Houston is on the rebound in Las Vegas after the Cougars lost in the opener of the Players Era Thanksgiving Festival.
The sixth-ranked Cougars and Notre Dame are in familiar moods Wednesday night as the hoops festival continues. Both teams lost in overtime Tuesday night, and Notre Dame lost its top scorer to injury.
No. 9 Alabama toppled Houston 85-80 in a close game between two teams with big aspirations for the NCAA Tournament. The Cougars rallied from eight points down in the second half to lead by three with a minute to play, but the Crimson Tide forced overtime and outscored the Cougars 7-2 in the extra session.
L.J. Cryer’s 30 points led Houston, which tied a career high for the fifth-year guard.
Houston (3-2) entered Tuesday’s game having allowed 45 points or fewer in all three of its victories. The Cougars’ scoring defense had been allowing 50.8 points per game, but that went up by nearly seven points after the loss to Alabama.
Houston is 0-2 on neutral courts this season, having lost to then-No. 11 in its second game of the season. On Tuesday, the Cougars had a chance to win in regulation time, but Cryer, who’d played 37 minutes of game time before overtime, missed a jumper with two seconds left that would have broken a 78-78 tie.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who can play better than they’re playing,” Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson said. “Look, we had a chance to win the game. If the ball goes in it’s over, we win the game, It’s a good shot.”
Cryer is averaging a team-leading 15 points per game., and Joseph Tugler is the leading rebounder at 6.2 per contest.
Notre Dame, facing Rutgers on Tuesday night in the nightcap of the first day of the Players Era Festival, survived almost five minutes without a point and got a 3-pointer from Matt Allocco with 8.4 seconds left in regulation time to force overtime.
Allocco had a chance to hit the winning shot as the buzzer sounded, but the shot went off the side of the rim and the Fighting Irish fell to Rutgers 85-84 late Tuesday night.
Notre Dame lost its leading scorer, Markus Burton, to a knee injury early in the first half, and Allocco tried to fill the void with 24 points, including six 3-pointers.
Burton could be unavailable for the game against Houston, and Notre Dame would miss his 18.2 points per game. The reigning ACC Rookie of the Year was considered doubtful.
“I don’t have any updates,” Fighting Irish head coach Micah Shrewsberry told the South Bend Tribune after the game. “I don’t know what’s going on. We’re just going to put this in God’s hands and let him handle it. Whatever happens next, we’ll let him handle it.”
The Irish (4-2) have lost two straight, including an 84-77 defeat to Elon last Friday.
–Field Level Media
