INDIANAPOLIS -- The defining theme of the 2024-25 college basketball season has been the dominance of the SEC. The league set a record with 14 NCAA tournament bids, established another one with seven teams in the Sweet 16 and became the first conference to have four schools in each regional final.
But on Sunday in the Elite Eight, the University of Houston showed Tennessee and the SEC that the Big 12 can still play the role of bully. Houston threw a defensive haymaker in the first half and rendered Tennessee's offense overwhelmed and ineffective, like so many victims of the SEC this season, in a 69-50 win.
In a tournament where SEC teams have won often by swallowing teams whole with athleticism, depth and an abundance of talent, Houston flipped the script.
Kelvin Sampson's Cougars have been the Big 12's most dominant program since entering the league two years ago. And they've done so with a defensive edge that Sampson began forging at Montana Tech when he first became a head coach in the early 1980s.
"We play in a tough conference," Sampson said. "I think going 19-1 in the Big 12, 10-0 on the road, prepared us for this. The Purdue game was kind of like a road game. Tennessee game was kind of like a road game, too, with their fans, but our kids are kind of calloused to that and so kudos to them."
On Sunday, Tennessee, coached by Sampson's close friend Rick Barnes, became the latest team to get ripped apart by Houston. Tennessee missed its first 14 3-pointers, trailed by as many as 22 in the first half and looked at times like a directional school "buy game" opponent in an early November matchup.
"Houston, they do what they do," Barnes said. "That's why they're where they are. That's the standard of their program."
L.J. Cryer shook off a rough shooting performance against Purdue to score a team-high 17 points, and Houston dominated the paint by outscoring Tennessee 30-14 inside. Tennessee finished the game shooting 17.2% from 3-point range and 28.8% from the field.
Tennessee managed to cut the Houston lead to 10 in the second half, but any embers of life the Vols showed were extinguished by Emanuel Sharp, who hit a pair of second-half 3-pointers less than a minute apart to extend the lead back and finished with 16 points.
The Cougars improved to 34-4 and will face East Regional champion No. 1 Duke in the Final Four next weekend. This is Houston's seventh Final Four, and its six appearances in the event without a national title are the most of any program.
Sampson advances to the third Final Four of his career, and the second during his time at Houston. After advancing on a slick inbounds play with less than a second left against Purdue on Friday night, Houston's defensive brutality eliminated any chance at similar drama Sunday.
"The strength of our team has always been our team," Sampson said. "[Our guys], they have all taken turns being the best player for that week or the next two weeks, but we have a good team, and whoever we play the next game we get prepared for it, and that's been our secret sauce."
The Final Four will be another showcase for the remarkable run of dominance that Sampson has conducted at Houston. The Cougars own the country's longest streak of Sweet 16s, having reached the round in six straight years.
By winning Sunday, Sampson prevented Barnes from reaching his second Final Four. The result also kept Tennessee from reaching the first Final Four in school history. This was Tennessee's 10th Sweet 16, the most by any school to never make a Final Four.
The SEC already had Florida advanced to the Final Four and added a second team after No. 1 Auburn defeated No. 2 Michigan State in the South Regional final. The Tennessee loss means the SEC will not tie the Big East's record of three teams in the Final Four back in 1985.
Tennessee belly-flopped from the start. Houston forced misses on 10 of Tennessee's first 11 shots and on the Vols first 14 3-pointers. By the time Zakai Zeigler hit Tennessee's first 3-pointer, there were 39 seconds left in the first half and the shot cut the Cougars' lead to 34-15, and that was the halftime score.
The Vols were never really in the game. Tennessee fell behind 9-2 to open the game, 22-6 later in the first half and took more than 16 minutes to crack double digits. By then, the Vols trailed 29-10 and Barnes had his hands jammed in his pockets in frustration.
"I feel like we always want to throw the first punch," Houston guard Milos Uzan said. He added: "It's super important to keep our foot on their neck. So we did a good job with that."
Tennessee's offensive ineptitude -- and Houston's defensive disruption -- had the NCAA interns getting paper cuts looking up historic lows in a tournament game.
It was the lowest first-half scoring total by a team seeded No. 1 or No. 2 in NCAA history. It was also the second-lowest overall scoring half for a top-two seed, with Kentucky's 11 points against Georgetown in the second half of their national semifinal game in 1984 the only worse showing.
And it sets the stage for a potential home-court advantage for the Cougars in San Antonio, less than 200 miles from Houston.
"Jump on the interstate and get here, that's what we'll do next week," Sampson said. "We'll jump on the interstate and head down San Antonio. That's why you don't complain, because it can flip the other way. Proud of our guys for finding a way to win. We beat two outstanding programs -- not just teams, great programs -- this week in Purdue and Tennessee."