Cougars embrace a ‘home’ Sweet 16 game in Houston as Illinois arrives unfazed
HOUSTON — Houston is in the Sweet 16 for a seventh straight season, and this trip might be its sweetest yet. The second-seeded Cougars meet No. 3 Illinois in the NCAA Tournament’s South Region semifinals at Toyota Center, the home of the Houston Rockets that sits just over two miles from their campus.
Though it’s technically a neutral site, the Cougars, last year’s national runners-up, consider it a home game. “Yeah, 100%,” Houston forward Joseph Tugler said. “We’re at the crib.
” And how does he expect the crowd to be? “Lit,” Tugler said. “That’s it.
Can’t hear nothing. You ain’t gonna hear nothing out there. ” While some coaches have complained in the past when matched up in the tournament with a team essentially playing at home, Illinois coach Brad Underwood had no gripes.
Underwood recalled a time during his first head coaching job at Dodge City Community College when he drove the team in a van more than 900 miles from its campus in Kansas to a tournament in Arizona. “If you had told me back then that I’m getting to coach basketball in the Sweet 16 and play Houston, I would sign up for it, I would crawl to get there,” Underwood said. “If we want to beat them, no matter where we play them, we would have to play great.