CONTRIBUTED REPORT

The University of Houston Men’s Basketball program will meet Mississippi State inside the Fort Bend Epicenter,28505 Southwest Freeway in Rosenberg, in an exhibition game on Sunday, October 26.

The game will be part of The Preview CBB Exhibition doubleheader with Texas A&M facing Arizona State in the other contest.

Game time and broadcasting networks for both games will be announced at a later date. Tickets for the game are on sale now by visiting Etix.com.

Series history

While the game will not count toward Houston’s or Mississippi State’s overall record, the Cougars own a 5-2 lead in the series history.

The Bulldogs have won the last two meetings, including a 70-64 victory inside Hofheinz Pavilion on Dec. 16, 2009, in the most recent encounter.

Houston’s last win against Mississippi State was a 68-62 victory in Starkville, Miss., on Nov. 30, 1983. That was the Cougars’ fifth straight win against the Bulldogs in the series.

Houston enters this season’s contest as winner of the last two meetings. This will be the first neutral-site meeting in the series history.

About the Cougars

In 2024-25, the Cougars set a school single season record with 35 wins and advanced to the NCAA Tournament National Championship Game inside Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

Houston returns three starters and seven lettermen in 2025-26, including Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship Most Outstanding Player and NCAA Midwest Regional Most Outstanding Player guard Emanuel Sharp, All-Big 12 Conference honoree and Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship All-Tournament Team member Milos Uzan, and Naismith Awards National Defensive Player of the Year presented by MOLECULE finalist Joseph Tugler.

The Cougars will be boosted with the addition of one of the nation’s top recruiting classes with freshman forward Chris Cenac Jr., freshman guard Isiah Harwell, freshman point guard Kingston Flemings, freshman guard Bryce Jackson and senior forward Kalifa Sakho.

Houston, which finished #2 in both national polls, won 31 of its final 33 games to end the season and advanced to the NCAA Final Four for the seventh time in program history – and the second time under

Sampson – with a resounding 69-50 win over #6/6 (2) Tennessee during the NCAA Elite Eight in Indianapolis on March 30.

The Cougars swept the Big 12 regular-season and tournament championships in their second year in the league and set school and league records with a 19-1 mark in conference games. Houston became the first school to join a major conference and win the regular-season title in each of its first two years in the league in more than 100 years.

Houston posted a perfect 10-0 record in road games in Big 12 play, becoming the first program in NCAA Division I history to accomplish that feat in a season, and enters the 2025-26 season with the nation’s longest active road winning streak at 14 straight games.