HOUSTON — Even to get a standing spot in the coveted courtside section known as “The Cage,” Houston students didn’t need to show up until three or four hours before Saturday’s Arizona-Houston game.
But that isn’t a reflection of interest in the Cougars, the way students Jonathan Cummins and Ethan Chung described it in actions and words.
They were the guys who, after hundreds of lined-up students outside the Fertitta Center were booing the Arizona team bus as it pulled up, followed the bus around to the back loading docks and continued to stare the Wildcats down from a distance, both shirtless, and Cummins with a Cowboy hat painted like a Texas state flag.
The difference in their student section, they indicated, is in logistics. Over 80% of Houston’s 50,000 students commute to campus, making it a little more difficult for a lot of them than just rolling out of a dormitory bed and into line.
“I feel like everybody is grounded in reality,” said Cummins, a sophomore who also had painted the letter “N” on his chest. “They have part-time jobs. They commute to school. They actually fight for opportunities.
Houston students Jonathan Cummins, left, and Ethan Chung stand in front of barricades and students lining up to get inside the Ferritta Center for the Arizona-Houston game on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026.
“It’s just not living in la-la land for four years on college campus scholarships. It’s very blue collar.”
Chung said Houston also had a more homogeneous campus as a result, though it all still made for the sort of crazed student section many top college programs are known for: The Cage was made up of four rows of standing room behind courtside — prominent seating areas that are often sold off to donors at other schools. Students "seated" there actually stood the whole time, flashing balloons while often wearing hard hats and jerseys.
While Cummings had an "N" on his chest, Chung had an "H" and, once inside, the two sandwiched other students between them to spell out Houston. There is room for others, too.
"If anyone shows up late, they can be exclamation points," Cummings said.
They're in vogue
Another obstacle to building a fan base in Houston: That it’s in Houston.
The sprawling metro area already features NBA, NFL and major league baseball teams, as well as college programs at Rice and Texas Southern. Several major universities, including Texas, Texas A&M and Baylor, are also within an easy half-day drive.
But Cummins said the enthusiasm for Cougars basketball is starting to reach the highs of the famed Phi Slamma Jamma days in the 1980s.
“Anywhere in Houston, if you're wearing a UH shirt, somebody’s gonna say 'Go Coogs,'" Cummins said. “It feels like the entire city is starting to rally around U of H again.”
To emphasize its connection to locals, Houston Athletics is using the slogan #ForTheCity.
Coooooogs House
Houston enlisted the help of 1989 Heisman Trophy quarterback Andre Ware in helping heat up things inside the Fertitta Center before tipoff.
“Whose house?” Ware asked the crowd.
“Cougs house!” the crowd shouted.
“Whooooooose house?” he said.
“Cooooooogs house!” the crowd shouted.
And so on.
Relocated Tucsonan
Tucson native and the longtime Spanish-language voice of Arizona men’s basketball, Francisco Romero, was back in his old post Saturday.
Now living year-round in Houston, where he is the Spanish-language voice of the Houston Astros, Romero worked the game for Tucson’s Urbana 92.5-FM, a role he used to have at McKale Center — while also doing the Astros during baseball season.
Romero actually held both jobs for 14 years before moving to Houston full-time in 2021, after spending winters in Tucson and summers in Houston.
“We miss Tucson but there was so much running back and forth,” Romero said.
Romero said he still does some remote creative work for UA athletics in Spanish, while his wife has taken a job working at Rice.
Halo effect
Among the changes from the $60 million transformation of Hofheinz Pavilion into the Fertitta Center that concluded in 2018 was the addition of an oval-shaped video board over the edges of the court.
But unlike the bigger one at Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome, this one is a thinner strip that features a scoreboard, some basic stats — and plenty of advertising. The Intuit Dome halo features wider video screens, though the Fertitta Center has huge video boards high up behind each basket.
The new carved out bowl also features better sightlines and premium club seating, making it feel much different than the old place where UA last appeared, beating Houston 85-71 on Jan. 12, 2008, when Kevin O’Neill was the Wildcats’ interim head coach.
Big 12 brothers
Not long after Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said Texas Tech’s JT Toppin was again the best player in the Big 12, Toppin tore his ACL and was lost for the season.
Three days earlier, BYU lost veteran standout wing Richie Saunders for the same reason.
“You feel so badly for the kid. Not the team. The kid,” Sampson said. “It just breaks your heart, especially those two. They’re foundational pieces for their teams, great people, great role models in their community. They make the Big 12 look good. It was just so heartbreaking for them.”
Sampson said he texted condolences to Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland, while even Young did the same after receiving plenty of texts of his own over Saunders.
“I've really appreciated the brotherhood of the Big 12 coaches,” Young said. “I got several really heartfelt texts from head coaches in our league about Richie. I shot a few out myself to Texas Tech and just really appreciate the brotherhood. It's pretty cool.”
It works
Asked before Saturday's game about Houston’s home environment compared to the more celebrated ones at Kansas and Iowa State, Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson appeared puzzled.
“I think it’s good where it is. Comparison is the thief of joy,” Sampson said. “I appreciate all the arenas we play in but I’m not constantly trying to find something wrong with ours.”
Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson speaks with his players during a time out in the first half against Arizona, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, in Houston.
Numbers also backed him up. The Cougars regularly have zero empty seats — selling out the 7,035-seat Fertitta Center routinely — and won 51 of their 52 previous games entering Saturday.
“I’m not sure how much better we can get,” Sampson said.
The big number
3: Arizona wins over teams rated in the top three spots of the Associated Press Top 25 poll at the time of the game — Florida, UConn and Houston. According to ESPN, no team has done that since Kansas in 2011-12.
The same big number
3: Or fewer 3-point shots Arizona has made in each of its three wins over top-three ranked teams this season, as noted by CBS Sports: The Wildcats were 2 of 5 from 3 against Florida, 2 of 10 from 3 at UConn and 3 of 12 at Houston.
Quotable
"I usually don't talk about myself, and I don't know what my coaching career is gonna end up at. But I do know one thing: I'm gonna have to become a better coach by coaching against Kelvin Sampson. One hundred percent. You look at coaches that set the benchmark in certain areas, and for me, he's one of them. What he's done with this program down here has been amazing to me." — UA coach Tommy Lloyd, who lost the first three games he coached against Sampson's Cougars at Arizona
