Marcus Sasser scored 17 of his 20 points in the second half as visiting No. 2 Houston defeated SMU 80-65 on Thursday in American Athletic Conference play in Dallas to post its sixth straight win.
Jarace Walker added 14 points for the Cougars, with Jamal Shead hitting for 13 and contributing eight assists. Tramon Mark scored 11 and J’Wan Roberts collected 10 rebounds for Houston (24-2, 12-1 AAC).
Zhuric Phelps all scorers with 22 points while Efe Odigie added 16, Samuell Williamson had 12 points and Zach Nutall hit for 11 for SMU (9-18, 4-10 AAC). The Mustangs have dropped 10 of 13 games.
The Cougars sprinted away to a 14-point lead at halftime and pushed their advantage to 23 behind Sasser’s 12 points over the first 12 minutes of the second half. Houston held SMU without a field goal, and just four points, over a span of more than eight minutes over the middle of the half.
The Mustangs found their stride late, hitting seven of nine shots over a stretch of 5:20 to claw to within 11 points with 1:45 to play. But Sasser hit four straight free throws in the final 1:29 and Houston held on.
The Cougars shot 49.1 percent from the field and hit for 10 3-pointers in 30 attempts. SMU made 44.2 percent of its shots and was 5-of-15 behind the arc.
After a back and forth initial 6 1/2 minutes, the Cougars used an 8-2 run capped by Roberts’ dunk with 11:50 left in the half to go up 16-12. Houston pushed its lead to six points on a dunk by Ja’vier Francis with 8:14 to play in the half before Nutall’s 3-pointer 50 seconds later cut the Mustangs’ deficit to 22-19.
The Cougars reeled off a 7-0 run to push its lead to double digits for the first time. Nutall’s driving layup with 3:03 remaining got SMU back to within seven points but Houston got a 3-pointer by Walker and two layups by Shead, the final with one second left in the half, to go up 43-29 at the break.
Shead led all scorers with 11 points before halftime as Houston outshot the Mustangs 58.1 percent to 42.9 percent and forged a 19-12 advantage on the boards in the half. Odigie paced SMU with nine points over the first 20 minutes of play.
–Field Level Media
