![\"Central](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770260294_873_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nHOUSTON \u2014 Kingston Flemings had 18 points and six assists, Chris Cenac Jr. added 14 points and 10 rebounds, and No. 8 Houston beat Central Florida 79-55 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Cenac and Flemings combined for 22 points on 10-of-17 shooting in the first half as Houston (20-2, 8-1 Big 12) took a 33-19 lead into halftime. The duo finished 15 of 25 from the field.<\/p>\n
Milos Uzan scored 12 points for the Cougars, who shot 55% from the floor despite going 3 for 19 from 3-point range. Houston had a 40-29 advantage in rebounds and outscored the Knights 42-14 in the paint.<\/p>\n
The Cougars won their 17th straight at home and have won 50 of their last 51 home games. Houston also won its 11th straight over UCF.<\/p>\n
The victory gave the Cougars their 11th straight 20-win season under coach Kelvin Sampson.<\/p>\n
Riley Kugel had nine points for UCF (17-5, 6-4), which had won three in a row. The Knights shot 31% and were 6 of 21 on 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
The Knights fell to 2-3 this season against ranked teams and 4-5 in Quad 1 games as they look to shore up their NCAA Tournament resume.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Central Florida guard Themus Fulks (1) drives around Houston guard Kingston Flemings, left, during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Jan., 4, 2026, in Houston. Credit: AP\/Michael Wyke<\/p>\n
Leading by one, Houston went on an 18-5 run over an eight-minute span to open a 27-13 advantage on Cenac’s jumper with 3:50 left in the first half. UCF shot 2 for 13 during the Cougars\u2019 spurt. <\/p>\n
Houston’s lead never dipped below double digits the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
UCF visits Cincinnati on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Houston plays at No. 16 BYU on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 Kingston Flemings had 18 points and six assists, Chris Cenac Jr. added 14 points and 10…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,319,217,231,772,1544,2148],"class_list":{"0":"post-583249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab","14":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116015786714889931","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}