Up by 11 points early in the second half, SMU was in a good place. The Mustangs made nine of their final 12 first-half field goal attempts to erase a sloppy start. Then they scored 10 points in the first 4:02 of the second half to build the 11-point lead.
But it slipped away, and fast. Houston went on a 21-4 run, aided by a six-minute SMU scoring drought, seven second-half offensive rebounds and 16 second-half points from forward Devonta Pollard.
SMU, out-of-sync offensively and porous defensively, couldn’t do anything about it, despite Nic Moore’s best effort.