{"id":215236,"date":"2026-03-22T08:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T08:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/215236\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T08:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T08:41:17","slug":"university-of-houston-advances-to-a-hometown-sweet-16-with-blowout-win-against-texas-am-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/215236\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Houston advances to a hometown Sweet 16 with blowout win against Texas A&#038;M \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonpublicmedia.org\/?attachment_id=546809\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-546809\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP26080839165978-1000x667.jpg\" alt=\"NCAA Texas A M Houston Basketball\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\"   data-eio=\"p\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>AP Photo\/Nate Billings<\/p>\n<p>Houston guard Emanuel Sharp (21) shoots over Texas A&amp;M guard Pop Isaacs (2) as Texas A&amp;M head coach Bucky McMillan, right, watches during the first half in the second round of the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 21, 2026, in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p>OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 Emanuel Sharp scored 18 points, Chris Cenac Jr. had 17 points and nine rebounds, and seed Houston rolled past Texas A&amp;M 88-57 in the second round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NCAA Tournament<\/a> on Saturday to reach the Sweet 16 for the seventh consecutive year.<\/p>\n<p>Milos Uzan added 15 points for the Cougars (30-6), the No. 2 seed in the South Region. Houston will play in its home city on Thursday against either No. 3 seed Illinois or No. 11 seed VCU, and coach Kelvin Sampson\u2019s squad \u2014 which lost in the national title game to Florida last year \u2014 again looks like an opponent nobody wants to play.<\/p>\n<p>Josh Holloway scored 12 points in a reserve role for Texas A&amp;M. The 10th-seeded Aggies (22-12), who beat St. Mary\u2019s in the first round, struggled against Houston\u2019s aggressive interior defense. The Cougars won the rebounding battle 46-29, had 19 offensive boards and blocked seven shots.<\/p>\n<p>Holloway kept the Aggies close in the first half with a pair of 3-pointers. His second, with 9:21 left, cut the deficit to 23-19. But Houston, behind 14 points from Sharp and 10 from Cenac, outscored the Aggies 23-9 after that for a 46-28 lead at the break.<\/p>\n<p>The Cougars, who made 30 of 68 shots (44%), extended their advantage to 67-39 on a 3-pointer by Milos Uzan with 11:17 left.<\/p>\n<p>Disclosure: Houston Public Media is licensed to the University of Houston System. The university does not play a role in Houston Public Media\u2019s editorial decisions.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonpublicmedia.org\/about\/ethics-standards\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Read our statement of ethics and standards here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AP Photo\/Nate Billings Houston guard Emanuel Sharp (21) shoots over Texas A&amp;M guard Pop Isaacs (2) as Texas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2692,56,58,57,66,3112,223,154,84056,27,3042,48535,84153],"class_list":["post-215236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-college-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-sweet-16","tag-texas","tag-texas-am","tag-toyota-center","tag-uh-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215236","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=215236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}