Cougars eager to shake off first loss

For the first time this season, the University of Houston lost.

By 2 a.m. Thursday, the team arrived back home from a 73-69 loss to Temple in Philadelphia. The best way to cure any potential hangover? The No. 17 Cougars were back on the practice court later that afternoon.

“A lot of teams will let a loss bleed into two,” said UH coach Kelvin Sampson, whose squad will look to bounce back Saturday night against Wichita State at the Fertitta Center.

For a couple hours, Sampson said he “got my point across” about certain things the Cougars did not do well in snapping a 15-0 start to the season. The Cougars had lapses on defense and had only 11 offensive rebounds, hustle stats that Sampson stresses almost religiously every day.

“They outplayed us,” Sampson said. “My observations of the game, watching film and going through the defensive edit and offensive rebounding edit, those were things I was most disappointed in. Those are things you can control. You can’t control the ball going in. You can’t control the referee and their calls. But you can control your effort. That’s the thing that disappointed me.”

Guard Armoni Brooks, one of the team’s top scorers, struggled through a 2-for-12 shooting night with five points and starting forward Cedrick Alley Jr. managed just three points.

“We had some guys that just completely no-showed. We addressed that,” Sampson said.

If recent history is any indication, UH (15-1, 2-1 American Athletic Conference) will get back on track quickly. The Cougars have not lost back-to-back regular season games since January 2017.

UH also enters Saturday’s game with a 28-game home winning streak that is the longest in the nation.