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Elite Eight Special Issue
ELITE
Houston is just one win away from its first Final Four in decades. | PG. 2
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2 | Wednesday, March 24, 2021
MEN’S BASKETBALL NEWS
ANDY YANEZ, EDITOR
THEDAILYCOUGAR.COM/SPORTS
@THECOUGARSPORTS
ON BRINK OF HISTORY
After long season, UH just a win away from Final Four
UH head coach Kelvin Sampson in the Sweet Sixteen round of the 2021 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament held at Hinkle Fieldhouse on March 27, 2021, in Indianapolis, Indiana. | Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
ANDY YANEZ
SPORTS EDITOR @AYANEZ_5
INDIANAPOLIS — When the Houston Cougars step onto the court to play against Oregon State, it will have been 13,518 days since it last played in an Elite Eight matchup. Back then, Akeem Olajuwon, Michael Young and Rickie Winslow, among others, led the Cougars into the regional final and
got the team all the way into the NCAA Tournament Championship Game against Georgetown. Now, 37 years later, the Cougars have returned. A journey that saw UH go through seven different head coaches, which included the final two years of Guy V. Lewis’ coaching stint with the program and current coach Kelvin Sampson arriving in 2014. “Just think of all the people that have come and gone since then,”
Houston’s Kelvin Sampson carries a bullhorn across campus early in his tenure as UH’s head coach. | File photo
Sampson said after UH’s Sweet Sixteen win over Syracuse. “What happened 37 years ago ... that was tremendous. That was great. That’s one of the great teams of all time.” Sampson isn’t good at living in the moment, at times to a fault, as his mother used to tell him. He struggled to find the words to process what the Cougars had accomplished on Saturday. The stern Sampson said he had been so lasered in on beating Syracuse that he did not think about the historic ramifications. While he knows the program is achieving success it only saw during its glory days, he wants the focus to be on the present as well. “People should be heaping praise on this group of kids,” Sampson said. “It’s about this group of kids and what they’ve accomplished and what they’ve worked to accomplish. I’m proud of them.” When Sampson first arrived at UH, the glitz and glitter of the Phi Slama Jama days were a distant memory. The basketball facilities at the University were in bad condition, and according to the
head coach, the apathy for the program was strong. But that was no deterrent for Sampson. In fact, it made it more appealing. Sampson had a vision, and he just needed to make sure the administration at the University was on board, too. It is why when he went out to lunch with Tilman Fertitta, the chairman of the UH System Board of Regents, back before Sampson began any of the changes he envisioned, the UH head coach needed to see Fertitta show his commitment. Once Sampson saw that Fertitta was hooked on his vision and had his support, along with the school’s athletic director at the time Mack Rhoades and others, Sampson went to work. Now several years removed from the days of walking around campus with the Spirit of Houston, the marching band and a bullhorn to convince people to go see the men’s basketball games, the program finds itself a win away from getting back to the Final Four.
While this current iteration of the Cougars isn’t known for their flashy dunks and run and gun offense, they do have their own identity. It’s no surprise it is similar to Sampson’s personality. This version of UH loves being a blue-collar type of team. It wears opponents out, and not all 40 minutes on the court will look pretty, but that is something the Cougars prefer. The messier the better. The “Grit ‘n’ Grind Coogs” are two halves away from getting back to the Final Four. The Houston Cougars are 40 minutes away from the Final Four. “It means a lot because basketball here at the University of Houston had a little fall off from getting to a national level,” UH senior guard DeJon Jarreau said on Sunday afternoon. “(We’re) trying to follow in their footsteps what they did back in the 80s, just trying to keep it going, trying to keep the excitement back to the city and the University.” sports@thedailycougar.com
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 | 3 ANDY YANEZ, EDITOR
THEDAILYCOUGAR.COM/SPORTS
@THECOUGARSPORTS
MEN’S BASKETBALL NEWS
RUNDOWN
What to know about OSU ahead of Elite 8 ANDY YANEZ
SPORTS EDITOR @AYANEZ_5
INDIANAPOLIS — The Houston men’s basketball team will face off against Oregon State in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament on Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium. No. 2 seed UH (27-3) defeated Syracuse in the Sweet 16 on Saturday night to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1984. Junior guard Quentin Grimes led the Cougars in scoring with 14 points and tracked down four rebounds. Senior forward Justin Gorham had a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double. Senior guard DeJon Jarreau flirted with another triple-double as he ended the night with nine points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
A look at the Beavers No. 12 seed Oregon State (20-12) is coming off a 65-58 victory over No. 8 seed Loyola Chicago on Saturday afternoon to make its first Elite Eight berth since 1983. The Beavers were led by senior guard Ethan Thompson as he finished with 22 points, four
UH’s Quentin Grimes looks to pass the ball around Syracuse’s Quincy Guerrier in the Sweet Sixteen at Hinkle Fieldhouse on March 27, 2021, in Indianapolis, Indiana. UH will now play Oregon State on Monday in the Elite Eight. | Photo by Trevor Brown Jr/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
rebounds and four assists. Junior forward Warith Alatishe recorded a 10-point, 11-rebound doubledouble. “(Oregon State) has an alpha dog in Thompson,” UH head coach Kelvin Sampson told reporters on Sunday afternoon. “They are long upfront. They’re athletic. (Roman) Silva is a problem with his size. (He is a) screener, passer, tipper and
keeps balls alive. “They’re put together really good,” Sampson added. “If you go back before the three games in the Pac-12 (Tournament) all the way to the three games here, you could see it building. Now they have confidence.” For the season, Thompson leads Oregon State in three different categories with 15.8 points, 3.8
assists and 1.2 steals. Alatishe, who garnered high praise from Sampson, leads Oregon State with 8.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocks. “I think he’s a big part of why they’ve taken off,” Sampson said on Alatishe. “He’s a live wire. He could play on any of my teams any day. Tremendous rebounder. Got a lot of pop to him. Part of our success against them has to start with keeping them off the offensive boards. He is a tremendous offensive rebounder … He’s just a talented young man.” The Beavers knocked off No. 5 seed Tennessee and No. 4 seed Oklahoma State in the first two rounds of the tournament before defeating Loyola Chicago. “They’re a very physical team,” Jarreau said. “Have great guards and great big men, and a great four-man that rebounds the ball very well. They shoot the ball well. Able to get into the paint with their drives, and they have a great shooter. We just have to do a good job of defending the 3-point line and trusting the game plan that our coaches come up with.” sports@thedailycougar.com
SWEET 16
Cougars lock in after win ANDY YANEZ
SPORTS EDITOR @AYANEZ_5
INDIANAPOLIS — The talk of the week heading into Saturday’s matchup between Houston and Syracuse was all about the Orange’s 2-3 zone and how the Cougars could overcome it. Not much was mentioned of UH’s defense, which stood towards the top five of the nation throughout most of the season. For head coach Kelvin Sampson, it was unnecessary noise. For the Cougars, it’s the way it has always been. “We’re not much of a storyline,” Sampson told reporters after the game. “We’re Houston. They’re Syracuse … We played really good defense, too, and just went about our business … At the end of the day, it’s a competition. You’re trying to get your kids to compete.” Behind the closed doors of the NCAA’s bubble in Indianapolis, however, the Cougars were lasered in on the Orange. Not just their signature defense, but also on how to contain Buddy Boeheim and the rest of the Syracuse offense. Entering Saturday’s Sweet Sixteen matchup, Boeheim had hit 13 3-point baskets in the first two
rounds of the tournament. The Cougars knew that in order to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since the Phi Slama Jama days, they would need to take away Syracuse’s offensive firepower. A lot of the scouting burden went to assistant coach Kellen Sampson, who was in charge of breaking down Syracuse’s offense and personnel. “We just talked all week about five people guarding the ball,” Sampson said. “It’s not one person or two people. It’s five. Five people had to be in the right spot. And I thought for the most part we were. “You’re not going to shut them out. But holding that team to 28, what did they shoot from the floor? Wow, I didn’t realize they shot 28 percent. And holding them to five 3s, 5-for-23, that’s tremendous, tremendous effort on our kids’ part.” For the Cougars, their execution, and really, control throughout most of the game stems from the confidence in themselves to play like they have all season the difference is that they were doing it with much fewer eyeballs in the American Athletic Conference. Now on a grander stage, UH
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UH guard DeJon Jarreau celebrates in the Sweet Sixteen round of the 2021 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament held at Hinkle Fieldhouse on March 27, 2021 in Indianapolis, Indiana. | Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
hasn’t changed the ways it has done things. “We trust in ourselves,” senior guard DeJon Jarreau said. “We trust in the system that our coaches have built here and just going by the system. Once you do that, everything else will happen for itself. Just being in the right position, following the game plan.” The Cougars now find themselves one game away from reaching the Final Four, an achievement that just six years ago seemed like a far-fetched dream. For now UH will celebrate, but it
has its sights set on a bigger goal. “We’re very happy for (the win),” Jarreau said. “But we have a business to accomplish. We have a mission to accomplish. And we’re just trying to do our best to try to go as far as we can … We know we’re making history. And like I’ve been saying, we are just approaching it from a business standpoint, just going out, executing our game plan and playing to the great culture that we have here.” sports@thedailycougar.com
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4 | Wednesday, March 24, 2021
MEN’S BASKETBALL NEWS
ANDY YANEZ, EDITOR
@THECOUGARSPORTS
THEDAILYCOUGAR.COM/SPORTS
COACHING
How Houston’s coaches developed Quentin Grimes, DeJon Jarreau
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Senior guard DeJon Jarreau puts up a shot in Houston’s home game against Western Kentucky on Feb. 25. Jarreau had a lackluster junior season but has bounced back in 2020-21 to become one of UH’s most effective players. | Andy Yanez/The Cougar
ANDY YANEZ
SPORTS EDITOR @AYANEZ_5
During the final minutes in Houston’s second-round matchup against Rutgers, UH guard Quentin Grimes was at the free-throw line to shoot two crucial shots. The junior for the Cougars had just hurt his elbow on the previous play going up for a rebound, which led to the foul call that put him on the line. Grimes calmly stepped to the line and clanked the first shot. UH still trailed by five. He took the second one, and it missed again. Gutwrenching, two points that could have come back to haunt the team. But UH did not grovel, instead, it did what it does best: crashed the boards. Off the second miss, the ball went straight to Grimes, who quickly passed it out. The ball swung around for a bit until it found the hands of Grimes again. This time, The Woodlands native was well behind the 3-point line, but that didn’t matter. He calmly released the long-range shot and hit it. The Cougars were down only two. “I knew I had to shake it off. You can’t dwell on it,” Grimes said on Thursday in a Zoom call with
reporters as he reflected on that possession. For the 6-foot-5-inch guard, taking that shot was almost secondnature. Regardless of whether it had missed or not, Grimes was confident that it was the right one to take. Coming out of high school and in his first collegiate season at Kansas, Grimes always had the confidence in himself to take big shots, but having the support and trust in his decision-making was a different story. Once he arrived at UH, however, that began to change. While Grimes had his ups and downs during his sophomore year with the Cougars, he showed steady progress in both skills on the court and the game’s mental aspect. Throughout his junior year, there was a night-and-day difference in Grimes’ game, and the numbers proved it too. He led the Cougars in scoring throughout the season and ultimately was named the Co-American Athletic Conference Player of the Year. Last Sunday when he took the 3-pointer, Grimes was confident in himself to take the shot because he knew his team had the trust in him
to take it. “The emphasis that Coach Sampson tells his guards every day, not just me, is to just be aggressive,” Grimes said. “Be in attack mode every time you’re out there on the court. This year he just kind of emphasized it even more. “I feel like this year, having that voice in the back of your head telling you to keep going, keep shooting just elevates your confidence, even more, to take those shots in those big moments.” Grimes isn’t the only one that saw his play improve this season. Senior guard DeJon Jarreau fell in that category with Grimes a bit as well. The 6-foot-5-inch New Orleans native struggled his junior season with the Cougars, UH head coach Kelvin Sampson said at times throughout 2020-21. Jarreau suffered a hand injury just a month prior to the start of last season and posted career lows across the board when it came to shooting percentages. Yet, he decided to enter his name in the 2020 NBA Draft before withdrawing it during the summer. After receiving feedback from a few teams, Jarreau had an idea of what he needed to improve in his game.
Since the beginning of the 202021 season, Jarreau’s mindset was on a different level. Grimes told reporters on Thursday that Jarreau had embraced the leadership role since day one. Being the team’s identity comes with various responsibilities and challenges, but for Jarreau, he took it head-on. “I can’t be one of those guys that come in with mood swings and things like that because the team will kind of feed off that, which has helped me grow very much,” Jarreau said. Jarreau displayed that leadership to a national audience against Rutgers. Despite being in visible pain throughout the contest, he battled through and played well. In the second half, he was in the middle of the Cougars’ 14-2 run to end the game. For Jarreau, all that credit goes to the UH coaching staff. “I feel like they did a great job helping me develop those areas in my game and I am very grateful for that,” he said. “(The coaches) are very big on trying to develop weaknesses (in a player’s game).” e.” sports@thedailycougar.com
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