Houston star guard Marcus Sasser sustained an apparent groin injury during Saturday’s 69-48 victory over Cincinnati in the American Athletic Conference tournament semifinals and his status for Sunday’s title game is uncertain.
Sasser, the AAC Player of the Year, was injured with 6:57 left in the first half when he slipped while dribbling and awkwardly fell to the floor. He walked off the court and later left for the locker room, sitting out the rest of the way.
Houston (31-2) is the No. 1 team in the nation and is on the short list of national championship contenders.
Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson didn’t know if Sasser would be available for Sunday’s AAC championship game against either second-seeded Memphis or third-seeded Tulane.
“I don’t know what his status is,” Sampson told ESPN2 immediately after the contest. “It is not a knee. His quad got shifted around so I don’t know what that means. I don’t want it to sound worse than it actually is. The good news is it’s not his knee.”
Sampson said the loss of Sasser was not a factor against Cincinnati. Sasser had four points in nine minutes on a day in which the Cougars held the fourth-seeded Bearcats to 25.5 percent shooting from the field.
“We run our stuff. We defend the way we defend,” Sampson said. “… Marcus is Marcus. He’s going to figure his stuff out.
“We talked at halftime. We’re not going to change anything, we’re not going to make any adjustments. … With or without Marcus, we have a good team.”
Sasser leads the Cougars with a 17.1 scoring average in 33 games. He scored 30 points in Friday 60-46 quarterfinal win over East Carolina.
–Field Level Media