On Saturday morning three undefeated teams remained in college basketball: the Houston Cougars, James Madison Dukes, and Ole Miss Rebels.
By the evening the list had been trimmed to one, with James Madison suffering a surprising loss on the road to Southern Miss, while Ole Miss was boat raced by Tennessee to open up conference play.
That leaves Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars, who crushed West Virginia in their first ever Big 12 game, 89-55, to move to 14-0 on the year.
Houston has been a top-6 team in the coaches poll all year long, and is currently ranked third, but skeptics have pointed to their relatively weak strength of schedule as a knock on the program.
While the Mountaineers are probably the weakest team in the Big 12, Houston’s dominance in this game was evident from the opening tip, as they jumped out to a 48-22 halftime lead and never faltered.
The Cougars shot 50% (9-18) from three, outrebounded West Virginia by six, had only five turnovers, and held Josh Eilert’s team to 32.1% shooting from the field and 17.4% (4-23) from distance.
Houston will likely remain behind Purdue and Kansas in the polls next week, but will have a huge opportunity to prove they are no fluke with road battles at Iowa State on Tuesday and at TCU on Saturday.