Houston Cougars Battle Away Florida State's Strength in Win
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After a three-game stretch in Las Vegas, the Houston Cougars finally returned home, and while not on their home court in the Fertitta Center, the Coogs returned back on to the hardwood in Houston at the Toyota Center for the Houston Hoops Showdown on Saturday night.
The Coogs get back on a win streak with their second consecutive win, defeating the Florida State Seminoles 82-67, led by a big scoring night from their guards, Emanuel Sharp, being the leading scorer in the ballgame, ending with 27 points, making 10 of his 17 shot attempts, and Kingston Fleming's scoring 21 points on eight of 13 shooting.
While the Cougars benefited from a good shooting performance, shooting nearly 50 percent from the field and 38 percent from the field, the Coogs also beat the Seminoles in one of their biggest strengths on Saturday night.
Houston beats Florida State in the Turnover Battle
Heading into the game, the Seminoles were excelling in forcing their opponents to the ball, winning the turnover battle in each of their first eight matchups of the season, and had forced their opponents to nearly 20 turnovers per game. Florida State's strength on defense was an extreme factor to key in on, so much so that Kelvin Sampson mentioned it at a press conference mid-week.
"They're trying to create chaos, they just go run and trap whomever, and that just takes a team out of their comfort zone," Sampson said. "We're going to have to be able to flow from whatever we're doing offensively, and they're going to try and disrupt it. A lot of guys look, but they don't ever see, and that's where turnovers come in. If they leave somebody wide open to come trap, they're probably going to rotate somebody to the open guy and leave his man open."
On Saturday night, not only did the Coogs turn the ball over just 13 times they also won the turnover margin, with the Seminoles turning the ball over 19 times. For the Coogs, they cashed in on their good defense into offense with 18 points for the Cougars coming directly from turnovers.
Houston's defense swarmed the Seminoles' offense, with 15 of their 19 turnovers coming from steals by the Cougars. Not only was Kingston the Coogs' second leading scorer, but the true freshman led the team with a career high eight steals in the game. Following Kingston was forward Joseph Tugler with three, and guard Milos Uzan with two.
