Milos Uzan scored 16 points, LJ Cryer added 15 and No. 1 seed Houston was able to rest up for the rest of the NCAA Tournament while romping past No. 16 seed SIU Edwardsville 78-40 on Thursday in the first round of the Midwest Region.

Ja’Vier Francis added 13 points and eight rebounds for Houston (31-4), which now gets a tough second-round matchup with No. 8 seed Gonzaga on Saturday. The Bulldogs blitzed ninth-seeded Georgia, 89-68, in their tournament opener.

“I thought our defense and our rebounding, two of the things we really emphasize, was good today,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “Shot selection was really good to start the game — knocked some shots down, got off to a good start.”

The Cougars finished well, too. The final margin was the biggest of the game.

Ray’Sean Taylor had 10 points for SIUE (22-12), which was just 2 of 24 from the 3-point arc in its first NCAA appearance.

“It’s definitely a gut-punch because I feel like we had more to give for sure,” said Taylor, breaking down in tears. “When I look back at it, I’m not going to be mad about the game. I don’t like to lose, but I’m never going to hold my head down ever. I never let anyone see me with my head down. They played better than us today.

“Good luck to them. They have a team to win it all.”

It’s never a good formula for springing an NCAA upset to let what is arguably the best defensive team in the country also shoot better than 60% from the field and only turn it over twice during the first 20 minutes of a game.

That’s exactly what SIUE did against Houston.

The Cougars probably knew they were in for a tough afternoon against a bigger, more athletic bunch of Cougars in the first few minutes, when Houston scored on nine straight offensive possessions. At the other end, SIUE struggled just to get shots off — at one point, guard Brian Taylor II was trapped so quickly that he genuinely looked perplexed.

The whole affair may have been summed up by the last 3 seconds of the first half: SIUE forward Myles Thompson was trapped near midcourt, turned the ball over, and Cryer promptly drilled a 3 from the wing to give Houston a 52-24 lead.

Sampson’s bunch kept extending the lead all the way to the finish.

“They were physical, made some shots early when we had a couple breakdowns, and then they hit some really hard shots as well,” SIUE coach Brian Barone said. “We weren’t able to dig out of that hole.”

Key Takeaways

SIU Edwardsville may have had more fans — or at least louder ones — than Houston for its NCAA tourney debut. They cheered all the way to the finish, too, when Barone took his starters out of the game.

Houston was no doubt pleased to see J’Wan Roberts moving around fine on the ankle he sprained in the Big 12 Tournament. He was able to spend much of the second half resting with the rest of the Cougars’ starters on the bench.

Up Next

Houston advanced to the second round for the seventh consecutive NCAA Tournament.