{"id":222792,"date":"2026-03-27T08:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/222792\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T08:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:24:08","slug":"houstons-season-ends-in-tears-after-65-55-loss-to-illinois-in-ncaa-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/222792\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston\u2019s season ends in tears after 65-55 loss to Illinois in NCAA Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Playing in the NCAA Tournament<\/a> just two miles from campus, the stage was set for the Houston Cougars to have an advantage over Illinois on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Problem was, they couldn\u2019t get their shots to fall.<\/p>\n

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Houston was limited to its lowest point total of the season in a 65-55 loss to Illinois<\/a> in the South Region semifinals, a gut-wrenching ending for last year\u2019s national runner-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave it our all, we played hard, it was just one of those days, nothing was going in the rim,\u201d Houston\u2019s Chris Cenac Jr. said.<\/p>\n

Players openly wept in the locker room and at the podium as they discussed the abrupt end to a season that saw the Cougars reach the Sweet 16 for a seventh consecutive time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it\u2019s not your night on the offensive end,\u201d star freshman Kingston Flemings said. \u201cWe were getting good shots, shots that we expect to make\u2026 we were getting the shots that we wanted, noncontested, but sometimes it doesn\u2019t swing that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A 3-pointer by Flemings, who is expected to be an NBA lottery pick this summer, got Houston within 2 points at halftime. But things went wrong quickly early in the second half.<\/p>\n

The Illini were up by one early in the half when they broke it open with a 17-0 run for a 44-26 lead with about 12 minutes left. Jake Davis scored five points during the burst, including a 3-pointer, and David Mirkovic and Ben Humrichous capped it with consecutive 3s.<\/p>\n

The Cougars missed seven consecutive shots as Illinois built its lead. When Milos Uzan finally ended Houston\u2019s drought with a 3-pointer with 11:20 left, it had been almost seven minutes since the team had scored.<\/p>\n

While the offensive struggles were Houston’s biggest problem, senior Emanuel Sharp was disappointed in the defensive execution, too.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur whole defense is based on a good pick-and-roll coverage, so when we don\u2019t get our coverage calls right, our defense kind of breaks down,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I think we had a couple of those and they capitalized on each one. I think that really hurt us to start the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flemings had 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting and Uzan made just 2 of 11 shots. But they were far from the only Cougars who struggled offensively as the team shot just 34%.<\/p>\n

Flemings expected Houston to fare better in the friendly environment. But noted that a great crowd can\u2019t do much if the team isn’t having a good night.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s in Houston, but at the end of the day it\u2019s hardwood, 94 feet,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a great team out there. Kudos to them\u2026 hopefully they can go win it all, but they were better than us tonight, and that\u2019s all it takes in March Madness.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-mens-bracket<\/a> and coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Playing in the NCAA Tournament just two miles from campus, the stage was set for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[58188,27383,86656,9197,58183,3119,56,2742,58,57,1014,86631,26195,3125,3112],"class_list":["post-222792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-ben-humrichous","tag-chris-cenac-jr","tag-consecutive-shots","tag-cougars","tag-david-mirkovic","tag-emanuel-sharp","tag-houston","tag-houston-cougars","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-illinois","tag-jake-davis","tag-kingston-flemings","tag-milos-uzan","tag-ncaa-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222792","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=222792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}