Randy Riggs in the Austin American-Statesman said it best:
“Phi Slama Jama fraternity held its version of Hell Night at Hofheinz Pavilion Tuesday. The slamas and the jamas didn’t start until relatively late in the proceedings, but the end result still was hellish enough for the Texas Longhorn basketball team.”
On February 15, 1983, the #4 Houston Cougars beat Texas at Hofheinz, 106-63. Akeem had a triple-double: 17 points, 13 boards, and ten blocked shots. Akeem had as many triple-doubles that night against Texas as the Horns have had in their entire history (1).
Clyde Drexler scored 21, Michael Young added 18, and Mr. Mean Larry Micheaux scored 13 points. It was UH’s 20th straight conference win and 17th straight win at home.
The game had all sorts of symbolism and secondary storylines, too.
It is UT’s worst loss in the last 50 years and the fourth-largest loss in nearly 120 years of Texas basketball.
The new rankings had come out a day earlier, and the Cougars had risen to #4, their highest ranking since 1968. Two weeks later, UH would ascend to #1.
Heading into the game against Texas, some UH football players had asked the Cougar hoopers to avenge their 50-0 loss to UT in Austin the previous fall.
“The football players really wanted us to run it up,” Akeem explained after the game. “They wanted us to score 100 points because of what happened to them at Austin.”
“The game meant a lot to the football players. They wanted us to win by 50 and they were sincere about it,’ Drexler added.
Akeem broke the school record for blocked shots in a season during the game.
The Coogs forced 15 first-half turnovers with their relentless man-to-man defense and led 53-26 at the break. Clyde scored on a breakaway dunk at the end of the half and was one of three Cougars in double figures in the first 20 minutes.
Houston then scored the first 13 points of the second half to lead by 40.
“It took us a while to break it open,” Guy V. Lewis said. “In the end, we just had too many guns for them. We had so many different guys going in there over and over again that it just wore them down.”
UH beat Texas by 25 a month earlier at the Erwin Center. The one-season combined deficit of 68 points is the worst against a single team in Texas history. The Erwin Center win on 1/15/83 was UT’s second-worst Erwin Center loss at the time.
Olajuwon “was dominant. He’s just a dominant player,” Drexler said.
“He’s awesome.”
