Perfect Bracket Scenario — Houston Gets its Rightful No. 3 Seed in NCAA Tournament, Embraces Toughest Region of All

MEMPHIS — Almost as soon as Houston’s name flashes on the big screen as a rightful No. 3 seed, Galen Robinson Jr. is up and urging his teammates to do more. To embrace March. To want more.

NCAA Tournament time is finally here — and the University of Houston is dancing as one of the Top 12 seeds in the entire 68-team field. The Cougars aren’t just in the tourney. They’re in position to do something special.

“I’m going to watch me some Georgia State clips right now!” Robinson screams out as his giddy, happy teammates jump up and down all around him in a suite of an NBA arena, 567 miles from the UH campus.

“This is the time of our lives right here,” Robinson tells PaperCity moments later. “We’re trying to make history. That’s what it’s all about. We’re trying to make history.”

UH (31-3) will attempt to do it as the No. 3 seed in the Midwest Region, with its first two potential games in Tulsa, the closest tournament site to Houston — and a huge bonus for Cougar fans planning to travel with the team. No. 14 seed Georgia State — the 24-9 Sun Belt conference champions — is the first opponent on Friday at 6:20 pm.

If Houston wins and advances, it gets the winner of No. 6 seed Iowa State and No. 11 seed Ohio State on Sunday with a berth in the Sweet 16 on the line. That is two major conference, big-time tournament proven programs standing in Houston’s path.

The rest of the Midwest Region is stacked too — with North Carolina the top seed, Kentucky the No. 2, Kansas No. 4 and Auburn No. 5. This is the toughest region in the field and Houston is smack dab in the middle of it.

Then again, it’s the NCAA Tournament. Nothing is supposed to be easy. Not even for a 31-3 team that emerged as college basketball’s most unlikely giant this season — and CBS analyst Clark Kellogg‘s pick to make the Final Four out of this crazy good Midwest Region.

“I embrace it,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson says. “I don’t run from it. I’m not afraid to win. And I’m not afraid to lose.

“We don’t back down from anybody.”

This UH program’s already won in a beyond major way. This season, the 69-57 loss to Cincinnati in Sunday’s beyond anticlimactic American Athletic Conference championship game little matter, has re-established the profile of a program that has not been nationally relevant since the days of Phi Slama Jama more than 30 years ago.

“I never thought I’d ever see Houston up on that screen as a No. 3 seed,” sophomore forward Fabian White Jr. says.

The Cougars see it an almost surreal setting. They watch Selection Sunday as a team in Draft Room suite at the FedEx Forum, surrounded by the family able to make it to Memphis, a scenario made necessary by the fact that AAC’s title game is played on Selection Sunday.

So there is Houston star guard Corey Davis Jr. munching on a big plate of fried chicken, necessary fuel after a grueling game, waiting for the Selection Show to begin. No matter the setting, nothing could make seeing Houston up there on the No. 3 line (not even the long wait for the Midwest bracket reveal) any less special.

“It’s really cool,” UH athletic director Chris Pezman says, amid the happy chaos of the suite. “It’s something we’ve done in the past. But it’s been the distant past.

“And to see it happen again and know the program’s in position to be doing this for a while, it’s exciting,”

Sampson, the 63-year-old basketball lifer who’s engineered this remarkable Houston turnaround, knows how special moments like this are. Standing right behind his seated players, watching the Selection Show with them, his suit from the game still on, Sampson urges his guys to embrace this one.

Houston’s coach may be a taskmaster, a demander, a yeller in practice. But his love for his players is beyond real — and you see it in moments like this.

“DeJon, take out your phone!” Sampson calls out to sixth man sensation DeJon Jarreau. “It’s coming.”

In many ways, these Houston players have been dreaming about this moment, this NCAA Tournament stage, all their basketball lives. Davis and Jarreau both bring up watching the great John Wall Kentucky teams as kids, and picturing themselves in the Wildcat stars’ spots.

“I’ve never been to the tournament and always imagined what it be like,” Jarreau tells PaperCity. “Now, we’re there. And we’re trying to take this thing all the way to April.”

The Cougars will get almost five days to prepare, plot, rest and dream of their March Madness moment. Sampson gets the Friday night game  he hoping for, knowing that Davis played Sunday’s conference title game with a bothersome hip pointer and a few other guys like Jarreau (knee) and White are also a little banged up.

March is relentless, but there is no way any of these UH players will be anything but ready.

Conference Championship Silliness

It’s a shame that Sunday conference championship games — a scheduling tradition that should be abolished — get completely overshadow by the events of Selection Sunday almost as soon as their final buzzers sound. Because this game between Cincinnati and Houston is a heated affair — with two proud, ultra competitive teams who don’t like each other battling it out.

There are two flagrant one fouls in the first half — one on each team, one in the first 36 seconds of the game. There is plenty of chest bumping and preening from Cincinnati star guard Jarron Cumberland, who comes out hot and finishes with 33 of his team’s 69 points. There is air guitar from Corey Davis Jr. after a three.

It’s great theater for a while — that everyone will have long forgotten about by Monday morning amid the euphoria of bracket fever. These Sunday games are so late they rarely affect the seeding whatsoever.

Houston’s in the dance, set up to do some damage — and Georgia State is mission everything now.

Robinson, the senior guard who remembers the nightmare, no-one-watching days in old Hofheinz Pavilion, sets the tone moments after Houston’s name appears on the screen. Sampson, a coach who’s seen it all, is back, having put another program on the big stage.

“Look at what he’s done and where he’s been,” Pezman says of Houston’s coach. “He is a coaching legend. And I don’t say that lightly.”

On this day, Sampson is a proud coach, one who wants to make sure his guys squeeze every bit of joy out of this moment. The University of Houston is dancing again as a top tier seed.

Why not have some fun?