KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Friday night, after Houston beat BYU by 20 to advance to the Big 12 tournament final, UH coach Kelvin Sampson wrote “Net time” on the whiteboard.
A year ago, in its first season as a Big 12 member, Houston played in the conference tournament championship game and got embarrassed by Iowa State, a rare night when the toughest program in college basketball didn’t look the part. Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena, the Cougars got redemption. With a 72-64 win over Arizona, Houston completed a sweep of the Big 12’s regular-season and tournament titles, and down the stretch its roster of returning contributors was carried by this season’s lone newcomer, transfer guard Milos Uzan, who helped Houston overcome a 5-point halftime deficit by scoring 17 of his game-high 25 points after the break.
Uzan is the player Sampson credits with the team’s ascension after a slow start in the season’s first month, when the Coogs lost two games at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas, opened 4-3 and dropped as low as 17th in the AP poll.
“The biggest change was Milos,” Sampson told The Athletic recently. “He didn’t come in here a tough competitor. He came in here as a skilled basketball player, but he was not a tough competitor.”
Uzan showed he’s ready for the sport’s biggest stage in Saturday’s championship game, as Sampson put him in an endless stream of isolation plays and high ball screens in the second half. Houston’s guards relentlessly attacked the paint, and Uzan repeatedly got to the Big 12 logo in the lane with crossovers and hesitation moves.
Houston’s defense, per usual, had the Wildcats struggling to find good looks in the halfcourt throughout the game. Jaden Bradley (14 points), Caleb Love (19 points) and KJ Lewis (11 points) all had varying success in getting to the basket, but when Houston could set its defense, Arizona typically struggled to get quality looks, especially from the perimeter, where it made just 5 of 18 3s.
The Wildcats did an admirable job limiting Houston’s leading scorer, LJ Cryer, who finished with 9 points on 3-of-10 shooing, but Uzan, Emanuel Sharp (17 points) and backup guard Mylik Wilson (9 points) took turns attacking the basket.
The Cougars (30-4) should be guaranteed a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament after steamrolling through the Big 12 with just one loss. They’ve won 26 of 27 and are arguably the hottest team in America entering Selection Sunday, and they closed out the last two games of the conference tournament without starting power forward J’Wan Roberts, who sprained his ankle in the quarterfinals against Colorado.
Roberts would have played if it was the NCAA Tournament, and Houston will enter the tourney (mostly) healthy for the first time since 2021’s Final Four team.
(Photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
