DALLAS (AP) — Houston is home in the Lone Star State, playing as a No. 1 seed in the South Region and in the Sweet 16 for the fifth NCAA Tournament in a row.
With All-America point guard Jamal Shead, big man J'Wan Roberts and coach Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars are in the midst of their best March Madness run since they made three consecutive Final Fours in the Phi Slama Jam era four decades ago. They were Big 12 regular-season champions this season after moving into that power conference, top 10 in the AP poll throughout and No. 1 for three weeks.
“I don’t think that we changed any type of motivation or changed what we’ve been doing all year, and for the past four years that I’ve been here,” Shead said Thursday. “They had a winning culture before I got here, and it kind of got instilled in me playing with guys like J’Wan for four years and all the guys that were in front of us. ... We follow Coach Sampson, and I think that's the real reason we're here.”
The Cougars (32-4) play blueblood Duke (26-8) on Friday night at the home of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, about 250 miles from the Houston campus. Another Atlantic Coast Conference team, No. 11 seed North Carolina State (24-14), takes on second-seeded Marquette (27-9) and former Texas coach Shaka Smart in the first Dallas game.
Duke was just getting started with coach Mike Krzyzewski and wasn't in the NCAA field when Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler took the Cougars to the first of those consecutive Final Fours in 1982. The following year, Houston lost to coach Jim Valvano's Wolfpack in a memorable championship game. The Cougars made the title game again in 1984, the year of Coach K's first NCAA tourney with the Blue Devils.
Since then, there have since been only two NCAA tournaments played without Duke, which has five national championships. Second-year Blue Devils coach Jon Scheyer won a title as a player in 2010, and was an assistant coach for their most recent in 2015.
The Cougars, meanwhile, went 34 years before even winning another March Madness game, with only four appearances until an opening-round victory in 2018. The next year started their active run of Sweet 16s, which is matched only by Midwest Region No. 5 seed Gonzaga.
“This (Houston) group has been together not just this year. It’s been a few years in the making,” Scheyer said. “You’re playing a team that expects to win. Coach Sampson, the job that he’s done, the staff, the program, they’ve developed that edge and that belief. That’s something that I’ve known. I’ve known no other way since I’ve been a player at Duke. It’s no different since I have been an assistant coach here, the head coach. We expect to win."
Houston's 125 wins with Shead and Roberts are the most in a four-year span in school history. The latest was 100-95 in overtime against Texas A&M, in which they survived Shead and three other starters fouling out while Roberts finished with four fouls.
The Blue Devils lost their regular-season finale at home to North Carolina, costing them a share of the ACC regular-season title. Then they dropped their conference tourney opener to N.C. State, which won the third of five games in as many days just to get into the 68-team March Madness field.
“We knew how good we are, but with the two losses, we didn’t get a win for, like, two weeks. It can kind of get a little unconfident," Duke guard Jeremy Roach said. “I think getting that first (NCAA) win against Vermont was a big thing, and then it just leads us to ... where we are right now. We just have to keep that confidence going.”
The only double-digit seed still playing is N.C. State, with the same No. 11 seed that Smart's VCU team had during its improbable Final Four run in 2011.
N.C. State has been playing elimination games since going into the ACC Tournament having lost seven of nine. The Wolfpack won five games in five days against past national champs for the league's automatic NCAA bid, then beat Texas Tech and Oakland.
“We went into this postseason with the approach that it’s a new season. ... Every game was its own championship, literally,” Wolfpack guard Casey Morsell said. “That’s the same approach we’ve had in this tournament.”
Marquette hadn't been in the Sweet 16 since it made three in a row from 2011-13. This is the first regional semifinal for Smart in his 10 NCAA appearances since VCU's run. He made four more tourneys with the Rams, three in six years with Texas and all three since returning to his home state to coach the Golden Eagles.
“I try not to really dwell too much on the past," Smart said. “Because then all of a sudden you do something really, really fun and exciting, and your overwhelming emotion is relief.”
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
Duke guard Jeremy Roach (3) has a team huddle during a time out in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in the quarterfinal round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament game against North Carolina State Thursday, March 14, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Houston forward J'Wan Roberts (13) and head coach Kelvin Sampson celebrate the team's 100-95 overtime win after a second-round college basketball game against Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament, Sunday, March 24, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brandon Dill)
Houston guard Jamal Shead (1) grabs a loose ball away from Longwood guard DA Houston (3) during the first half of a first-round college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament, Friday, March 22, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Former South African President Jacob Zuma Saturday lamented the high levels of poverty among black South Africans and promised to create jobs and tackle crime as he launched his new political party's manifesto ahead of the country's much anticipated elections.
He told thousands of supporters who gathered at Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg that his party would build factories where many people would be employed and provide free education to the country's youth.
“We want our children to study for free, especially those from poor households because the poverty we have was not created by us. It was created by settlers who took everything, including our land. We’ll take all those things back, make money and educate our children,” he said.
He has also pledged to change the country's Constitution to restore more powers to traditional leaders, saying their role in society has been reduced by giving more powers to magistrates and judges.
Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe party, known as the MK Party, has emerged as a significant player in South Africa's upcoming elections after it was launched in December last year.
He is currently involved in a legal battle with the country's electoral authority, the Independent Electoral Commission. He has appealed against a court judgment which barred him from standing in the election because of his criminal record.
Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison for defying a court order to appear before a judicial commission of inquiry which was probing corruption allegation in government and state-owned companies during his presidential term from 2009 to 2018.
In 2018, he was forced to resign as the country's president following wide-ranging corruption allegations, but he has made a political return and is now seeking to become the country's president again.
“When they talk about unemployment, they are talking about us, there is nobody else. When they talk about people who leave in shacks, that is us, there is nobody else who lives in shacks except us,” Zuma told his supporters, many of whom had travelled from other provinces like Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, where he still enjoys significant support.
Poverty among black people is the reason behind South Africa's high levels of crime, according to the former president.
“Our hunger and poverty is what creates a perception that we are criminals, we don't have a brain, we have nothing. That time is over, because we are good people who are giving, but some people are pushing us towards criminality,” he said.
Zuma said his party was aiming to get more than 65% of the national vote in the upcoming elections as it would allow them to change many laws in the country's constitution.
Recent polls and analysts have suggested that the ruling African National Congress might get less than 50% of the vote and would need to form a coalition with smaller parties to remain in power.
South Africans will go to the polls on May 29.
Supporters of former South African President Jacob Zuma hold a pro-Putin sign at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
A young Zulu warrior makes his way through the crowd , waiting for former South African President Jacob Zuma to arrive at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Former South African President Jacob Zuma greets supporters at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Supporters wait for former South African President Jacob Zuma to arrive at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Veteran fighters parade as they wait for former South African President Jacob Zuma to arrive at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Supporters wait for former South African President Jacob Zuma to arrive at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto, Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Former South African President Jacob Zuma arrives at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Supporters cheer former South African President Jacob Zuma as he arrives at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Supporters wait for former South African President Jacob Zuma to arrive at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Former South African President Jacob Zuma, centre, arrives at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in a bitter battle in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Former South African President Jacob Zuma arrives at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in a bitter battle in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Former South African President Jacob Zuma arrives at Orlando stadium in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, for the launch of his newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party's manifesto Saturday, May 18, 2024. Zuma, who has turned his back on the African National Congress (ANC) he once led, will face South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced him as leader of the ANC in a bitter battle in the general elections later in May. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
