You could tell that the No. 3 Cougars were amped up for their first-ever Big 12 game against West Virginia from the moment the game tipped off. Junior center Ja’Vier Francis set the tone with an emphatic dunk for UH’s first-ever points in the Big 12, injecting energy into the Fertitta Center crowd and getting the Houston bench on its feet.
“We knew it was the first Big 12 game so we knew were going to come out with energy,” said senior guard L.J. Cryer. “We see a lot of things that people say in the media about us not belonging in the Big 12 and so we were feeding off that.