 won for the 15th time in 17 games Wednesday night, though they struggled all night to slow the 6-foot-7 sophomore and AAC-leading scorer. Gardner finished with 29 points and 19 rebounds.''We played against a lot of teams, but Gardner's the best player we've played against,'' Sampson said. ''We've played against nobody that is more difficult because you don't know who to put on him.''We came in with a brilliant game plan, we threw that out of the window in three minutes. That one didn't work. We said, 'Well OK, let's go to this.' That one didn't work either. He's tough.'' While Gardner got little help from his teammates, Houston showed some of the balance that has put it atop the AAC standings.Houston came in with five players averaging between 9.8 and 12.9 points, then got 18 points, five rebounds and a season-high six assists from redshirt freshman Caleb Mills. Kansas transfer Quentin Grimes added 15 points, while Chris Harris Jr. had 10 points and 10 rebounds.Compare that to the Pirates (9-12, 3-5). Gardner finished with one fewer point than the rest of his teammates, who made 8 of 39 shots (20.5%). And Houston made its move when the Pirates got away from feeding Gardner late in the first half after he had scored 16 points, building a 33-21 lead by the break and never letting ECU closer than eight again.East Carolina finished the game shooting 33%, including 4 of 23 from 3-point range and 17 of 26 from the foul line (65%).''I think one of the things when you play Houston is they're not going to help you, so you have to help yourself because they don't give you anything,'' Pirates coach Joe Dooley said. ''I thought some of the things we needed to do, we did. Some of the things we needed to probably help ourselves, we didn't.'' BIG PICTUREHouston: The Cougars came in shooting 41% in league play, including 29% from behind the arc. They didn't do anything to change those numbers Wednesday, shooting 39% and making 5 of 16 3-pointers. More surprising, Houston finished even on the boards (43-all) despite entering the game as the national leader in rebounding margin (10.7). Still, the Cougars beat the Pirates for the ninth straight time after entering the day tied with Tulsa atop the league standings.''It''s a road win, it's hard to win on the road,'' Mills said, ''but it's not the way we want to win. We want to outrebound, we want to dominate . That's not what we did tonight.'' ECU: Gardner has been terrific for the Pirates. He came into the day ranked 13th nationally in scoring and was averaging nearly five full points more than the AAC's No. 2 scorer (Tulane's Teshaun Hightower at 16.1 points). But Gardner's teammates did little to back him up with the Pirates having the chance to match their win total for all of last season.''We do need to help him more,'' Dooley said.SMALLER MARGINThe Cougars won 99-65 here at Minges Coliseum last February in a game that featured multiple technical fouls and ejections - including for Dooley - and a home crowd so irked by officiating that some fans threw trash toward the court.There were no ugly moments this time. And ECU showed some grit, fighting back from 21 down to within nine in the final minute.''We're a better team, we compete, we play hard,'' Gardner said, adding: ''We've just got to keep getting older and keep getting mature and keep going through these games.'' UP NEXTHouston: The Cougars visit Cincinnati on Saturday.ECU: The Pirates visit Temple on Saturday.---More college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/-Top25---Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aaronbeardap)
Jan 28, 2020Houston has won 10 of its last 11 games heading into Wednesday night's contest at East Carolina.The Cougars (16-4, 6-1 American Athletic Conference) were just 6-3 on Dec. 15 but have found their stride after losing four starters from last year's team that advanced to the Sweet 16.The recent upswing has Kelvin Sampson's team ranked No. 21, up four spots from last week, after sweeping Connecticut and South Florida at home."The biggest difference from earlier in the year was that we started listening to coach, hearing what he was saying, buying into the culture and trusting the system," sophomore forward Fabian White Jr. said. "Earlier in the year, we were young and didn't trust the system. Coach is right all the time." White is one of only two players who has started every game for Houston this season. He is averaging 10.7 points per game and 5.6 rebounds. He has tried only two 3-pointers all season and is shooting 48.0 percent from the field.Fellow sophomore Nate Hinton is the other Houston player to start every game. The guard leads the team with 9.4 rebounds and he is averaging 10.7 points.Caleb Mills (12.9 points) and Quentin Grimes (12.3) are the two leading scorers, but Sampson believes his best leader is DeJon Jarreau, who in his second year in the program after starting 25 games for UMass as a freshman point guard in 2017-18."The thing that helps DeJon and helps me coach him is that he is such a high character kid," Sampson said. "When I say a good kid, I mean he is a great young man and character matters. You can't have a championship team unless you have great character. Somebody asked me about the strength of last year's team, and I said that they were simply great kids."With great kids, you don't have to worry about discipline problems. So, you can coach basketball and teach them things that they need to know about." East Carolina (9-11, 3-4) comes into Wednesday's game following a win last Saturday at home against Tulane, a victory that snapped a three-game losing streak. The Pirates are a different team at home with an 8-3 record than they are away from Greenville, N. C., with an 0-6 record in true road games and a 1-2 mark in neutral-site games.East Carolina used its 12th different starting lineup of the season in the win over Tulane with freshman guard Tristen Newton making his first start since Nov. 24.Two of the top players for East Carolina are sophomore forward Jayden Gardner, who has scored 923 points in 51 career games, and junior guard J. J. Miles, who made seven 3-pointers against Tulane."It's big-time," Gardner said of Miles' shooting performance. "I love when he's making shots. It makes my assist totals go up. J. J. is a great shooter. He's just going to keep getting better and more confident, and he's going to keep being big-time for this program." --Field Level Media
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