No. 1 Houston Beats SIU Edwardsville, Impresses CBB Fans with March Madness Rout

The road to a national championship begins with a single step, and Houston took that step Thursday.

The top-seeded Cougars defeated No. 16 SIU Edwardsville 78-40 in the first round of the 2025 NCAA men's basketball tournament at Intrust Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas. They advanced to the round of 32 and will now face the winner of the game between No. 8 Gonzaga and No. 9 Georgia in the Midwest Region.

L.J. Cryer (15 points and four assists), Ja'Vier Francis (13 points and eight rebounds) and Milos Uzan (16 points, three rebounds and three assists) led the way for the No. 1 seed.

Its defensive effort also stood out as SIU Edwardsville shot 2-of-24 from deep (8.3 percent) with 13 turnovers.

It's safe to say social media was impressed with the showing:

This figured to be a small roadblock on the way to bigger and better things for Houston. 

After all, it has realistic national title aspirations and steamrolled its way to a 19-1 record in Big 12 play before winning the conference tournament as well. It hasn't lost a game since Feb. 1, and three of its four defeats this season came in overtime.

A suffocating defense that is No. 2 in KenPom set the tone right out of the gates, as SIU Edwardsville didn't even reach double digits until there were just more than nine minutes remaining in the first half.

From there, Uzan found his stroke from deep, Francis provided a spark off the bench and Cryer did a little bit of everything as a go-to scorer and the team's primary facilitator as Houston quickly seized full control and jumped out to a 28-point halftime lead.

The majority of the game felt largely like a formality, and that was especially the case in the second half as Houston put things in cruise control. 

While SIU Edwardsville was anything but a challenge, it wasn't difficult to envision Houston making a deep run given its performance. The defense alone means it can defeat any opponent, and there are enough scorers that someone will likely always be dialed in on any given night.

Emanuel Sharp was the team's second-leading scorer during the season, but he was relatively quiet Thursday. That wasn't a problem, though, because Terrance Arceneaux added some offense off the bench alongside Francis.

Cryer and Uzan didn't need much support against a No. 16 seed, but that type of balanced attack will prove critical in future games.

The next one comes Saturday in the round of 32 and may even feature a highly anticipated showdown with Gonzaga. The No. 8 seed is somewhat deceiving, as the Bulldogs are the ninth-best team in the country in the KenPom rankings.

But Houston is on another level as the third-best team and looked the part of a championship contender Thursday with a decisive victory to start off its Big Dance.