LAWRENCE, Kansas — When Big 12 schedule-makers unveiled the slate in September, Kelvin Sampson’s eyes gravitated toward the trial by fire that Houston just exited: Feb. 16 at No. 4 Iowa State, Feb. 21 vs. No. 2 Arizona and Feb. 23 at No. 14 Kansas.
“Spurs on Monday, Oklahoma City on Saturday, turn around and play Marcus Sasser’s [Detroit] Pistons,” Sampson says with a twinkle in his eye to perhaps hide the frustration in his soul.
Houston had Iowa State dead to rights in the second half before the Cyclones’ role players like Nate Heise and Jamarion Batemon hit some gigantic treys to rally Iowa State to a 70-67 victory. Five days later, Houston had Arizona right in its crosshairs before petering out down the stretch to one of the National Championship frontrunners. Some 48 hours after that, Houston had to walk into Allen Fieldhouse to play Kansas. The Jayhawks, fresh off a frustrating home loss to Cincinnati, used an 11-0 burst at the end of the first half and a 16-3 surge early in the second half to run away with a 69-56 win.
Houston got Hilton Magic’d, Zona’d and Big Monday’d in a week-long stretch. For the first time since 2017, Houston has lost three games in a row, and yet, Sampson walked into Monday’s postgame press conference itching to preach positivity.
“We’re not gonna go jump off with the bridge ’cause we lost this game,” Sampson says. “I knew what we were walking into, but I was really, really proud of our guys.”
Maybe that’s a public front — Sampson is never cool with Ls — but there’s some truth laced into the sermon. There is such a thing as schedule losses in hoops, and catching an irritated Kansas on Big Monday (a spot that Bill Self entered a mind-boggling 40-0) looks like a schedule loss if there ever was one.
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Houston’s starting backcourt of Milos Uzan, Emanuel Sharp and Kingston Flemings combined for 28 points on 35 shots, by far the worst performance of the season for the best trio of guards that you can find in college basketball. Sampson did note that Sharp was nicked up after a bad fall against Arizona, and Uzan is fighting an ankle injury.
“I took Milos and Emanuel out for a reason; they had nothing, they were dead,” Sampson said. “Sharp guarded his butt off. I think he played 35 minutes on Saturday. Milos played 38 minutes [against Arizona]. That was why I took them all out with eight minutes to go. They just had no legs. But that’s the schedule we had to play.”
The three-game slide all but knocks Houston out of the Big 12 Championship chase. The Cougars trail Arizona by two games in the loss column with three to play. The Cougars have a 0.1% chance of earning the No. 1 seed in the Big 12 Tournament, per CBB Analytics.
But is it time for panic about Houston’s hopes in March? As usual, it’s complicated.
Potential hot spots emerging
Just 27% of Houston’s offensive shots come at the rim. This Cougars team is more jump-shot reliant than any other high-major team in college basketball, so when you play a third game in eight days, and the legs are gone, nights like Monday can emerge.
Seventeen of Houston’s 66 (26%) shots against Kansas came at the rim. The Cougars took 39 jumpers and shot just 23% on ’em, the second-worst showing this year according to Synergy.
Sampson pointed to dead legs, and the eye test and data unequivocally back up those claims. Houston missed short on a ton of jumpers.
You can win with a jump-shot heavy diet like this when you offensive rebound at a very high level. Houston preaches offensive rebounding as well as anybody in the country, and big man JoJo Tugler owns the No. 1 offensive rebounding rate in Big 12 play. Tugler is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. He’s revered for his defense, but his consistent first-half foul trouble is hurting Houston’s offense in a real way. The Cougars need his offensive rebounding in the worst way, serving as a “get out of jail free” card when jumpers are coming up short.
Tugler sat out the final 10 minutes of the first half with two fouls. At that point, Houston had five offensive rebounds. For the final 10 minutes, Houston corralled just one offensive rebound.
- Houston’s offensive rebounding percentage when Tugler is on the floor, per hoop-explorer: 23.6% (No. 3 in America)
- Houston’s offensive rebounding percentage when Tugler is off the floor, per hoop-explorer: 18.8% (No. 83 in America)
“JoJo is a lot like those old gunslingers like Daryle Lamonica, Kenny Stabler, Jim Plunkett, Sonny Jurgensen, Billy Kilmer or Johnny Unitas,” Sampson says. “Dudes got two little bars in front of their face. They go play and throw three or four interceptions and six or seven touchdowns. But if you try to take away their interceptions and make them be more pinpoint or not nearly as aggressive, they’re probably not gonna throw touchdown passes, either. It’s probably a bad analogy. But it’s hard to get JoJo to not play aggressive. A lot of his fouls are probably unnecessary. Believe it or not, since this freshman year, he’s gotten a lot better.”
Sampson is right. Tugler is “only” averaging 5.5 fouls per 40 minutes this season. That’s the best mark of his career. But the constant foul trouble for Houston’s best defender and best offensive rebounder has become a burr in Sampson’s saddle.
“We’re a much, much better team, and he’s on the floor,” Sampson said. “When you go back and look at the game when we beat Duke [in the 2025 Final Four], he was the best friend on the floor last five minutes. He’s really important to us.”
The shot diet for Houston is not changing, largely because of the personnel. Houston does not have a backdown threat who can hunt mismatches in the mid-post area. The Cougars have been one of the worst post-up offenses in college basketball this season, so Sampson has largely ditched it from Houston’s offensive arsenal.
This team is going to take a ton of jumpers from here on out. A jumper from Sharp, Uzan or Flemings is a better shot than a Tugler post-up at this point, but it makes the offensive rebounding and Tugler’s availability even that much more vital down the home stretch.
Reason for optimism
There are three pretty simple reasons to be bullish on Houston in March:
- Sampson is the coach.
- This backcourt is unbelievable.
- Houston plays ridiculously hard.
Enough said.
“I think these three games, even though we’re disappointed, we lost them, it’s not the end of the world,” Sampson said. “I don’t know if anybody had to play three straight games like this. We just ran out of steam.”
The formula the Longhorns used to beat BYU proved highly successful, and they’ll likely try to replicate that game plan against the Bulldogs.
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