{"id":618765,"date":"2023-03-17T00:33:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T05:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/17\/houstons-marcus-sasser-pulled-at-half-status-in-question-espn\/"},"modified":"2023-03-17T00:33:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T05:33:00","slug":"houstons-marcus-sasser-pulled-at-half-status-in-question-espn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/17\/houstons-marcus-sasser-pulled-at-half-status-in-question-espn\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston&#8217;s Marcus Sasser pulled at half; status in question &#8211; ESPN"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p><span data-behavior=\"date_time\" data-date=\"2023-03-17T05:29:00Z\"><span data-dateformat=\"time1\" data-showtimezone=\"true\">1:29 AM ET<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=\/i\/columnists\/full\/scarborough_alex.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop\" alt width=\"40\" height=\"40\"><\/p>\n<p>Alex Scarborough<span>ESPN Staff Writer <\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/#\">Close<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Covers the SEC.<\/li>\n<li>Joined ESPN in 2012.<\/li>\n<li>Graduate of Auburn University.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>BIRMINGHAM, Ala. &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/team\/_\/id\/248\/houston-cougars\">Houston<\/a> coach Kelvin Sampson, fresh off a closer than expected win over No. 16 seed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/team\/_\/id\/94\/northern-kentucky-norse\">Northern Kentucky<\/a> during the first round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday night, defended the decision to play star guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/4432107\/marcus-sasser\">Marcus Sasser<\/a>, who recently suffered a groin injury.<\/p>\n<p>Sasser &#8212; the American Conference Player of the Year, All-American and one of the best scorers in college basketball &#8212; injured his groin during the conference tournament less than a week ago. He started against Northern Kentucky but played only 14 minutes before aggravating the injury, limping to the bench and being pulled from the game.<\/p>\n<p>Houston struggled to pull away from Northern Kentucky and ultimately hung on to win 63-52 to advance in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Sasser told reporters after the game that there was &#8220;definitely&#8221; an opportunity for him to play against No. 9 seed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/team\/_\/id\/2\/auburn-tigers\">Auburn<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Sampson said that Sasser, who did not play in Houston&#8217;s game on Sunday, didn&#8217;t participate in practice until Wednesday. Sampson said he didn&#8217;t know Sasser would play until Thursday morning and that he would have been fine had Sasser chosen to sit out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been with Marcus for four years,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I trust Marcus and I trust our trainer. I leave those decisions up to them. Marcus knows his body better than anyone in this room, including me.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So I would have been fine if Marcus had decided not to play tonight, but he wanted to give it a try because he thought he was at a high enough percentage out of 100 that he could go.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sampson believed his team was deflated when Sasser was sidelined in the second half. Without him &#8212; and without a fully healthy roster top to bottom &#8212; Sampson said Houston isn&#8217;t No. 1 seed material.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t have another Marcus Sasser,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But everybody has to stay in their lane.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/4432241\/jamal-shead\">Jamal Shead<\/a>, one of four Houston players who averaged more than 10 points per game this season, hyperextended his knee in Thursday night&#8217;s win. He told reporters he expects to play on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Auburn will enjoy a favorable crowd being only 100 miles from campus, but Sampson downplayed the advantage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We got to go see how many healthy bodies we have right now,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s probably our most important thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sampson instead turned the focus to the strong play of Northern Kentucky, which kept the game close throughout.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t coach Northern Kentucky, but I was proud of their team tonight,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They fought. They&#8217;re well-coached.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sampson cited the Norse scoring 21 points on second-chance opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They were tougher than we were tonight,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And that&#8217;s not easy for me to say.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMicmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmVzcG4uY29tL21lbnMtY29sbGVnZS1iYXNrZXRiYWxsL3N0b3J5L18vaWQvMzU4Nzc4NTYvaG91c3Rvbi1tYXJjdXMtc2Fzc2VyLXB1bGxlZC1oYWxmLXN0YXR1cy1xdWVzdGlvbtIBf2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmVzcG4uY29tL21lbnMtY29sbGVnZS1iYXNrZXRiYWxsL3N0b3J5L18vaWQvMzU4Nzc4NTYvaG91c3Rvbi1tYXJjdXMtc2Fzc2VyLXB1bGxlZC1oYWxmLXN0YXR1cy1xdWVzdGlvbj9wbGF0Zm9ybT1hbXA?oc=5\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Leigha Klemp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1:29 AM ET Alex ScarboroughESPN Staff Writer Close Covers the SEC. Joined ESPN in 2012. Graduate of Auburn University. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. &#8212; Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, fresh off a closer than expected win over No. 16 seed Northern Kentucky during the first round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday night, defended the decision to play [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":618766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,22050,24881],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-financial","category-houstons","category-marcus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}