With a 90-79 win over SMU Thursday night, the Cougars have won a regular-season title after a 27-year hiatus. Here’s a look at the good and the bad from the win:
March 7th: A championship day for Cougar basketball! On this day, the Coogs:
- beat Texas in 1981 to win the SWC Postseason Classic;
- won at SMU in 1992 to clinch a share of the regular-season SWC title; and yesterday,
- beat SMU to claim at least a share of the American Athletic championship.
Breaon Brady had a great night in his final game in Houston. 16 points (7/8 FG) and 6 rebounds in 29 minutes. Great coaching is about winning a lot of games, winning games on the road, and playing your best basketball in March.
SMU’s 1st half shooting: The Ponies turned it over 13 times in the first half but shot 13/19 (68%). Every trip down the floor was seemingly either a made shot or an ugly turnover.
Tie A 51-Year Record: 28 wins ties for the most regular-season wins in school history. The Coogs now have one shot to break it. The 1967-68 team also won 28 regular-season games – that team, captained by Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney – ended the season in the Final Four.
Fertitta Center’s first year: The Coogs went 15-1 in the first year in the new building and the crowds were tremendous all season. It’s easy to criticize the empty seats spread around the arena but never forget where we came from.
Galen Robinson, Jr. What a journey. His dad played in an empty Hofheinz in the mid-to-late 90s and Jr. decided to come be part of the group that finally turned it around. He’ll go to the NCAA tournament two years in a row and has already helped in 98 wins over a four-year period.
Pony Resurgence? That was a damn-good 13-15 team that came to Fertitta. Tim Jankovich’s team had four guys in double-digits Thursday including Chargois and McMurray over 20. SMU was 7/10 from 3-point range in the first half – that insane number kept them in the game much longer than they should have been.
Get it, Gettys: How cool was it that Reid Gettys was on the call on ESPN? Reid has worked several UH games this season but always on ESPN3. Reid has become a very good TV analyst and is an all-time great ambassador for UH.
Cinci to Clinch Outright: UH claimed a share of the conference title but can win it outright with a win at Cinci. This one will be tough: on the road, at a sold-out Fifth Third Arena, playing at 11 a.m. on the day of a time change, and against a team desperate to claim a share of a conference title.
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