Top-seeded Houston is not the type of team that overlooks a first round of NCAA tournament.
Veteous coach Kelvin Sampson will simply not allow it and he seems to really insult when it is proposed that Hans Cougars (30-4) are playing an over-matched opponent when they meet 16th Seed Siu Edwardsville (22-11) on Thursday in the Midwest Region first round at Wichita.
“If I’m not wrong, this is my 20th year (actually 21st) that takes a team to the tournament and I have contacted each tournament the same,” Sampson said. “It’s a season with a game.”
There have only been two occasions when a 16 seed has upset a 1-ombc directed Virginia 74-54 2018 and Fairleigh Dickinson stunned Purdue 63-58 2023.
Sampson will still not count on Houston’s seventh straight first victory in the first round that happens until the clock strikes zero.
The winner of this game meets either the eighth-seeded Gonzaga or Ninth-seeded Georgia.
Predictable, Sampson has no thoughts to offer any of these teams.
“In this business we never look forward; it is for the experts and pounds to do,” Sampson said. “Someone once asked me about my word about this game versus another game. I don’t know another game – just know what we play. Some people may like it, some people don’t.”
Houston is really a hot team with 13 wins in a row and 26 of the last 27. Cougars have had a solid success in the NCAA tournament in recent years with a Final Four (2021), Elite Eight (2022) and three Sweet 16S during the last five tournaments.
They had some major accident last season when the All-America Point Guard Jamal Shead poorly ejected her right ankle and missed the last 26 1/2 minutes of a loss of 54-51 to Duke in Sweet 16.
But Houston went a spectacular 19-1 in Big 12 this season and also won the conference after the season. Cougars are on the short list of teams that can reduce the networks at the beginning of next month.
LJ Cryer Average leads the team in points (15.2 points per match) and 3-points (100). Emanuel Sharp is an average of 12.6 points with 74 3-point marks and Milos Uzan contributes 11.5 points and a team best 4.3 assists.
J’wan Roberts (Ankel) will return from an absence of three games. He is an average of 10.8 points and a team best 6.3 returns.
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’s Taylor, as an average of 19.3 points per match. Taylor is the leading painter in Edwardsville history with 1,952 points and also leads with 297 3 points.
Taylor overcame two right knee ACL tears (2020 and 2022) during their college career and achieved a gigantic goal entitled Conference Tournament.
“I’m a winner, so I wanted to go out there and make sure we set up a banner,” Taylor said. “I want people to know that you can always bounce back from adversity.”
Edwardsville coach Brian Barone has deep knowledge of Sampson. His sentenced father, Tony, was once a coach for Texas A&M and his Big 12 time overlapped with Sampson at the end of the 1990s for four seasons when the latter was at Oklahoma.
“I respect the hike from our guys and we have to do what we can do,” said Barone, who played at Texas A&M during two of these campaigns. “They have to play us and I look at what both of us get to play each other.”
-Field level media
