Houston coach Kelvin Sampson spoke of the pride that comes with improving during the season and the challenge his program embraces of starting to peak when the calendar flips to February.
At this stage, the sixth-ranked Cougars appear to be right on track after extending their winning streak to 12 games with an impressive 80-58 victory at Cincinnati on Sunday.
Houston (20-2, 9-0 American) will look to remain unbeaten atop the conference standings when it faces second-place SMU in Dallas on Wednesday. The Cougars are 5-1 on the road, with the one loss coming at Alabama by one point and in controversial fashion on Dec. 11.
Despite a roster compromised by injuries, the Cougars continue to excel. Houston has done so by getting contributions from its veterans, with senior transfers Josh Carlton and Kyler Edwards both earning AAC Player of the Week honors before senior forward Fabian White Jr. did so this week after averaging 21.5 points and eight rebounds in victories over Tulane and Cincinnati.
“Fabian would be the first one to tell you it’s about the team,” Sampson said. “The thing that seniors learn to do that freshmen don’t is they learn what they can and can’t do. Fabian shoots when he’s open and passes when he’s not. Just thrilled for that young man. Just thrilled for him.”
SMU (16-5, 7-2) fell two games behind Houston in the conference standings with its 72-57 road loss to Wichita State on Saturday, a result that snapped a five-game winning streak.
The Mustangs shot just 36.5 percent against the Shockers and missed 15 of 20 3-point attempts. That offensive collapse was reminiscent of SMU’s 17-point loss at Cincinnati on Jan. 6, when the Mustangs shot 30.8 percent and missed 19 of 27 long-distance shots.
“We’ve kind of established, at least at this point, we’re up at the top of the standings, so you get ‘A’ games (from opponents), and that’s good,” SMU coach Tim Jankovich said. “You want that. You don’t want to be the team that gets the ‘C’ game.
“You want to be the team that gets the ‘A’ game, but what that means is when you go into a (road) environment, that ‘A’ game is pretty darn high defensively, and we did not score the ball well at either one of those places. We didn’t really run smooth offenses at either one of those places.
“We have to be able to push through that.”
SMU is 11-0 at home this season and has won 13 consecutive games at Moody Coliseum. However, against Wichita State, the Mustangs didn’t resemble the team that leads the conference in 3-pointers made per game (8.7), ranks second in 3-point percentage (.361) and third in scoring (75.1 points per game). SMU has the leading scorer in the conference in Kendric Davis (19.5 points per game) but must get its offense back on track against Houston.
That makes for a tall order given how exceptionally the Cougars have performed this season.
“We have to play a team that, at least on paper, is better than (Wichita State),” Jankovich said. “We are playing them at home, but that only goes so far. We’re going to have to play unbelievable defense from start to finish, and we’re going to have to find ways to take and get better shots.”
–Field Level Media
