{"id":155784,"date":"2026-02-08T06:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T06:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/155784\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T06:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T06:30:10","slug":"no-8-houston-pulls-away-late-to-hand-no-16-byu-fourth-straight-loss-77-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/155784\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 8 Houston pulls away late to hand No. 16 BYU fourth straight loss, 77-66"},"content":{"rendered":"

PROVO, Utah \u2014 Kingston Flemings scored 11 of his 19 points in the second half to help No. 8 Houston beat No. 16 BYU 77-66 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Chris Cenac, Jr. added 16 points and Emanuel Sharp had 14 for Houston (21-2, 9-1 Big 12), which has won four in a row to stay within a game of No. 1 Arizona in the Big 12 standings. The Cougars shot 50% from the field after halftime.<\/p>\n

AJ Dybantsa scored 28 points and Rob Wright III added 17 for the Cougars (17-6, 5-5), who dropped their fourth straight game. <\/p>\n

BYU got Houston into the bonus quickly in the second half, but shot just 16 of 28 from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

Flemings made four baskets to power a 14-5 run that put Houston up 68-59 with 3:06 left. The visiting Cougars scored three second-chance baskets during the run to gradually pull away from BYU.<\/p>\n

Houston used efficient offense and stifling interior defense to build a double-digit lead before halftime.<\/p>\n

After Richie Saunders and Wright made back-to-back 3s to help pull BYU within one, Houston countered with a 9-0 spurt to extend its lead to 28-18. Flemings bookended the run with a pair of baskets.<\/p>\n

\"Houston<\/p>\n

Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson looks on during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against BYU, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, in Provo, Utah. Credit: AP\/Rob Gray<\/p>\n

Dybantsa bookended a run of four straight baskets and added four free throws to help BYU trim the deficit to single digits before halftime. His driving layup that sparked the run ended a scoring drought lasting 4:44 for the Cougars.<\/p>\n

Back-to-back baskets from Wright capped a 14-4 run that put BYU up 51-48 early in the second half.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Houston: at Utah on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

BYU: at Baylor on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PROVO, Utah \u2014 Kingston Flemings scored 11 of his 19 points in the second half to help No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[298,2692,56,58,57,991],"class_list":["post-155784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-college","tag-college-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-wires-bot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}