No. 8 Houston cruises past UCF as Kingston Flemings scores 18

Kingston Flemings scored 18 points as No. 8 Houston cruised to a 79-55 home win over UCF in a Big 12 Conference tilt Wednesday.

Chris Cenac Jr. tallied a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Milos Uzan added 12 points for Houston (20-2, 8-1 Big 12), which won its third straight game.

Riley Kugel led UCF (14-5, 6-4) with nine points. Themus Fulks, John Bol, Jamicheal Stillwell and Jordan Burks all added eight points for UCF, which had its three-game winning streak snapped.

A Flemings layup initiated a 12-0, first-half Houston run that broke open a closely contested game. The Cougars' lead swelled to 27-13 on a jumper from Cenac. Houston's stifling defense held the Knights to just six points over the last 8:16 of the first half. Fulks snapped the rally with a jumper at the 2:37 mark.

UCF shot 28% in the first half (7 of 25) and only hit 1-of-6 3-point attempts. The Cougars shot 44% in the first half and didn't make a three in the opening 20 minutes but held a 20-6 edge on points in the paint, had six steals and forced seven UCF turnovers while maintaining a 23-15 rebounding advantage.

The Cougars only had three turnovers and took a 33-19 halftime lead.

In the early going, Houston reeled off a 6-0 run and took a 15-8 lead on Uzan's alley-oop pass to Kalifa Sakho for a dunk. The Knights answered with a three by Kugel and a Bol dunk as UCF closed within 15-13 at the 8:16 mark.

In the second half, Burks hit a three to cut the Cougars' lead to 37-27, the closest the Knights would get the rest of the way. Houston was red-hot in the second half as the team shot 66% from the field (20 of 30) and took control of the game with a 12-4 scoring spree as Uzan's jumper led to a 51-31 lead with 13:27 to play.

For the game, UCF inched up to 30% shooting from the field and 28% (6 of 21) from distance. The Cougars shot 54% for the game, which made up for them only connecting on 3 of their 19 3-point attempts.