Top-seeded Houston is not the type of team that overlooks a first-round NCAA Tournament foe.
Veteran coach Kelvin Sampson simply won’t allow it and he seems genuinely offended when it is suggested that his Cougars (30-4) are about to play an overmatched opponent when they face 16th-seed SIU Edwardsville (22-11) on Thursday in Midwest Region first-round play at Wichita, Kan.
“If I’m not mistaken, this is my 20th year (actually 21st) taking a team to the tournament and I’ve approached every tournament the same,” Sampson said. “It’s a one-game season.”
There have been only two occasions when a 16 seed has upset a 1 — UMBC routed Virginia 74-54 in 2018 and Fairleigh Dickinson stunned Purdue 63-58 in 2023.
Still, Sampson isn’t going to count on Houston’s seventh straight first-round victory happening until the clock strikes zero.
The winner of this game faces either eighth-seeded Gonzaga or ninth-seeded Georgia.
Predictably, Sampson has no thoughts to offer on either of those teams.
“In this business, we never look ahead; that’s for the experts and the pundits to do,” Sampson said. “Somebody asked me one time about my word about this game versus another game. I don’t know another game — only know the one we’re playing. Some people may like it, some people don’t.”
Houston certainly is a hot team with 13 consecutive wins and 26 of its past 27. The Cougars have enjoyed solid success in the NCAA Tournament in recent years with a Final Four (2021), Elite Eight (2022) and three Sweet 16s over the last five tourneys.
They had some major misfortune last season when All-America point guard Jamal Shead badly sprained his right ankle and missed the final 26 1/2 minutes of a 54-51 loss to Duke in the Sweet 16.
But Houston went a spectacular 19-1 in the Big 12 this season and also won the conference postseason tournament. The Cougars are on the short list of teams that could cut down the nets early next month.
L.J. Cryer averages leads the team in scoring (15.2 points per game) and 3-pointers (100). Emanuel Sharp averages 12.6 points with 74 3-point makes and Milos Uzan is contributing 11.5 points and a team-best 4.3 assists.
J’Wan Roberts (ankle) will return from a three-game absence. He averages 10.8 points and a team-best 6.3 rebounds.
SIU Edwardsville is part of March Madness for the first time after winning the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.
These Cougars (same nickname as Houston) are led by OVC Player of the Year Ray’Sean Taylor, who averages 19.3 points per game. Taylor is the leading scorer in Edwardsville history with 1,952 points and also leads with 297 3-pointers.
Taylor overcame two right knee ACL tears (2020 and 2022) during his college career, and achieved one giant goal with the conference tournament title.
“I’m a winner, so I wanted to go out there and make sure we put a banner up,” Taylor said. “I want people to know you can always bounce back from adversity.”
Edwardsville coach Brian Barone has deep familiarity with Sampson. His late father, Tony, once was coach of Texas A&M and his Big 12 tenure overlapped with Sampson in the late 1990s for four seasons when the latter was at Oklahoma.
“I respect the heck out of our guys and we have to go do what we are capable of doing,” said Barone, who played at Texas A&M during two of those campaigns. “They do have to play us and I look at it as both of us getting to play each other.”
–Field Level Media
