Grimes takes wheel
Along with Jarreau, junior helps Cougars bounce back from second loss
Once Quentin Grimes got into a shooting groove Wednesday night, the Houston Cougars just sat back and admired.
Grimes had a season-high 29 points, including six 3-pointers, and DeJon Jarreau added 17 points as the eighth-ranked Cougars beat South Florida 8265 at the Yuengling Center in Tampa, Fla.
“We’ve seen Quentin get in these grooves and we just let him go,” UH coach Kelvin Sampson said. “And our guys know to look for him.”
A “streaky shooter,” according to Sampson, Grimes had been bothered in recent weeks by a sprained ankle. The junior guard said he had a good week of practice and his ankle is close to 100 percent. It was noticeable as Grimes was able to elevate freely on a jump shot teammates often describe as a thing of beauty.
“Sometimes a bad (ankle) may take concentration away or maybe be a distraction,” Sampson said. “He certainly wasn’t distracted tonight.”
Throughout this season, the Cougars have played spin-thewheel on who will carry the offensive load. Some games it’s been Marcus Sasser. Most recently, it’s been Cameron Tyson with a pair of 30-point outings.
“It was Quentin’s turn,” Sampson said.
Grimes scored 19 of his points in the second half as the Cougars built a 28-point lead. He finished the game 10-of-21 from the floor, including six 3-pointers.
The pivotal stretch of the
game came during UH’s 21-3 run in the second half, highlighted by three consecutive 3s by Grimes during a 45-second span as the Cougars took the biggest lead of the game at 72-44 with 11:40 left.
“When he gets hot, there’s no telling when he’s going to miss,” Jarreau said. “He already has a pretty shot. But when he gets going, it’s over with.”
Not far away from the South Florida campus Wednesday, Tom Brady was tossing the Lombardi Trophy during a Super Bowl boat parade on the Hillsborough River. Firstplace UH continued pursuit of its own trophy, improving to 17-2 overall and 11-2 in the American Athletic Conference.
The 17-point road win was also the first chance for the UH starters — they sat out Saturday’s game against NAIA Our Lady of the Lake — to get rid of the bad taste from an 82-73 loss to East Carolina on Feb. 3.
“We don’t know who that was at East Carolina,” Grimes said. “We knew coming into this game we wanted to win bad.”
That was evident from the start as the Cougars came out hot, making 10 of the first 12 shots. Sampson said UH made a concerted effort to push the pace, which led to 21 fast-break points.
Jarreau, a senior guard, was the catalyst with eight assists and only two turnovers. Sampson called Jarreau’s point guard play “outstanding” and added he was “the key to the engine.”
Sasser had only seven points — he did not score until less than four minutes before halftime — but had seven assists.
Sampson praised the Cougars’ defense, which held South Florida to 30 points and 36 percent shooting in the second half. UH held a slight 36-32 edge in a battle of two of the top rebounding teams in the league.
“Our defense was so good,” Sampson said. “Stops and rebounds were leading to run outs. That was fun to watch.”
One streak did come to an end. Justin Gorham finished with 11 points and eight rebounds, snapping his streak of nine consecutive games with double-digit rebounds.
David Collins had 18 points and Michael Durr added 14 points and seven rebounds for South Florida, which has lost 31 in a row against ranked opponents. The Bulls (7-6, 3-4 AAC) were playing for the first time in 32 days after a COVID-19 pause forced the postponement of seven games.
South Florida was able to keep things close for most of the first half, relying on 3-pointers to pull even at 2727. UH went on an 11-2 run and led 43-35 at halftime.
After UH went ahead by 28, South Florida put together a 13-2 run that forced Sampson to send his firstteam unit back into the game. The Bulls got as close as 76-61 on a layup by Alexis Yetna with 6:01 left but did not hit another field goal.
UH shot 53 percent for the game, a trend Sampson hopes continues.
“Hopefully this is a sign our offense is coming around,” he said. “This is a good time for it.”