NCAA Basketball Report News

At halftime against BYU in Thursday’s Big 12 tournament quarterfinal, 2-seeded Houston trailed by four points.

But the well-rested red Cougars tightened up defensively down the stretch and exploited BYU’s fatigue to secure a 73-66 win and advance to the tournament semifinals on Friday.

It was the second straight year BYU and Houston matched up in the Big 12 tournament, as Houston earned a 74-54 win in 2025’s semifinal.

BYU still has yet to defeat Houston since the two schools joined the conference in 2023.

“Congrats to BYU for a great tournament,” Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson said following the win. “I told our guys, (BYU has played) three games in three days, they’re going to play to win.

“We played in this same tournament last year, three games in three days, and I thought our best half offensively might have been the second half of our third game in three days.”

Sampson continued: “So we knew that if you’ve got (AJ) Dybantsa on your team, you’re dangerous. Kevin (Young) does a great job of putting them in the right spots, does a good job of hunting matchups.

“… We were out of character in a lot of ways the first half, but these are the moments that the players want to play in.”

While Dybantsa did score 26 points to break Kevin Durant’s Big 12 tournament scoring record, he shot just 3 of 10 in the second half, with Houston’s adjustments successfully limiting his attack.

Despite his late struggles, Sampson expressed plenty of admiration for Dybantsa.

“If you watch the ball roll off his fingertips and his release at the free-throw line, you can tell he’s an elite shooter,” Sampson said. “First time I saw him, he was 15 years old. I didn’t pay much attention to him because I knew I was never going to coach him, but I figured I’d be coaching against him one day, eventually. I just didn’t know it would be in the same conference.”

“He’s a little tougher than people want to give him credit for. He’s a young kid, but he’s been in the spotlight his whole career. Dybantsa has got the gene. He can really score, and he’ll get better as he goes. A lot of his success early will be based on the kind of team that drafts him. He’s going to be fun to watch. He’s done a great job developing, and he went to a school that lets him basically shoot all the balls. That’s a player’s dream.”

With the win, Houston moves to 27-5 on the season and 15-4 against Big 12 foes. Sampson’s Cougars will face either TCU or Kansas in Friday’s Big 12 semifinal on their quest for a second consecutive conference championship.

“Really proud of my guys. It wasn’t our best game. We made some bonehead plays, stepping out of bounds, wide-open 3s,” Sampson said.

“… But the name of the game is to win the game, and at the end of the day that’s really all that matters. I’m proud of my team for finding a way to win the game, hanging in there, making the plays that we need today have made.”