By Kenneth Cross
ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF Knights’ first season in the Big 12 basketball wars has shown that coach Johnny Dawkins’ team can and will be a major factor in league play on any evening out. No. 1 Houston saw this analysis first-hand on Thursday night as guard LJ Cryer scored 14 of his game-high 25 points in the second half and the Cougars rallied past UCF, 67-59.
Even though UCF’s Darius Johnson hit a couple of threes midway through the first half, Houston guard LJ Cryer performed the same variable inside four minutes as Houston cut the UCF lead to 27-26 with 3:13 left before halftime.
“I said, ‘Lets give No. 4 (LJ Cryer) a shot.,” noted Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson. “I am being facetious, but standing over there on the sideline, sometimes when it is a slow game or a half court game, you have got to be an offensive coordinator. So you just call your stuff to make sure the ball is in the players’ hands that you want the ball in.”
Guard Jamal Shead gave Houston it’s first lead at 45-42 with 12:01 remaining when he hit a three-pointer off the left wing to cap a 7-0 Cougars run which started with a pair of slam dunks from Ja’Vier Francis.
Shead scored 16 points and eight assists as he and Cryer scored 24 of the Cougars’ last 27 points and Cryer hit a three to give Houston a 58-50 lead with 3:51 to play.
“Finding threes in the first half didn’t have anything to do with second half scoring because you have got to go back into the locker room and sit,” said Cryer. “I guess it is good for the confidence, but Coach tells me to keep shooting, no matter if I am making or missing.”
Cryer made 9-of-17 shots and five of the makes were from three. He and Shead combined for 25 points in the second half as the Cougars roared back from trailing the entire first half and up into the middle of the second.
“LJ, because he is such a high character kid and comes from such a tremendous family, fit right in,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson explained. “Jamal was the clear leader of this team from day one, but his character had to change.”
Shead is a triple-threat because of his abilities off the dribble to set up his teammates in addition to his three-point game. Then, he is one of the top defensive players in the nation as he has record a team-high 70 steals on the season.
He hit a three from the left circle off the roll which drove Houston to a 55-46 lead as the back court duo became nearly impossible for the Knights to cover in the second half.
“I got on Jamal and J’Wan (Roberts) for the way he (Cryer) played,” Sampson expained. “Whether it was our Final Four team or Elite Eight or whether is was a Sweet 16 team, our best teams have always been player-led. I didn’t think we were leading the first half. That was an emotional, hard-fought game on Saturday.”
Sampson was referring to Shead’s basket at the buzzer that lifted Houston to an 87-85 win over Oklahoma this past Saturday. Both guards play so well together and play well off each other’s strengths that it can easily be said that they are the best one-two punch at point guard-shooting guard in college basketball.
“Some nights, we play great and we are probably not nearly as good as people think we are,” Sampson commented. “Some nights we aren’t very good and we are trying to figure out how to win a game. Two things those have in common is we can win both ways and that is important to be able to do that.”
The win over the Knights gave Houston at least a share of the Big 12 regular season title in it’s first year. It’s also six consecutive seasons where the Cougars have won a regular season or a tournament championship.