Coogs defeat UConn by 10 and cap undefeated season at home on Senior Day

Updated: March 4, 2018 -- 9:29 pm CST.

HOUSTON, TX (H&PE Arena) -- The Houston Cougars dug deep and earned a hard fought 81-71 victory over the UConn Huskies Sunday afternoon. With the Houston, the Coogs finish a perfect 15-0 at home and improve to 24-6 on the season and 14-4 in the American Athletic Conference to finish in 2nd place in the AAC tied with the Wichita State Shockers. The Coogs will be the third seed in the upcoming AAC Conference Tournament taking place later this week in Orlando, FL.

Final stats: Houston 81, UConn 71

On Senior Day, Houston senior guard Rob Gray scored a game-high 30 points to lead the Coogs to the come-from-behind win over UConn.

Gray struggled at the foul line during the first 30 minutes of the game. At one point in the game, Gray was 3 for 8 from the foul line. Gray finished the game making his last three foul shots to finish 6 for 11 from the line.

Houston began the game with a hot start. The Coogs rode the wave of emotion from Senior Day and led UConn 22-9 with 12:57 remaining in the open half. However, once the emotions waned and point Galen Robinson Jr sat on the bench with 2 fouls, Houston's offense bogged and UConn's offense heated up.

"We came out with a lot of energy, but emotions drain energy," said Houston Head Coach Kelvin Sampson. "You could tell once we lost our emotion, here comes Connecticut playing well. Their length bothered us there for a while. Adams is an elite player. He’s going to play in another league eventually. Larrier is their 6'9" small forward and my four man is 6'5", that’s a tough matchup. It was one of those games we just had to keep putting band aids on everything. It never felt like we got into a flow after the first five or six minutes, and I felt that was a good thing. Had we come in here and won by thirty, everyone would be slapping us on the back. This was reality and what tournament basketball is like. Rob missed a lot of free throws. Corey Davis and Armoni Brooks missed wide open three-pointers. If you do that in the tournament, you go home. This game was a good lesson. We shot the ball particularly well and passed it well."


UConn's Jalen Adams (12 points) and Terry Larrier (8 points) led the comeback; and, after Adams nailed a three-point bucket in the final seconds of the half, UConn took a 38-37 lead into halftime.

Rob Gray scored 15 points in the first to lead the Coogs.

Larrier made a three-point shot to begin the scoring in the second half; but, Houston scored seven straight points to lead 44-41 with 17:37 remaining in the half.

UConn answered with a 10-2 run to lead the Coogs 51-46 with 12:41 on the clock.

After Gray split two foul shots, the Coogs trailed 55-51 with 9:43 remaining.

Houston senior Devin Davis made two free throws to trim the Coogs' deficit to two points (55-53).

For the next 60 seconds, the teams exchanged trips to the foul line. After UConn's Jalen Adams sank two free throws for a 59-55 UConn lead, Houston junior guard Corey Davis Jr sank a three-point shot to pull the Coogs within one point (59-58).

The Coogs had a few opportunities to regain the lead; but, missed shots and committed a turnover. Meanwhile, UConn missed a jump shot and failed to take advantage of Houston's problems on offense.

The game was tied four times during the next 96 seconds. Rob Gray scored 9 consecutive points for the Coogs which, ultimately, put the Coogs ahead 70-66 with 4:03 remaining in the ball game.

"That’s exactly one of the things we were discussing in the huddle late in the game," Rob Gray said after the game. "I believe we were down three or four points with three or four minutes to go. Coach said that it was a perfect situation for us, because we’ve had a lot of home games and this game is more like a tournament game. It was great preparation for the two tournaments we will be in and we don’t want to lose anymore."

 Terry Larrier scored a lay-up to trim the Coogs' lead to 70-68. UConn did not get any closer during the closing 3:40 of the game.

The Coogs made 11 consecutive free throws while UConn missed three free throws and three field goal attempts down the stretch.

Houston will face the winner of the game between No. 6 seed UCF and No. 11 seed ECU at 8 p.m. (CST) Friday.

"I don’t think we can relax," Devin Davis said after the game. "We’ve got to stay hungry. Especially with this conference tournament coming up. We believe we can win, so we’ve got to stay humble and hungry."

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