FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Kyler Edwards had 20 points with six 3-pointers, big man Josh Carlton added 16 points and 18th-ranked Houston advanced to its fourth consecutive American Athletic Conference championship game Saturday with an 86-66 victory over Tulane.
The Cougars (28-5) matched their win total from last season, when they won their first AAC tournament title and then made it to the Final Four.
Houston played most of the game without first-team all-AAC forward Fabian White Jr., who exited less than three minutes in because of back tightness and didn't return. The Cougars eventually pulled away without him.
J'Wan Roberts, a 6-foot-7 sophomore, had a season-high 10 points to go with 13 rebounds for the Cougars. Taze Moore added 17 points with seven assists and Ramon Walker Jr. had 11 points with three 3-pointers. Edwards also had eight assists and seven rebounds.
Jaylen Forbes scored 19 for Tulane (14-15), which jumped out to a 9-2 lead before White left, and an early 30-second timeout by Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson. Houston responded with an 11-0 run.
Carlton, like White a graduated senior and first-team all-AAC post player, had a putback on the possession after that timeout. Carlton punctuated the end to that spurt with a second-chance dunk about three minutes later for a 13-9 lead.
In Houston's quarterfinal win over Cincinnati, Carlton was scoreless in the first half after early foul trouble. He played 25 minutes without any fouls against Tulane.
The Green Wave regained their last lead at 16-15 on a layup by Forbes with 10:46 left in the first half. That quickly got wiped out by a pair of 3-pointers.
Edwards had a second-chance 3 with 10:31 left, then Jamal Shead made a steal and Edwards got an assist on a 3-pointer by Walker.
Shead and Edwards hit back-to-back 3s to open Houston's scoring in the second half and extend the margin to double digits. The Cougars built as much as a 21-point lead.
Tulane played its fourth game without first-team all-AAC guard Jalen Cook, the second-year freshman transfer from LSU who averaged 18 points and 3.5 assists per game. He was out with a hamstring injury.
Kevin Cross added 13 points for the Green Wave. DeVon Baker had 12 and Tylan Pope 10.
BIG PICTURE
Tulane: The Green Wave, under third-year coach Ron Hunter, matched their most overall wins in the past seven seasons, and their 10-8 record in AAC games during the regular season was their first winning record in conference play since 9-7 in Conference USA in 2006-07. All that was after this team started 2-5 in November and had three games canceled in December because of COVID-19 issues.
Houston: The Cougars lost AAC title games in 2018 and 2019 to Cincinnati, and beat the Bearcats for the 2021 title after the 2020 tournament was canceled because of the pandemic. White had 18 points when Houston beat Cincinnati in the quarterfinal round of this year's tournament.
UP NEXT
The Cougars play in the AAC tournament final Sunday against the SMU-Memphis winner.
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