UH came out on fire Sunday afternoon and steamrolled a hapless USF team in the first half, putting the game out of reach before the first media timeout. Houston led by 10+ points for more than 34 of the last 35 minutes and won 98-52.
The Cougars came out on a mission and were hitting shots from everywhere. Kelvin Sampson’s team hit 10 three-pointers in the first 10.5 minutes of the game. In that same span, Quentin Grimes and DeJon Jarreau combined for 33 points.
Late in the first half, Houston had scored 52 points on their first 23 possessions – over 2.25 points per trip down the floor. When Grimes left the game with just over 13 minutes to play in the second half, he and Jarreau were still outscoring USF (38-34).
As always, Kelvin Sampson was less focused on shooting and scoring than on the hustle stats. After the game, he highlighted UH’s assist/turnover ratio of 5.4:1 –
“The stat that I’m most proud of today, and this shows you the growth of our team this year, was 27 assists and five turnovers,” Sampson said in his postgame interview. “To have 27 assists and five turnovers, the unselfishness and moving the ball and finding the open man and that guy shooting with confidence.”
Houston is now first nationally first in field goal percentage defense, 2nd in scoring defense, and in 3rd in scoring margin. UH is in the top-10 in eight statistical categories tracked by the NCAA.
Click a photo and you can scroll through each of them in the lightbox. All images © Mario Puente 2021.
