The Houston defense is relentless. The referees have put their whistles in their pockets, and so we have a rock fight!!!! The game has been physical and the teams are both playing some incredible defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only 4 fouls have been called in a game that has had plenty of contact. I wouldn’t necessarily say all the contact should result to a foul – but you definitely can say that the referees are letting them play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Houston jumped out to the early lead with about 10 minutes to play as Mylik Wilson stole the ball from Denzel Aberdeen and made the layup to give the Cougars a 16-10 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then Will Richard got hot. With 6 minutes left, he drilled a three-pointer to tie the game at 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Houston immediately had an answer. LJ Cryer hit a three-pointer. Ja’Vier Francis blocked a layup from Micah Handlogten. Mylik Wilson had a nice dunk off a pass from Emanuel Sharp. And then after Clayton missed a three-pointer for the Gators, Wilson hit a three-pointer to extend the lead back to 8 with 5 minutes in the half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Florida would keep fighting. And they got lucky that the referees had their whistles in their pockets. J’Wan Richards put up a shot in the lane and the ball hung on the rim until getting knocked to the corner by a Florida defender. After replays, it certainly looked like it should have been goaltending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, the Gators pushed the ball up the court, got the ball into Will Richard, and he drilled the three-pointer to cut the lead to 3. And that would eventually be the score that would end the half – the Cougars are up 31-28 at half-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Houston has 13 points off their bench as Wilson leads the Cougars with 7 points and Ja’Vier Francis has 6 points. But it is Houston’s defense that is the biggest story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walter Clayton Jr averages 18.5 points per game. The Cougars have him shut out – as he has gone 0-4 from the field and every one of those 4 shots has been heavily contested. Alijah Martin averages 14.6 points per game and the Cougars have held him 1-5 from the field for 2 points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Gators average 10.6 turnovers a game. Houston forced 9 from them in the first half. If it wasn’t for Will Richard getting hot and scoring half of the Gators points (14), this game would not be close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The game is Houston’s pace. The game is Houston’s style. Everything favors the Cougars – but as is common in a defensive battle, it is a one-possession game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Cougars lead 31-28, with 20 minutes to hang on to win a national championship – should be an exciting finish to the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Houston defense is relentless. The referees have put their whistles in their pockets, and so we have a rock fight!!!! The game has been physical and the teams are both playing some incredible defense. Only 4 fouls have been called in a game that has had plenty of contact. I wouldn’t necessarily say all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3385,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384\/revisions\/3385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}