This season could be different.
After years of falling short on the big stage, Houston has its best chance of winning the men’s NCAA Tournament.
Have doubts? Just look at how the Cougars defeated Arizona (22-12, 14-6 in Big 12), 72-64, to win its first Big 12 Tournament championship in its second season as a conference member.
Associated Press No. 2 Houston (30-4, 19-1 in Big 12) isn’t just an excellent defensive team anymore. While it’s still the nation’s best on that side of the court, Houston’s massive strides on offense have given it its best chance of winning the first national title in program history.
The Cougars were 9-of-23 (39.1 percent) on three-point field goal attempts, keeping up with the excellent pace they set through their first 33 games. Entering Saturday, Houston was No. 4 in the country in three-point field goal percentage (39.8 percent), up from a No. 132 finish in 2023 (34.8 percent).
Houston is widely expected to be a No. 1 seed for the third consecutive season when the men’s NCAA Tournament bracket is revealed on Sunday. It lost in the Sweet 16 during the past two tournaments.
In 2021, the Cougars reached the Final Four, losing in the national semifinal to eventual national champion Baylor.
Houston has blossomed into the country’s best defensive team under head coach Kelvin Sampson, who was hired in 2014. The Cougars have ranked No. 1 in scoring defense the past two seasons, including allowing 58.5 points per game in 2024-25.
They were staunch defensively against Arizona in the Big 12 title game, holding the Wildcats 18.3 points below their season average (82.3 points per game) entering Saturday. Arizona didn’t score a field goal in the game’s final five minutes and 32 seconds.
The defense hasn’t been the problem during Houston’s recent NCAA Tourney losses. But the offense has.
In Houston’s last four March Madness losses, it has shot 23.1 percent from beyond the arc (18-of-78) and averaged 57.3 points per game. In an Elite Eight loss to Villanova in 2022, Houston shot 1-of-20 from distance and scored 44 points.
In last year’s Sweet 16 loss to Duke, the Cougars only attempted eight threes (making two) in a 54-51 loss.
Houston’s improved three-point shooting gives it a realistic chance to cut down the nets in San Antonio, the host site for this year’s Final Four and national championship game.
The Cougars have three outstanding long-range shooters: fifth-year senior guard LJ Cryer, junior guard Emanuel Sharp, and junior transfer guard Milos Uzan.
Cryer was a freshman on Baylor’s 2021 national championship team and transferred to Houston in 2023. Entering Saturday, he led the Big 12 in three-point percentage (42.5 percent) among qualifying players, averaging three makes on 7.1 attempts per game.
Sharp is 74-of-173 (42.7 percent) from distance, while Uzan is 52-of-122 (42.6 percent), and the two combined for seven of Houston’s nine makes against Arizona.
Houston has been the winningest men’s college basketball program since 2018, with four consecutive 30-win seasons since 2021-22. It’s been ranked No. 1 in the AP poll 10 times since 2022 and earned two (soon to be three) No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament.
It’s won back-to-back Big 12 regular season championships and a conference tournament championship.
As decorated as Houston has been under Sampson, it’s missing one thing: a national title. Maybe not for long.
