The Good, Bad and Ugly of Houston Cougars’ Blowout Win over UCF

After a bit of a slow start, the No. 8 Houston Cougars put on a show to say the least and demolished a good UCF team by close to 30 points, 79-55 at the Fertitta Center on Wednesday evening to win their 11th straight Space City game.

The Cougars improved to 20-2 on the season and 8-1 in the Big 12, officially halfway through the conference schedule. Houston has won 17 straight games at home and remain undefeated at Fertitta.

Meanwhile, UCF dropped to 17-5 and 6-4 in Big 12 play. Freshman point guard Kingston Flemings was the leading scorer again with 18 points and six assists, and freshman big man Chris Cenac Jr. added a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds.

Here’s the good, bad, and ugly of this whopping victory.

Good: Clean Passing and Paint Scoring

Feb 4, 2026; Houston, Texas, USA; Houston Cougars center Chris Cenac Jr. (5) dunks against the UCF Knights in the first half at Fertitta Center. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Shea-Imagn Images | Thomas Shea-Imagn Images

There hasn’t been a lot of lob passing for Houston in general, but the Cougars showcased that ability throughout the game.

UH put up a rack attack with a couple of alley-oops early, one from Cenac Jr. and one from graduate center Kalifa Sakho off the bench. Sakho threw down another in the second half, and Flemings was responsible for two of those assists.

Sakho had an epic flush towards the end of the game and ended up with seven points, arguably the best performance of the season so far.

Flemings was on fire to start in general, with a quick 10 points through the first 12 minutes. That helped Houston get through their poor offensive stretch. He had some stretches of good on-ball defense as well.

An 18-7 overall run towards halftime set up Houston well for the rest of the game. The reason why Houston was successful on offense even without the 3-pointer was the paint dominance. UH crushed UCF in the battle of the paint 42-14. That allowed the great 55% shooting from the field.

Cenac Jr.’s jumper was looking smooth, and he continuously pulled up and made shots inside the paint or in the post area. He also demonstrated his passing ability on a couple of occasions. Houston ended up with 18 assists.

The Cougars were good in forcing turnovers through steals as usual, but the rebounding numbers were typical of Houston. That hasn’t been seen a lot recently, but it came to life in this one. Houston won the battle in the boards 40-29.

All of Houston’s main scorers attacked and found their shots in the paint. Even junior forward Joseph Tugler was able to attack and score to start the second half with six points. Uzan found his groove on offense in the second half, and hit one of his signature floaters. That seemed to unlock his confidence and he hit two triples for the Cougars.

Sharp was not effective from beyond the arc, but certainly was in attacking the ball. Sophomore guard Mercy Miller was getting plenty of opportunities in this, and truly made an impact with nine points.

Bad: Not Taking Full Advantage

Tugler again picked up two early fouls and only played six minutes in the first half. There was not a lot of bad in this game, so much so the defense was still at a high level in the first half without Tugler. Nobody even crossed double-digit points for UCF. Sakho was the one who benefitted.

Even though Houston won on the offensive boards, it marginally lost the second-chance points 12-10.

Ugly: Early Shooting

Houston came out cold on offense, going 0/8 from three and shot just 24% (4/17) from the field throughout the first 10 minutes. The struggles continued from beyond the arc in the whole game, as the Cougars shot just 3/19 (16%) from three overall.

Sharp was 0/3, Cenac Jr. was 0/4 and Flemings was 0/2. It didn’t matter as the Cougars got overwhelming scoring from the paint and attacked.

Up next, the Cougars will travel out to Provo, Utah to take on No. 16 BYU in a massive contest on Saturday night.