No. 5 Houston’s hopes for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, or even a favorable spot in the Big 12 tournament, are over.
The Cougars blew an early lead on Monday night and simply couldn’t keep up with No. 14 Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks rolled to a dominant 69-56 win, marking the program’s 41st straight home win on ESPN’s “Big Monday” under coach Bill Self. It also came the heels of what was a bad double-digit loss to Cincinnati last week, and gave them their third win over a top-five opponent.
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Houston has now lost three straight games, all to the top tier of the Big 12. The fell at Iowa State by three points early last week, and then couldn’t keep up with Arizona on Saturday. This is the program’s first three-game losing skid since January 2017.
Houston took off from the jump. The Cougars opened the game on an 11-3 run, and shut Kansas down almost completely defensively. The Jayhawks went just 2-13 from the field over the first 10 minutes of the game, and only stayed in it with seven quick free throws.
Finally, it was Tre White who got the Jayhawks back to even with about 90 seconds left in the game. He drilled a 3-pointer from the wing, just the third made bucket from behind the arc all night, to cap what was a 7-0 run from the Jayhawks. Kansas ended up closing the half on an 11-0 run to take a four-point lead at the break. Peterson hit a floater right at the buzzer, giving him eight points in the first half.
That continued well into the second period, too. Kansas took off, and used a long 13-0 run over a nearly 6 minute span to break the game wide open. That gave Kansas a 14-point lead, which was the Cougars’ largest deficit of the season.
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Pretty quickly, the lead hit 18 after White drilled a wide-open 3-pointer in the corner. That sent Allen Fieldhouse into a frenzy, and was more than enough to lift the Jayhawks to the win.
White led the way with 23 points and five rebounds in the win for Kansas on his three 3-pointers. Darryn Peterson added 14 points, and Bryson Tiller finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Peterson appeared to play normally throughout the contest, too, and played 30 minutes. The projected lottery pick has drawn significant criticism after being repeatedly unavailable due to various injuries, and he asked to come out early in a win over Oklahoma State due to cramping.
But those issues with their star player and having to play without him for 11 full games, Self said, may have been a good thing.
“I think our guys have gotten so much better since the start,” he said on ESPN. “And even playing without DP so much, I think in many ways it’s forced our other guys to grow up. So our ceiling is still well in front of us.”
Kansas now sits at 21-7 on the season. The Jayhawks have won just two of their last four, after a 16-point home loss to Cincinnati on Saturday and a near-20-point blowout at Iowa State. But Monday’s win, especially with Peterson seemingly back to normal, set them up for what will be a statement opportunity at Arizona on Saturday that can shake up the Big 12 race completely.
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Kingston Flemings led Houston with 16 points, though he went just 6-of-18 from the field and was the only Cougars player to hit double figures. The Cougars went 5-of-24 from the 3-point line as a team, and reached the free throw line only nine times compared to the 20 that Kansas did.
Thankfully for Houston, the tough part of its schedule is over. The Cougars will take on Colorado, Baylor and Oklahoma State to end the regular season, all of which they should be able to handle and use to bounce back to form before the conference tournament in Kansas City.
Though this losing skid is bad, Houston is still undoubtedly a legitimate team capable of making a run in the NCAA tournament. It’ll just have to figure this out, and fast. And, a top seed in the tournament is almost certainly no longer in the cards.
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