INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (KTRK) -- The University of Houston men's basketball team keeps on "stayin' alive" in their March Madness journey. In Sunday's Elite Eight showdown, the No. 1 Cougars beat the No. 2 Tennessee Volunteers 69-50 in commanding fashion in the NCAA Midwest Regional final to secure a spot in the Final Four! At the end of the first half, Houston led 34-15 over the Volunteers. It was also UH's defense that held Tennessee to 1-15 FG from three-point land. Not to mention, it was the lowest first-half scoring total by a two-seed in the history of the NCAA Tournament.
UH guard L.J. Cryer finished the game with 17 points, 4 assists, and 7 rebounds, while guard Emanuel Sharp finished with 16 points, including 14 points in the second half to help the Coogs secure the victory. The Cougars are now back in the Final Four since 2021, marking the seventh Final Four in UH program history. Houston will be back in action against freshman star Cooper Flagg and the Duke Blue Devils in San Antonio on Saturday, April 5.
Graduate forward J’Wan Roberts and guard L.J. Cryer are the only two Cougars with Final Four experience, but not for long. Now, they get to lead the charge and fight for Houston’s first elusive national title in San Antonio. In 2021, they went head-to-head in the national semifinals, with Cryer and Baylor knocking off Roberts and Houston at Lucas Oil Stadium. This year, the pair secured top-seeded Houston a ticket to continue its mission with a 69-50 win over No. 2 Tennessee in the same place.
“To be able to do it in my last year is definitely special,” Cryer said. “Going out with a bang.” Houston held the Vols to 15 in the first half and became the first team in history to hold a No. 2 seed to less than 16 points in a half. The Cougars led by as much as 22, but the Vols cut it to 10 after going on a 10-4 run late in the second half. Redshirt junior guard Emanuel Sharp returned back-to-back Houston scores from 3-point range to push the lead back to 14, before graduate guard Mylik Wilson, who was a gametime decision, hit a three for his first points.
Redshirt sophomore guard Terrance Arceneaux led the charge off the bench, scoring eight straight Houston points in the first half. Sharp put up 16 points with four 3-pointers and Cryer totaled 15, while the Vols did not crack a 30% field goal percentage. The Cougars, the Midwest Regional champions, competed over 1000 miles from home. Just over 100 separates Houston from San Antonio, where it will face Duke, the No. 1 seed in the East Region, in the national semifinals on Saturday.
The defining theme of the 2024-25 college basketball season has been the dominance of the SEC. The league set a record with 14 NCAA tournament bids, set another one with seven teams in the Sweet 16, and became the first conference to have four schools in each regional final. But on Sunday in the Elite Eight, the University of Houston showed Tennessee and the SEC that the Big 12 can still play the role of bully.
Houston threw a defensive haymaker in the first half and rendered Tennessee's offense overwhelmed and ineffective, like so many victims of the SEC this season, in a 69-50 win. In a tournament where SEC teams have won often by swallowing teams whole with athleticism, depth, and an abundance of talent, Houston flipped the script. Kelvin Sampson's Cougars have been the Big 12's most dominant program since entering the league two years ago. And they've done so with a defensive edge that Sampson began forging in teams at Montana Tech when he first became a head coach in the early 1980s.
On Sunday, Sampson's close friend Rick Barnes became the latest team to get ripped apart by Houston. Tennessee missed its first 14 3-pointers, trailed by as many as 22 in the first half, and looked at times like a directional school "buy game" opponent in an early November matchup. L.J. Cryer shook off a rough shooting performance against Purdue to score a team-high 17 points, and Houston dominated the paint by outscoring Tennessee 30-14 inside.
Tennessee finished the game shooting 17.2% from 3-point range and 28.8% from the field. Tennessee managed to cut the Houston lead to 10 in the second half, but any embers of life the Vols showed were extinguished by Emanuel Sharp, who hit a pair of second-half 3-pointers and finished with 16 points to make sure the lead stayed in double digits. The Cougars improved to 34-4 and will face East Regional champion No. 1 Duke in the Final Four next week.
This is the program's seventh Final Four, and its six appearances in the event without a national title are the most of any program. Sampson advances to the third Final Four of his career, and the second during his time at Houston. After advancing on a slick inbounds play with less than a second left against Purdue on Friday night, Houston's defensive brutality eliminated any chance at similar drama Sunday.
The Final Four will be another showcase for the remarkable run of dominance that Sampson has conducted at Houston. The Cougars own the country's longest streak of Sweet 16s, having reached the round six straight years. By winning Sunday, Sampson prevented Barnes from reaching his second Final Four. The result also kept Tennessee from reaching the first Final Four in school history.
This was Tennessee's 10th Sweet 16, the most by any school to never make a Final Four. The SEC already has Florida advanced to the Final Four and could have a second team with No. 1 Auburn playing No. 2 Michigan State in the South Regional final later Sunday. The Tennessee loss means the SEC will not tie the Big East's record of three teams in the Final Four back in 1985.
No. 1 Houston is the third top seed to reach the Final Four. If Auburn joins the Cougars, this will be the first Final Four with all four No. 1 seeds since 2008, the only other time all four No. 1s advanced. Tennessee belly-flopped from the start. Houston forced misses on 10 of Tennessee's first 11 shots and on the Vols' first 14 3-pointers. By the time Zakai Zeigler hit Tennessee's first 3-pointer, there were 39 seconds left in the first half and the shot cut the Cougars' lead to 34-15. The Vols were never really in the game.
Tennessee fell behind 9-2 to open the game, 22-6 later in the first half, and took more than 16 minutes to crack double digits. By then, the Vols trailed 29-10 and Barnes had his hands jammed in his pockets in frustration. Tennessee's offensive ineptitude -- and Houston's defensive disruption -- had the NCAA interns getting paper cuts looking up historic lows in a tournament game. It was the worst first half for a team seeded No. 1 or No. 2 in NCAA history, as the 15 points were the lowest of any top-two seed. It was also the second-lowest overall scoring half for a top-two seed, with Kentucky's 11 points against Georgetown in the second half of their national semifinal game in 1984 the only worse performance.
