Fabian White Jr. scored a career-high 28 points as No. 14 Houston clinched the American Athletic Conference regular-season championship by turning back visiting Cincinnati 71-53 on Tuesday night.
Josh Carlton chipped in with 15 points, and Kyler Edwards and Taze Moore both added 12 points for the Cougars (25-4, 14-2 AAC), who’ve captured the AAC for the third time in a four-year span. It’s the 10th regular-season conference crown in program history.
Houston holds a five-game winning streak with two regular-season games remaining.
Mike Saunders Jr. posted 14 points off the bench and John Newman III had 11 points for Cincinnati (17-13, 7-10), which has lost a season-high four consecutive games.
After shooting 52 percent in the first half, the Bearcats were held to 13 points in the first 15 minutes of the second half as the Cougars pulled away. The score was 60-43 with nine minutes left.
That allowed Houston to withstand a span of almost seven minutes without a field goal.
White, a fifth-year player, also pulled in 10 rebounds to help Houston to a 41-28 advantage on the boards. His previous career-high point total came with 22 points Feb. 6 at Cincinnati.
Houston outscored the Bearcats 20-5 on free throws. Cincinnati shot 5-for-16 at the foul line.
White had 20 points on 8-for-12 shooting from the field by halftime, but the Cougars led only 38-34 – aided by Moore’s 3-pointer in transition at the buzzer.
Cincinnati held a 17-0 advantage in bench points in the first half. That stretched to 24-0 for the game.
The Bearcats shot 40 percent for the game.
Houston didn’t have its first double-digit lead until nearly six minutes into the second half, holding a 48-38 edge while Carlton was in the middle of what became a 3-minute stretch of scoring all of the Cougars’ seven points.
This was a make-up game from a Dec. 28 COVID-related postponement and it came less than a month after Houston’s 24-point win at Cincinnati.
-Field Level Media
