Baylor Bears

Baylor vs. Houston Basketball: A History of a One-Sided Rivalry

By Matthew Postins

Posted on March 31, 2021

NCAA Basketball: NCAA Tournament-Arkansas at Baylor

The Baylor Bears and the Houston Cougars enjoyed a rather one-sided rivalry in their old Southwest Conference days, a rivalry renewed when they play in the Final Four on Saturday.

While those days have no bearing on what will happen on Saturday in Indianapolis, a look back on their 53 all-time meetings is a window to just how good Houston was at one time, and just how bad Baylor was before head coach Scott Drew.

In fact, the Bears and the Cougars have never played each other since Drew arrived in 2003.

That last meeting came on Nov. 30, 2002, in Houston, when the Bears defeated the Cougars, 62-60. The Bears finished 14-14 that season and were just a few months away from one of the worst scandals in college basketball history. Houston would finish that season 8-20 under Ray McCallum, a program still trying to rebuild itself after its unceremonious bouncing from the Southwest Conference.

The lineage between the Bears and the Cougars doesn’t go back quite as far as, say the Bears and their Elite Eight opponent, Arkansas, which the Bears beat on Monday. Those two teams have played each other 144 times.

Part of that was Houston’s fault. The school didn’t start a men’s program until right after World War II. And when the Cougars tipped off for the first time, they were in NAIA and a part of the Lone Star Conference (the LSC is now a Division II conference). From there, the Cougars joined the Missouri Valley Conference from 1950 to 1960, after which the Cougars wandered as an independent in basketball for more than a decade. During that time, the Cougars became a major Division I program, reaching back-to-back national championship games in 1967 and 1968. Armed with Elvin Hayes, the Cougars played UCLA in the so-called ‘Game of the Century’ in the Astrodome in 1968.

The Cougars didn’t actually join the SWC until the 1975-76 season. By that time the Cougars and Baylor had played seven times and the Bears were already behind 5-2 in the all-time series.

By the time they were in the same conference, the Bears were well removed from their Final Four runs in 1948 and 1950. The Bears hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1950, and after the Cougars joined the SWC — and the two teams played each other twice per year — the Cougars exerted early dominance.

The Cougars won five of the first six conference meetings, and then the Bears caught a three-game winning streak in 1978 and 1979. But, as ‘Phi Slama Jamma’ rose at Houston, the Cougars left the Bears in the dust. From March 1, 1979, to Jan. 24, 1985, the Cougars won 11 of 12 games. That one Baylor win came before Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler hit the Houston campus.

Baylor did manage one significant run of dominance over the Cougars, a five-game winning streak from 1987 to 1988. That streak coincided with the Bears’ 1988 NCAA Tournament appearance, their first since 1950. By then, the Cougars’ legendary mentor, Guy V. Lewis, had retired, and ‘Phi Slama Jamma’s’ national prominence had eroded.

In the SWC’s last three seasons Alvin Brooks was the head coach at Houston. The Cougars struggled, but his hiring is more significant today than it was in the 1990s. His son, Alvin Brooks III, is an assistant coach at Baylor. Meanwhile, the former Cougars head coach is now an assistant for current Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson. They’ll have to face off as assistant coaches on Saturday.

The elder Brooks coached that final Cougars-Bears meeting the SWC, a 79-69 Cougars win on Feb. 24, 1996, in Houston. Harry Miller was the head coach at Baylor.

The Cougars own a 38-15 record over the Bears. But the Cougars have never played the Bears when the Bears were ranked in the Top 25. Or outside of the state of Texas. Or in the NCAA Tournament.

Or, in the Final Four.

You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.

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