Photo by: Anh Le
July 1, 2023: Houston officially joins the Big 12 Conference
The University of Houston finally became a power conference school in the summer of 2023, fulfilling a dream that was 27 years in the making.
In 1996, the storied Southwest Conference, which housed the likes of UH, Baylor, Texas and Texas A&M, fell apart. In its wake, UH was kept from joining the newly-formed Big 12 which included members from the Big 8 Conference and four SWC schools, leaving Houston on the outside looking.
UH spent the next 25 years attempting to find its way back into a big-time athletics conference, spending time in the smaller Conference USA and American Athletic Conference. The school’s attempts to join the prestigious Power-5 fraternity had been unsuccessful until a bout of conference reshuffling gave UH an opening into the Big 12.
Houston accepted the conference’s invitation in September of 2021 and officially joined the conference two years later.
October 2023: The Month of Firsts
While most fall sports began their conference schedules midway through September, it took a while for UH to get things going in its new surroundings. Between football, women’s soccer and volleyball, Houston began the Big 12 era a combined 0-8 in September.
But the dam broke on the first day of October when the Cougar soccer team defeated West Virginia 2-1 to mark Houston’s first-ever Big 12 victory.
Less than a week later, No. 21 UH volleyball tallied its first conference win in a dominant sweep over, once again, West Virginia. Later in the month, the Cougars led by star players Kate Georgiades and Kenna Sauer welcomed the No. 7 Texas Longhorns in a massive ranked showdown in the Fertitta Center on October 14. The match drew a crowd of 7,054 fans, blowing the previous UH attendance record for a women’s sporting event out of the water. Despite falling in a close four-set loss, it was a groundbreaking moment for a program that would eventually make its second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance.
Six days after volleyball’s win over WVU, Houston football, despite an otherwise disappointing first season in the conference, unforgettably knocked off the Mountaineers yet again in a 41-39 finish that was capped off by a miraculous Hail Mary touchdown pass from UH quarterback Donovan Smith to receiver Stephon Johnson to steal the team’s first Big 12 win.
December 3, 2023: Willie Fritz hired as UH football coach
After an underwhelming 4-8 year with the Cougars, head football coach Dana Holgorsen was fired shortly after the season’s end on November 26. Holgorsen, who coached UH for five years with a 31-28 overall record, was replaced by Tulane head coach Willie Fritz.
Fritz entered UH with a proven track record as a program builder fresh off back-to-back 11-plus win seasons with the Green Wave including a conference title in 2022 and found plenty of success as head coach in the junior college, Division II, Division I-AA and Group of 5 levels.
Beginning next season, Fritz will look to get UH football on the track in the Big 12.
January 6, 2024: UH men’s basketball begins Big 12 schedule
Perhaps the most anticipated part of the Cougars’ first year in its new conference was how its powerhouse men’s basketball team would fare in arguably the toughest conference in the nation.
Part of that answer came when the No. 3-ranked Cougars, holding an undefeated 13-0 record in nonconference play, blew out (one last time) the West Virginia Mountaineers 89-55 in their Big 12 debut to ring in the belated New Year.
In front of a rowdy and packed Fertitta Center crowd, Houston’s defense held WVU to just 32% shooting from the field while star guards L.J. Cryer and Jamal Shead led the UH offense with 20 points and 11 assists respectively.
March 8, 2024: Houston announces Big 12 arrival on the diamond
Unlike the slow start in the fall, UH’s first forays into the Big 12 for its winter and spring sports proved much more successful.
Within hours of each other, both the Houston baseball and softball teams would begin their conference schedules with massive wins.
The Cougar baseball team held off Baylor in a 4-3 to win the first game in an eventual series sweep over the Bears to earn its first Big 12 wins. Meanwhile, UH softball used an explosive eight-run fourth inning for its first conference win and highest-ranked win in program history.
March 9, 2024: The Cougars clinch the Big 12 Regular Season Championship
Though the win over West Virginia was an impressive opening statement to rest the Big 12, few could’ve foreseen what the Cougars would do for the following two months of conference play.
After suffering its first two losses of the season in consecutive road losses to TCU and Iowa State by a combined five points, Houston rattled off 14 wins in its final 15 regular season games, shooting up the Big 12 standings and beating eight NCAA Tournament teams in the process.
Jamal Shead emerged as one the best players in the country leading the Cougars’ nation-best defense while making clutch play after clutch play during the team’s numerous close road wins, including a buzzer-beater to sink head coach Kelvin Sampson’s former team in Oklahoma on the road. Shead would eventually go on to win the Big 12 Player of the Year and Naismith Defensive Player of the Year awards and was a unanimous pick for First-Team All-America honors.
Even as injuries began to pile up, Shead, Sampson and company capped their historic regular season with a Big 12 title-clinching 76-46 blowout over No. 14 Kansas at home on March 9. A record 7,933 fans in Fertitta Center helped send off seniors such as Shead while UH avenged one of its three regular-season losses en route to cutting down the nets.
The Cougars would go on to earn a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament and make the Sweet 16 for the fifth consecutive season. However, a devastating injury to Shead would prove too much to overcome for an already banged-up UH team, and Houston fell 54-51 to Duke.
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