The University of Houston Cougars are headed to the Final Four after dominating Tennessee on Sunday in the Elite Eight. They are 4.5-point dogs against Duke.
Payne and Pendergast discuss it here.
Payne and Pendergast discuss it here.
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00:00You got to congrats the, uh, the Cougs, man, the Cougs. And this was a game. It's a lot
00:05like the Rockets game last night where the Cougs just jumped on their opponent early
00:09and then just didn't let him up. And it was, it was a vintage Kelvin Sampson Cougs performance.
00:16Only five turnovers in the game for the Cougs. And one of those was a five turnovers. And
00:21one of them was just an intentional shot clock violation just to get off the floor at the
00:25end of the game. Um, they jumped on these guys early. They didn't let them up the entire
00:30story set for the first half. It was, I think it was Steve Lapis that was the color analyst
00:34on the game, the former Villanova coach. And I felt like he kept saying it over and over
00:37again, like throughout the first half. And then throughout the beginning of the second
00:41half, if they can just get it down to 10 with 10 minutes to go, that's your goal of your
00:46Tennessee.
00:47It was their goal to get it down to 10 at some point, it felt like all afternoon because
00:51jumped on them so early. And, um, and they're on their way, man, they're on their way to
00:56the final four. They dominated Tennessee 69 to 50, the final score. Kelvin Sampson gets
01:01to the final four first time since 2021 seventh time in program history. And well, when we
01:06didn't get to talk about the Purdue game, right? That was Friday. That was Fridays.
01:09Yeah. So yeah. So the Purdue game was where it was at. That was, that was intense. Yes.
01:15And I mean, Purdue, when that game inside that, that play the kickout by Smith for the
01:21three for Purdue that ended up tying it up. And then at the very, very end of the game,
01:25Uzan has a brilliant inbound play that they'd worked on. It was the second option on that
01:31play.
01:32It was like a second. It was like two seconds. Well, the play by Purdue too, to tie it was
01:39with 0.2 seconds left on the shot clock. Yeah. Um, that was great. Now that, when that was
01:45in an environment where you're playing, even though you're the one seed you're playing
01:49in Indiana to prove against Purdue, basically they had home court advantage, Tennessee at
01:54home court advantage, just by virtue of so many more Tennessee volunteer fans showing
01:59up. Um, but they, it was kind of like a road, like environment. So going to San Antonio
02:03is going to be nice. Yeah. They've won, I think 17 in a row. Now the Cougs four losses
02:07all year, three of them in overtime, they are four and a half point underdogs to Duke.
02:13Uh, I'm taking all of those points on Saturday. Duke is a really good basketball team, man.
02:18This Cougs team is just different. They're just different than these. You watch all these
02:22games in this tournament. You're like, I, that is a different look. It's an older team
02:25for one thing. Although there are a lot of old teams in this tournament. Once you get
02:28to this stage, Duke is kind of a rarity nowadays. And if they've got three freshmen on the team,
02:33but the way they defend, um, the Cougs, their bigs are, they're all, they're all like six,
02:39eight, but they've got arms that make them feel like they're like seven foot four. I've
02:42been watching stranger things, a lot of demo Gorgon's out there, I think for, uh, for the
02:46Cougs, the way they, they smother the way they play, the way they play defense.
02:50And this team can score a little bit, unlike some of the other Coug teams, you know, with
02:53Cryer and sharp and Usain, those are three guys that shoot the three pretty well. Uh,
02:58so they're, they're, I think they're less prone to a stinker of an offensive game, which
03:03has been an issue the last few years. And then last year, the issue was they lost Jamal
03:06shed early in that Duke game, but they get a chance for a little bit of revenge, four
03:10and a half points, man. I am taking the Cougs and I'm taking all four and a half. I want
03:15to give credit and acknowledge the Cougs fans who were in attendance yesterday for starting
03:19an sec chant at the end of the game. That was much appreciated. Snark Jim Nance was
03:25in attendance as well. Said that it's harder to be a fan than an announcer.
03:30I would, uh, that's, that's a, yeah, he's, he's probably, uh, he's never quite had to
03:35experience this. He doesn't really, he never really got to attend a lot of these games
03:39when he wasn't working. So it's gotta be fun for him that when he finally decides to
03:43hang it up, the school that he went to, there were various other times you could have tried
03:47to hang it up in recent Cougs history here, pre Kelvin Sampson. And there would have been
03:51really no reason to go to the final four or the elite eight or whatever. This is kind
03:55of fun for Jim Nanced. He retires in his team is one of the three or four best teams in
03:59the country. So he can travel around and do his thing, man. Does he still do a, does he
04:03still do a necktie giveaway, even though he's not announcing the game? Is there any kind
04:07of, maybe if it's a Cougs, he'll do that. Maybe, maybe we'll see. Uh, Kelvin Sampson
04:12met with the, um, met with the media after the game, obviously press conference after
04:17the game. And it was interesting that the reporter asked Kelvin Sampson, did you see
04:22anything over the last 36 hours from your team? It would indicate that this was the
04:27kind of performance you were going to get coach. You guys really jumped on them that
04:30first five, 10 minutes of the game. I'm wondering what, if anything, did you see in the last
04:3536 hours, uh, that might've indicated that your team was ready to do that?
04:41Well, it wasn't the last 36 hours since June. And we don't, we didn't get good in the last
04:5036 hours. Um,
04:54you just went through the big 12 tournament, played three games there. I think I like about
05:00this team. I don't think they overreact to anything good or bad.
05:05Yeah. Uh, I gave, when that question was asked, I gave it a 1.3% chance of Kelvin
05:11Sampson actually giving any credence to the question itself. And I expected at least a
05:17little bit of mild irritation that, that, or somehow perceive it as an insult, which
05:24is a little bit of the edge that he's, he manages to maintain. They go on these wins.
05:27He's the classic kind of coach that, uh, figures out ways to keep people uncomfortable all
05:32the time and, uh, keeping a chip on everybody's shoulder. Those three, those three losses
05:36early in the season when they started off four and three were probably the best thing
05:39that could have happened to them because they got their scare early in the year. The little
05:44reminder that you can never relax a couple of them versus very good teams. But, um, yeah,
05:49they, they, uh, yeah, I was joking when I called NCA basketball, professional basketball,
05:54even though it is, but I do think that this team maybe more so than any of the recent
05:59tournament teams looks, they operate like veteran professional NBA players would there.
06:04They, they don't seem to blink in high pressure moments. They don't seem to relax when things
06:10are going well, it's, it's really cool to see.
06:12And credit if we, you know, we'll do an acknowledge me later for the, for the Cougs at seven 20
06:16when we acknowledge. But if we were to acknowledge, I think one player from that game yesterday,
06:21probably in the second half, Emmanuel sharp hit those threes in Tennessee was kind of
06:25creeping back in. They got it down to 10 with about seven, six, seven minutes to go. Somehow
06:30they leave him wide open. He hit it's a three or two later. He hits a three, gets it back
06:37up to 14. And then he just hits a dagger three with about two or three minutes to go. So
06:42he three threes down the stretch for Emmanuel sharpened damage, just five turnovers for
06:46the Cougs.
06:47So this will be Seth. This will be the opposite of what the Indy thing was. Cause now the
06:51Cougs all just there, there's no excuse. You just drive down to San Antonio. It's a three
06:55hour drive. You can be in your own bed each night if you want to, you know, it's not a,
07:00cause I get it. Like it's hard. Like that. And I think football is learning this too,
07:03by going to the 12 team tournament is that it gets hard to ask anybody other than the
07:10richest and the most diehard of diehards to travel to all these games that, you know,
07:14to travel to three straight weeks. And if it's, and if your team is doing what they're
07:20supposed to do multiple games at each of these, at each of these spots, but I think San Antonio
07:25is doable, man. I think it's such, you don't have to worry about flight or hotel for that
07:29one.
07:30He's got his buddy, Greg Popovich there too. So Popovich texted Calvin Samson. Oh, nice
07:34said I'm the happiest person in San Antonio today, but not as happy as you and Karen Samson's
07:39wife and the family and your whole program built with great character and love Bravo.
07:44My good friend from way back on our walks, enjoy the wind tonight with a good red. So
07:49we're talking either about wine or a communist there. I don't know.
07:53It's Calvin Samson spotted with four Russians. So, well, that's cool. Well, Popovich is yeah.
08:03That's good to pop of it. I hope Popovich is doing all right. He's, he's had a rough
08:06year. So yeah. So congrats to the Cougs man. And curious, curious how many
08:14of the Cougs I have to San Antonio next week. So we get four number ones. Uh, it's much
08:19to the chagrin of everybody. Who's been sticking up for Cinderella out there. Yeah. We get
08:23four number, we get four number one seeds.