COLLEGE HOOPS: Cougars notch fifth win in six games against Central Florida

University of Houston senior forward LeRon Barnes fires up a three-point shot Saturday, February 13, 2016 at Hofheinz Pavilion. Barnes scored 13 points in the 82-58 victory over the University of Central Florida, as well as grabbing seven rebounds and dishing out an assist. less University of Houston senior forward LeRon Barnes fires up a three-point shot Saturday, February 13, 2016 at Hofheinz Pavilion. Barnes scored 13 points in the 82-58 victory over the University of Central ... more Photo: Tony Gaines Photo: Tony Gaines Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close COLLEGE HOOPS: Cougars notch fifth win in six games against Central Florida 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

HOUSTON - The University of Houston Cougars continued their winning trend Saturday at Hofheinz, beating the University of Central Florida 82-58 for their fifth win in six games, improving to 18-7 on the season, 8-5 in American Athletic Conference play.

Houston dominated the game on both ends of the floor, putting together the kind of nearly wire-to-wire victory - Central Florida scored first, then relinquished the lead and never regained it - that Cougar fans have not seen many of in recent memory.

Houston was playing yet again without team and conference leading scorer, sophomore guard Rob Gray Jr., but it hardly showed. Senior forward Devonta Pollard, coming off a career-high 34 points against Memphis, again led the Gray-less team in scoring, with 16 points.

Senior guard and team captain LeRon Barnes gave the Cougars a terrific all-around performance, scoring 13 points - the only Houston player to connect on a three-point attempt all game, and he hit two - and contributing seven rebounds and an assist.

Junior forward Danrad “Chicken” Knowles also scored 13 points, shaking off some of his poor free throw performances earlier in the season to hit five of his six charity stripe attempts.

Houston, as a team, hit 82 percent of its free throws, an encouraging sign for a team that has inexplicably struggled at the line in past games, but perhaps the most impressive performance the Cougars gave was on the defensive end, holding a Central Florida team that averages 71.7 points per game to 58 points.

Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson praised the overall effort his team gave him Saturday in his post-game remarks.

“I thought we were good at both ends of the floor,” Sampson said. “I loved our effort. I loved our attention to detail. That’s a hard team to guard. Our defense for the first thirty minutes of the game was really, really good.”

Sampson suggested, and rightly so, that there was not much one could nitpick in the 24-point victory.

“You can’t find a lot of fault on our part in this game,” Sampson said. “I thought our kids really played hard and competed and played together.”

Sampson believes that his team is rounding into form at precisely the right time of the season - namely, the tail end, with less than a month remaining until the conference tournament kicks off in Orlando, March 10.

“When you have an identity, you have an idea of how it is you want your team to play,” Sampson said. “Then your team plays to that identity. It proves that we’re getting better. We know who we are. Nothing we do is by accident.”

Barnes concurred, citing the defensive end of the floor as one of the key components to that identity going forward.

“In practice, we stress defense the whole time,” Barnes said. “Our mindset coming into this game was defense and defensive rebounding.”

That mindset paid off in a big way against Central Florida, with Houston holding the Knights to 30 percent shooting from the field and 21 percent from three in the first half. But Barnes insists that there is no time to revel, with big conference games against Temple, Connecticut and Cincinatti looming before the conference tournament.

“It feels good, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Barnes said. “We can’t get comfortable. A lot of times teams get comfortable, and we can’t, because we’ve still got a lot of hard games to play.”

Sampson is pleased with the fact that, even this late in the season, his team is still making strides and improving every game.

“When you get to this time of the year, most teams are what they are,” Sampson said. “You’re either going up or down. I just think there are certain areas we can get better in. Like today, you can tell we were a lot better today than we were this time last week.”

Regardless of the impressive five-of-six win streak, Sampson and the Cougars’ focus is squarely on the next game, Wednesday at Tulane. While things are breaking well for Houston, the Cougars are committed to the process, and the process is taking things one game at a time, and not getting distracted by conference tournament seeding or postseason possibilities with meaningful games left to play.

“We can be 19-7 Wednesday,” Sampson said. “We can be 19-7 and 9-5. That’s our focus. You learn to focus on today. Media, fans, my cousins, my neighbors, they all get excited about the possibilities. But life’s not about possibilities. Life is about reality, today. We won today.”