Houston Cougars On SI

Can Houston tap into its road mentality for at least one more weekend?

Buck's Ballpark: Cougars won't be having the crowds on their side at the NCAA Midwest Regional
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Houston's J'Wan Roberts (with ball)
Houston's J'Wan Roberts (with ball) | Chris Jones/Imagn Images

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Houston Cougars

If one goes strictly by geography and distance, Houston has the clear disadvantage when it comes to this weekend’s NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional.

The Cougars will be feeling more like outsiders than the region’s actual top seed. They’ll get to wear their home uniforms for potentially two games, but won’t be getting a lot of vocal support from the crowd.

That’s because the Midwest Region is in Indianapolis, and Houston’s opponent in Friday’s Sweet 16 - Purdue - is just about a straight shot up Interstate 65, or roughly 70 miles. So expect a lot of Boilermaker black and gold milling about Lucas Oil Stadium.

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Then, should Houston survive Friday, the Cougars will be playing for a spot in the Final Four on Sunday - taking on a team that will also be getting an abundant share of the fan support.

Kentucky and Tennessee, which faces one another on the first of the two Friday games in Indy, will no doubt have a lot of fans come up. The Wildcats’ Lexington campus is approximately three hours away, while the Volunteers will be making about a five-hour drive from Knoxville.

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In case you’re wondering, the distance from the UH campus to Lucas Oil Stadium is about, oh, a scant 1,015 miles.

That was the very same scenario I - and perhaps a great deal of Houston fans - feared right before the NCAA pairings came out a couple of weeks ago. Wouldn’t it have been better if Houston had been the top seed in the West instead of the Midwest?

Had the Cougars been No. 1 out West, that regional is in San Francisco, but Florida ended up with that region’s top seed instead. And joining the Gators in the West Regional is Maryland, Texas Tech and Arkansas - all quite a long way from the Bay Area.

But if there’s one team out there that might relish the opportunity to silence what will be a heavily opposing crowd on Friday and possibly Sunday, it’s the Houston Cougars.

While it won’t technically count as a road game, the Midwest Regional will be a virtual road game environment for the Coogs. And this year especially, there has been no better road team than Houston.

The Cougars went 10-0 in road tilts this season and have also won 14 straight road games, the longest active streak in the nation and a new Big 12 Conference record. They have already went into some of the most hostile venues and found a way to win each time.

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Houston won at Allen Fieldhouse in Kansas, long considered one of the toughest places to win by any visiting team. The Cougars won at Arizona’s McKale Center, a tough place to get a win when the Wildcats are on top of their game.

They won at Texas Tech, arguably the most hostile road environment in the Big 12. They won at Baylor, a team that was fighting to get into the NCAA’s. They won at West Virginia and at Kansas State, also not easy places to win.

You get the picture.

And it hasn’t been one player or two, it has been a team effort in getting those road wins.

J’Wan Roberts getting in position to make a game-winning shot at UCF. Mylik Wilson hitting a 3-pointer to force double overtime in the wild win at Kansas. Milos Uzan perhaps establishing himself for good as the worthy successor to Javon Shead at point guard with his performance at Arizona.

Different people have stepped up on any given night for Houston, and that’s why the Cougars are considered one of the prime front-runners to win the national title.

Plus, don’t you think coach Kelvin Sampson will be motivated this weekend to win the regional?

Not too far from Indianapolis is Bloomington, where Sampson didn’t even last two years at his previous college coaching job. He seemed to be finished as a college head coach when he resigned from Indiana in disgrace 16 years ago.

But now, after getting a second chance and turning around Houston’s fortunes since taking over in 2014, wouldn’t Sampson be sporting an even wider grin once he’s up on the ladder cutting down a strand of the net and clinching a Final Four trip in, of all places, the “Hoosier State?”

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So in the minds of the Cougars this week, bring ‘em on. They’ll get even more of a chance to prove they are indeed road dawgs.

And should they survive this weekend, they’ll get to play the Final Four in San Antonio. Just a relatively easy drive for Houston, and the Cougars will likely be the overwhelming choice as the people’s team next weekend at the Alamodome.

To get there, though, it will take two more road-game performances in order to have the chance to claim championship gold in the familiar confines of "The Lone Star State."

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Buck Ringgold
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