No. 14 Houston wins at Tulane, 81-67

NEW ORLEANS – The Tulane University men’s basketball team (12-12) fell to the No.14 University of Houston Cougars (22-5) by a score of 81-67 on Wednesday night inside Avron B. Fogelman Arena in the Devlin Fieldhouse.

With the loss, the Green Wave falls to 9-6 in the American, good for fourth place in the conference.

“This hurts, this really hurts,” head coach Ron Hunter said. “When I first got here and we lost to Memphis and Houston, it didn’t hurt. We will take some time off and come back ready for our last three games.”

Tulane was outrebounded by Houston 43-28. The Cougars scored nine second-chance points vs. the Wave’s three.

Jalen Cook led the Wave with 19 points, and Kevin Cross had 16. Sion James had a solid game, dropping in 13 points on five-for-eight shooting, along with three rebounds and three assists.

The Cougars come into the game with the first-ranked offense in the American, averaging 76.1 points per game. Tulane was able to limit Houston to 40% shooting in the first, including a stretch where the Cougars shot one-for-nine from the field late in the first half.

Jalen Cook led the way in the first half for the Wave, scoring ten points and knocking down two threes.

No team led by more than five in the period, but Houston took a 32-27 lead into the break, holding Tulane to 35.7% from the field.

Tulane was able to get Houston’s second-leading scorer and leading rebounder, Josh Carlton, into foul trouble early. Carlton had two fouls within the first two minutes of the game and didn’t play for the rest of the half.

Houston started the second half hot, hitting seven of their first ten shots and stretching the lead to 13 points. Carlton picked up two more quick fouls in the second half, sending him to the bench with 15 minutes to play in the period.

Tulane wasn’t able to take advantage of Carlton’s absence, as Houston kept the Wave at bay in the second half. After the Houston run, Tulane couldn’t get the deficit under five, as the Cougars proved too physical for the Green Wave down the stretch.

“I can’t tell you how proud I was to be the head basketball coach of Tulane today,” Ron Hunter said. “Thank you to the students and everyone who came out. We lost the game, but I’m proud of the program today.”

LAGNIAPPE
• Jaylen Forbes made his 47th straight start, the most on the team.
• Tulane has made at least one 3-point field goal in 250 consecutive games. The last time the Green Wave failed to do so came on Jan. 16, 2014 at home against Louisiana Tech when they went 0-for-14 from outside.
• Tulane won the turnover battle (4-8) for the 20th time this season.
• This is the 21st time this season three or more players have scored in the double-digits.
• The attendance for the game was 2,707.

UP NEXT
Tulane heads to Philadelphia to take on Temple on Sunday at 2 p.m.

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