Cougars survive ‘out of character’ effort
FORT WORTH — The University of Houston is considered a lock for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a national title contender.
To coach Kelvin Sampson, it just might not have looked that way Friday afternoon.
“I thought we were kind of out of character with some things,” Sampson said after the top-ranked Cougars withstood a rough shooting performance for a 60-46 victory over East Carolina in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament at Dickies Arena. “We’ll get it back.”
Marcus Sasser scored 24 of his game-high 30 points in the second half as the top-seeded Cougars advanced to play fourthseeded Cincinnati — a 8454 winner over Temple — in Saturday’s semifinals.
The Cougars improved to 30-2, reaching the 30win mark in consecutive seasons for the first time since Phi Slama Jama finished national runner-up in 1982-83 and 1983-84.
Sampson was not happy in the post-game press conference after the Cougars shot a season-low 28.1 percent and were outrebounded 42-41.
“There’s not a lot of reasons he should be happy,” point guard Jamal Shead said. “What we emphasize, we did not go a good job today.”
In terms of effort, forward Reggie Chaney added: “We left some meat on the bone. We didn’t play as hard as we could have. I think they played a lot harder than we did.”
After running away with the regular-season title — and a sure-bet to be one of the four No. 1 seeds announced Sunday — the Cougars started slow Friday, missing nine straight shots and going 6½ minutes without a field goal to cling to a 23-21 halftime lead.
“One thing I learned from last year that’s carried over this year is the first (tournament) game is always the hardest,” Shead said. “A lot of people don’t want to go home.”
Sasser, the AAC’S player of the year, was 9-of-15 shooting, including 4-of-9 from 3-point range, for just the second 30-point outing in 103 career games. The senior guard had 10 consecutive points before he left the game to a standing ovation with UH ahead 5744 with 1:50 remaining.
“He showed he’s our best player,” Shead said. “Today showed that we can follow our best player at times when we need to. We are going to follow him until the wheels fall off.”
Sasser has scored at least 20 points in seven of the last eight games.
“I was off in the first half like everybody was,” said Sasser, who came within point of his career-high 31 set Jan. 11 against USF.
The rest of the Cougars were a combined 7-of-42.
Shead added 12 points and Jarace Walker, the AAC’S freshman of the year, was 1-of-6 shooting for five points in 22 minutes. Tramon Mark was 1of-10 from the floor for four points. J’wan Roberts was 0-for-5 shooting but had a team-high 12 rebounds.
“Shooting 28 percent, that’s hard to do,” Sampson said.
Sampson said he was disappointed with the Cougars’ seven offensive rebounds, almost half of the team’s per game average. Ezra Ausar, ECU’S 6-9 freshman forward, had 18 points and a AAC tournament-record 19 rebounds.
UH pulled away with a 16-5 run to begin the second half, which included 11 points from Sasser. Halfway through the second half, the Cougars had turned around their shooting woes enough to build a 14-point lead.