The crowd ignited when redshirt sophomore guard Joe Young found freshman forward Danuel House for an alley-oop on the first possession of the game in the Cougars’ first trip back to the postseason for UH since the 2010 NCAA Tournament. UH tiped off against UT in the opening round of the College Basketball Invitational. The Cougar’s front court was having their way under the basket — scoring their first 12 points of the game in the paint. The Cougars took their biggest lead of the first half when Young layed it up off a Cougar miss — capping off a 14-4 run to take a 22-11 lead. Junior forward J.J Richardson and redshirt freshman forward LeRon Barnes played big off the bench — scoring a combined 12 points in the first half. The story of UT was living and dying by the 3-pointer — going 3-16 in the first half but were able to cut into the lead at 34-31 with under a minute left in the first half. Young buried a 3-pointer at the buzzard to put UH back up by 6 to end the half.
— Andrew Valderas, Staff writer
