Houston has had plenty of time to move past its three-day jaunt in the Players Era tournament during Thanksgiving week.
The eighth-ranked Cougars return to action on Saturday after a 10-day layoff when they take on a reeling Florida State team in the Houston Hoops Showdown. The game is being played at the Toyota Center — where the Rockets play — making this a neutral-site game that’s effectively a home game.
Houston (7-1) won its opener in Las Vegas 78-74 in overtime over Syracuse before taking its first loss of the season to then-No. 17 Tennessee. The Cougars bounced back the following day with a 66-56 win over Notre Dame to enter this mini-break on a high note.
Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson embraced the unusually long time between games to get back to some basics in practice.
“I think the biggest thing is just keep hammering home how we have to play to win,” Sampson said. “Getting more organized offensively when things break down. And then just reps, reps, reps, reps, reps. That’s kind of what our entire team needs.”
Four of the top six scorers off last year’s NCAA Tournament runner-up team are gone. A pair of freshmen have stepped up to fill the void.
Guard Kingston Flemings is second on the team in scoring (15.3 ppg) and accounts for 5.0 of Houston’s 16.3 assists per game while shooting 60.8% from the floor and 52.4% from 3-point range.
Forward Chris Cenac Jr. averages 9.0 points and a team-high 7.8 rebounds per game.
However, there’s going to be some variance with freshmen, as evidenced by the last few games. One day after Flemings scored a season-high 25 against Tennessee, he scored just one point on four shots versus Notre Dame thanks to some foul trouble.
Cenac had double-digit rebounds against Syracuse and Tennessee, but managed just 17 total points across three Players Era games.
A game against a Florida State defense that has been leaky of late could be the opportunity for a bounce-back.
After an encouraging 5-1 start largely against lesser competition, the Seminoles (5-3) have plummeted to Earth with blowout losses against power-conference opponents the last two times out.
They followed up a 95-59 neutral-site loss to Texas A&M Nov. 28 with a 107-73 home loss to Georgia on Tuesday.
These back-to-back results have left first-year coach Luke Loucks questioning everything about his roster.
“There’s not much you can say after an absolute thrashing like that in back-to-back games,” Loucks said. “Disappointed would be an understatement. … Just completely unacceptable.”
A team that was taking and making a lot of 3-pointers early has gone a combined 17 of 71 (23.9%) from the perimeter over the last two games. Loucks has seen that poor shooting bleed over into a lack of defense. In Tuesday’s loss, Georgia shot 57.1% from the field and 72.5% on 2-point shots.
Loucks said postgame he likely was going to need to shake up the starting lineup to reward proper effort.
“I’m going to find five guys who will compete,” Loucks said.
Rediscovering offensive success won’t be easy against a Houston team that ranks third nationally in scoring defense (59.1 ppg) and sixth in 3-point percentage defense (24.8%).
–Field Level Media
