‘Every year is different’: Houston opens with 94-55 win over La Salle

After No. 10 Houston’s 94-55 win over La Salle, coach Kelvin Sampson had to look at the box score to see who the team’s leading scorer was.

“We have one of those teams where I have no idea who our leading scorer is,” Sampson said.

Senior point guard Dedan Thomas Jr., who scored 16, happened to be that guy on Monday night.

“Well, that’s because he went to the free throw line 14 times,” Sampson said.

“Next game it could be Mercy (Miller), it could be Reek (Gillespie), it could be JoJo (Tugler). We have one of those teams. We’re one of those teams. We don’t have a leading scorer.”

Five Cougars scored in double figures on Monday night, but Sampson didn’t want to pay too much attention to the box score.

“I don’t judge kids based on a stat sheet. That’s the least of what I worry about,” Sampson said.

He thought the Cougars stood strong on defense, holding the Explorers to just 25% shooting from the field.

“I don’t see where you would look at that on the stat sheet,” he said.

While there’s no longer a Damyean Dotson, Rob Gray, Marcus Sasser, L.J. Cryer or Emanuel Sharp to maximize scoring from 3-point range, Sampson pointed to the importance of getting to the free throw line and the team’s 44 points in the paint.

“We don’t play the same way every year,” he said. “Every year is different because our teams are always different.”

Still, like defense, some things stay the same.

Despite the team’s 13 turnovers, none came from Thomas.

“When’s the last time our point guard turned it over? That’s not an accident,” Sampson said. “That’s not a coincidence either. There is no world where our point guard’s going to turn it over much.”

Junior guards Mercy Miller and Chase McCarty joined Thomas in the starting lineup for their first career starts, alongside senior forward JoJo Tugler, the lone returning starter, and fifth-year forward Delrecco Gillespie. Gillespie posted 13 points and seven rebounds in his Cougar debut.

The recipe for a great rebounding team comes down to guard rebounding, and McCarty and Miller delivered with six and seven, respectively.

Freshman center Arafan Diané, who scored 10 points, and senior guard Corey Hadnot II, who had 14, played the most minutes off the bench as all 13 eligible Cougars got into the game, allowing several to make their collegiate or Cougar debuts.

The Cougars will next face California on Nov. 8 in the Caesars Lake Tahoe Classic. For this team, the games are now a bigger teaching opportunity than the practices.

“We’re not a veteran team. We are a very young team, a very new team, a very inexperienced team,” Sampson said. “The process has started.”