Instead of a hometown fairytale for Houston, it's the same old March story

By Bryan Fischer
Published

KANSAS CITY – To write the history of Houston Cougars basketball is to delve into heartbreak.

At every opportunity which the stars looked like they would align for a breakthrough, the Cougars have found their inner-Icarus – burning up just on the cusp of greatness.

The famed Phi Slama Jama teams put the program on the map in the early 1980s, ascending to the top of the polls with regularity … just before losing in unfathomable fashion to scrappy underdogs on the grand stage every March.

This season was supposed to offer a path to redemption for past shortcomings. The Final Four is taking place in the team's own backyard and UH had the look of a team perfectly capable of winning it all, entering the NCAA Tournament No. 2 in the country with just three losses all year.

The lack of a dominant team in the college basketball only added juice to the  narrative, compounded by local euphoria of the university itself joining the Big 12 in 2023 and its most famous alum in broadcasting, Jim Nantz, calling the last games of his hoops broadcasting career in the city where it all began.

For brief spurts in the Midwest Regional semifinal against fifth-seeded Miami at T-Mobile Center, it appeared as though Houston understood what the moment called for. Guard Marcus Sasser, who declared himself 90% healed from a groin injury he suffered in the AAC Tournament, was sharp in scoring the first points of the game and providing his trademark, active defense along the perimeter. Fellow guard Tramon Mark was knocking down outside shots and forward Jarace Walker was controlling the boards.

But as Friday night's Sweet 16 matchup wore on, the weight of history started to pull Houston further and further back as open shots began to rim out and rebounds failed to find those in white jerseys. Miami was able to run away with an 89-75 victory that sent its program into the Elite Eight for a second consecutive season and end all hope of a storybook Texas homecoming.

"Unfortunately, one off-night and you go home in this tournament," said Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson, who at 67 knows how precious few chances there are to win it all. "We just never could get a foothold. We kept climbing, and we'd get ahead of them, and then we just couldn't put stops together.

"We just couldn't get anything going."

The Hurricanes took control almost immediately out of the halftime break, going on a 16-2 run over the course of four minutes that sucked the life out of the Cougar faithful who had made the trip north in hopes of a far more joyful return home.

Fittingly leading the way for the ACC regular-season champions was Nijel Pack, a transfer from just up the road at Kansas State. Pack delivered a masterful performance with a game-high 26 points on a red-hot 7-of-10 shooting from beyond the arc.

"Yeah, it was a joke," Canes head coach Jim Larranaga said between laughs about Pack's ability to find the net from deep. "He was ridiculous. I don't know how far those shots were. People say to me, what do you say when he misses one of those long shots? What I say is, keep shooting. The guy is a great shooter. These guys are great offensive players."

"My teammates found me early and kept me going. They kept feeding me and telling me to get the ball, and I shot it with a lot of confidence," Pack said. "It feels good to play in this arena today, but it was all for my teammates. If they weren't out there helping me, I wouldn't be where I am today."

Houston nearly seemed to match Pack and teammate Isaiah Wong (20 points) early, notching seven triples of their own in the first half but going 2-of-14 after the midway mark.

"We guarded [Pack] to 23, 24 feet. He hit some tough ones," Sampson said. "When you hit tough shots like that, it kind of raises the level of play of everybody."

The Cougars trended the opposite way, shooting just 35 percent in the second half to lose by 14 in a game they seemingly did other fundamental things well enough to emerge victorious. That included turning the ball over just eight times and going 18-20 from the free throw line.

Walker, who declared for NBA Draft in the locker room afterward, finished with a team-high 16 points and 11 rebounds while fellow starters Sasser (14 points), Mark (14) and Jamal Shead (15) also ended up in double-figures for what could also be their final time in a UH uniform.

"We knew how hard it was to get to the Final Four," a stoic Sasser said. "Just because it's in Houston, that don't mean we get extra points or something like that when we step on the floor."

Miami appears ready to carve its own fairytale road to the Final Four behind somebody that knows the way in Larranaga.

Friday marked the program's 10th victory in the NCAA Tournament under the 73-year-old New Yorker. Prior to Larranaga's hire a few years after he led George Mason to the Final Four, the Hurricanes had just four wins in the Big Dance – something the coach made sure to note as he did a little of himself in the locker room afterward.

"Not an A-plus, it was a little stiff. But he's still very mobile for his age," Jordan Miller said of his coach's moves with a chuckle. "We were all hyped up. We love when Coach L dances. That's probably the best celebration we could look forward to."

The school could be celebrating much more too as the men's result came just hours after the women's basketball team pulled an upset of Villanova to earn their own spot in the Elite Eight. Should both advance Sunday, Miami could become the first school with teams in the men's and women's Final Four since South Carolina did the double in 2017.

On Thursday after a meeting at the end of the night, all 12 players piled into an elevator at the team hotel – which promptly ended up getting stuck for nearly half an hour before the fire department could end up freeing them.

Some might say the incident was a bad omen for the game 24 hours later, but Larranaga used it instead to inspire the group to pack the lane defensively – just as they were in the confines of the elevator – during his pregame speech.

Miami ended up equaling the typically stellar UH side on the boards and limited it to just 10 second-chance points.

The bad luck that could have arisen from the incident instead seemed to find its way to the Cougars, just as always seemed to in such key moments. 

Even Nantz, a neutral observer from the baseline officially but cognizant of what his alma mater's run could have meant, was not immune, having frustratingly forgotten his sport coat prior to the game – resulting in him needing to borrow one from a fan who had arrived early.

Unfortunately it was a bit short, just as his beloved Houston found itself once again.

Bryan Fischer is a college football writer for FOX Sports. He has been covering college athletics for nearly two decades at outlets such as NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Yahoo! Sports and NFL.com among others. Follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.

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