Quentin Grimes, who has been dealing with a foot injury, struggled for the second game and finished with seven points on 2-of-10 shooting.
UH entered the game No. 4 in the NET rankings and among the schools in contention for a No. 1 seed in next month’s NCAA Tournament.
The Cougars’ only other loss this season was 65-64 at Tulsa on a pair of free throws with one-tenth of a second left. Just like Wednesday, that loss came after the Cougars climbed to No. 5 in the national polls.
“What we’ve accomplished up to this point has been tremendous,” Sampson said. “We didn’t become a bad team tonight. We just gave a poor effort. That’s something that comes back to me. I’ve got to fix it.”