A shortened roster caused by injuries to a pair of frontline guards undermined No. 14 Houston earlier this month.
The Cougars’ eight-man rotation now has to hold off visiting SMU on Sunday afternoon to hang on to first place in the American Athletic Conference.
Houston (23-4, 12-2 AAC) has won three straight games heading into a rematch with the Mustangs (20-6, 11-3), who handed the Cougars one of their two league losses earlier this month.
The Cougars are coming off an 81-67 win at Tulane on Wednesday. Before that, they went to double overtime to pull out a 76-74 win at Wichita State on Feb. 20. Houston will conclude a stretch of four games in 10 days Tuesday against Cincinnati.
The compact schedule has forced coach Kelvin Sampson to walk the line between maximizing the talents of his available players without exhausting them.
“It’s not like we’re practicing,” Sampson said. “We work on one side of the floor, work on 3-on-3 or whatever we can do. We’re just kind of piecemealing it at this point.
“We knew this week was coming. Just do the best we can with it.”
Meanwhile, the Mustangs remained a game behind Houston and in position to secure the top overall seed in the conference tournament with their 75-61 home win over Tulsa on Wednesday.
SMU has won four of five games starting with its 85-83 victory over Houston on Feb. 9. The Mustangs completed a season sweep of Memphis, currently the third-place team in the AAC, on Feb. 20 and are looking to do the same to the Cougars.
Already without guard Jalen Smith, the Mustangs lost guard Zhuric Phelps to a leg injury in the early stages against Tulsa. The severity of Phelps’ injury is unknown, but SMU coach Tim Jankovich is optimistic that he will return this season. In the interim, SMU will rely on the depth that helped it rally in the second half Wednesday.
“I’m so thankful we have the talent, depth that we have,” Jankovich said. “We have faith (in our depth).
“We need everybody. The one thing it does is like where we were … in our minds, we’re a little less deep with guard rotations. We don’t want to leave guys out there too long. But we’re in good shape and I’m just thankful. We’ve lived through way worse. Way, way, way worse.”
Depth and the homecourt advantage played key roles in the Mustangs’ win over Houston earlier this month. SMU will be without both against the Cougars, leaving the Mustangs in the position to sharpen their focus in advance of the rematch.
“I would say we’re going to keep a cool, level head,” SMU guard Michael Weathers said. “We already beat them once at home so going on the road is going to be a hostile environment, but as long as we remain calm and keep our heads and just weather the storm we should be fine.”
–Field Level Media