{"id":211196,"date":"2026-03-19T10:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T10:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/211196\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T10:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T10:04:10","slug":"houston-cougars-take-on-idaho-vandals-in-first-round-of-ncaa-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/211196\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Cougars take on Idaho Vandals in first round of NCAA Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

Idaho Vandals<\/a> (21-14, 13-9 Big Sky<\/a>) vs. Houston Cougars<\/a> (28-6, 16-5 Big 12)<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City; Thursday, 10:10 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n

BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Cougars -23.5; over\/under is 138.5<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: No. 5 Houston takes on Idaho in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

The Cougars are 16-5 against Big 12 opponents and 12-1 in non-conference play. Houston is second in college basketball giving up 62.9 points per game while holding opponents to 40.0% shooting.<\/p>\n

The Vandals are 13-9 against Big Sky teams. Idaho is eighth in the Big Sky with 12.5 assists per game led by Kolton Mitchell<\/a> averaging 3.7.<\/p>\n

Houston averages 77.1 points per game, 4.5 more points than the 72.6 Idaho allows. Idaho has shot at a 44.8% clip from the field this season, 4.8 percentage points above the 40.0% shooting opponents of Houston have averaged.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Kingston Flemings<\/a> is scoring 16.4 points per game with 3.9 rebounds and 5.3 assists for the Cougars. Emanuel Sharp<\/a> is averaging 13.0 points and 2.9 rebounds while shooting 31.6% over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

Jackson Rasmussen<\/a> is scoring 13.8 points per game and averaging 4.7 rebounds for the Vandals. Isaiah Brickner<\/a> is averaging 14.5 points and 4.9 rebounds over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Cougars: 6-4, averaging 74.4 points, 32.5 rebounds, 13.3 assists, 6.4 steals and 3.9 blocks per game while shooting 43.6% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 66.9 points per game.<\/p>\n

Vandals: 8-2, averaging 78.6 points, 34.6 rebounds, 12.0 assists, 5.5 steals and 3.1 blocks per game while shooting 45.4% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 69.4 points.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Idaho Vandals (21-14, 13-9 Big Sky) vs. Houston Cougars (28-6, 16-5 Big 12) Oklahoma City; Thursday, 10:10 p.m.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[66815,2692,3119,64550,56,2742,58,57,35402,82733,82732,26195,82731],"class_list":["post-211196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-big-sky","tag-college-basketball","tag-emanuel-sharp","tag-event_preview","tag-houston","tag-houston-cougars","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-idaho-vandals","tag-isaiah-brickner","tag-jackson-rasmussen","tag-kingston-flemings","tag-kolton-mitchell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211196","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=211196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}