Where Houston Cougars Rank Among Sweet 16 Teams
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The Houston Cougars are back in the Sweet 16 for the seventh straight season. It's the longest active streak in the country and one of the longest in NCAA Tournament history. Houston has been the model of consistency to reach this point in the college basketball season.
Houston is looking for much more than a Sweet 16. The Cougars made it all the way to the national championship game last season and are trying to finish the job this time around. Houston is the No. 2 seed in the South Region and the path back to the Final Four is much clearer now that the dust has settled on the first weekend of March Madness.
The Cougars are now the top seed left in the South Region after No. 1 seed Florida shockingly got upset by No. 9 seed Iowa on Sunday night. Houston will be playing in its home city at the Toyota Center in a unique opportunity for both the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight if the team gets there.
The Cougars have an advantage over the rest of the 15 teams left in the tournament by staying in Houston. UH will still have to play well to win the next two games. So far, it's been smooth sailing as Houston has won by 31 points in both the first and second round games. Here is where UH is ranked among Sweet 16 teams.
Houston's Sweet 16 Ranking
The Athletic released its Sweet 16 power rankings on Monday morning and Houston was one of names at the top of the list. The Athletic's Jim Root ranked the Cougars fourth, just after the Duke Devils who were third. The top three teams in the rankings were all No. 1 seeds headlined by Arizona and Michigan.
Each team had a paragraph and for Houston it started with a brief breakdown of its dominance in the first weekend.
Root believes the Cougars impressively dispatched Texas A&M in the second round. The key part of his description of Houston was the fact that UH did not even shoot that well in the game against Texas A&M. The Cougars were 8/31 (25.8 %) from three, but still got 1.34 points per possession.
Root looks ahead to Houston's Sweet 16 matchup against No. 3 seed Illinois.
"Kelvin Sampson's team will be tested in the paint by Illinois' gigantic frontcourt, led by the Ivisic twins, but the Cougars do have the advantage of the game being played in Houston," Root wrote. He also believes that No. 2 Houston is the clear favorite now in the South region.
Illinois is listed as sixth in the power rankings. Purdue is right behind Houston in fifth.
Maanav Gupta is a staff writer for Houston Cougars on SI. He graduated from the University of Houston in the summer of 2025 with his bachelor’s in journalism and a minor in Spanish. Gupta spent three years at the student newspaper, The Daily Cougar, and also covered the 2025 Final Four and National Championship as Houston beat writer for College Basketball Review. He also has his own YouTube channel, Maanav’s Sports Talk, where he has interviewed professional athletes and broadcasters like Jim Nantz, Jose Altuve, J.J. Watt, Rich Eisen, and Alperen Sengun. Gupta was also a contributor to the Houston athletic program as a student. You can find Gupta on X, Instagram and TikTok @MGSportsTalk.