Getty Marcus Sasser and the Houston Cougars look for another run to the Final Four this season.
Fifteenth-ranked Houston tips off its season with Hofstra on Tuesday as the Cougars look to return to the Final Four.
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The game (8 p.m. ET start time) isn’t on TV, but anyone in the US can watch Hofstra vs Houston live on ESPN+:
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Hofstra vs Houston Preview
Houston comes into the new season following the program’s best performance since the Phi Slama Jama days of the early 1980s.
The Cougars went 28-4 last season and reached the Final Four before national champion Baylor ended their run. Four key players left the Cougars, including Quentin Grimes who went pro, but head coach Kelvin Sampson expects to keep things rolling.
“Last year we had so many guys coming back,” Sampson said per Field Level Media. “This year we lost four guys that basically started (all season), so we’re having to indoctrinate a lot of guys into how we play.”
Houston returns second-leading scorer Marcus Sasser, who averaged 13.7 points per game last season. He also averaged 2.6 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.4 steals.
Kyler Edwards, Josh Carlton, and Taze Moore joined the Cougars via the transfer portal. Edwards averaged 10.1 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 2.8 assists for Texas Tech last season. Carlton scored 3.5 points per game and grabbed 3.7 rebounds per contest for UConn last season. Moore averaged 12.2 points, four rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.3 steals for Cal State-Bakersfield in 2020-2021.
Hofstra, which went 13-10 record last season, has a new head coach in Craig “Speedy” Claxton. He helped Hofstra reach the NCAA Tournament as a player in the late 1990s and went on to play in the NBA.
“I don’t (only) want to be a great player here. I want to be a great coach and ultimately be a great leader of Hofstra University,” Claxton said in an April press conference per Field Level Media.
Claxton’s crew has five players back from last year’s team. That includes leading scorer Jalen Ray, who averaged 19.3 points per game last season. Kvonn Cramer returns after averaging 8.9 points and 6.7 rebounds in 27.4 minutes of play. Caleb Burgess also returns. He led last year’s team in assists with 5.6, and he averaged 8.3 points and 3.3 rebounds.
Hofstra also has transfer players in Abayomi Iyiola, Aaron Estrada, Darlinstone Dubar, and Zach Cooks.
“We are a new team — we’re a talented and very deep team,” Claxton said per Field Level Media. “One night it might be somebody’s night, the next night, it might be somebody else’s. It’s kind of who’s playing well that night, that’s who we’re going to ride.”