College basketball rankings: Why Houston deserves to be ranked No.1 in the Top 25 And 1

It wasn’t the best performance Houston has produced this season – evidence being that the Cougars finished with more turnovers than assists and missed 14 of the 17 3-pointers they attempted. Call it the opposite of beautiful. Still, Houston did improve to 25-2 on Sunday afternoon with a 72-64 victory over shorthanded Memphis to remain No. 1 in Monday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings.

Kelvin Sampson will take it.

“The makeup of this team is winners,” Sampson said. “These kids know how to win. … Do they look great every night? I never thought it was a beauty contest. Last time I checked, you don’t put an asterisk beside anything. Just go win the game.”

Literally no college basketball team has been better at going and winning the game this season than Houston, which has the best winning percentage (92.6%) in the sport. Yes, some of that is (probably) tied to the fact that the Cougars play in the American Athletic Conference as opposed to, say, the Big 12 or Big Ten – but any smart person knows the Cougars could win any conference this season. They have a future Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach in Sampson, at least two future NBA players (Jarace Walker/Marcus Sasser) at the top of the roster, and enough talented and experienced pieces around them to win six games in the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

It’s why Houston is the favorite in the betting markets (at +700) to be 2023 national champion — not to mention No. 1 in the NET, at KenPom.com, at BartTorvik.com and at EvanMiya.com. The Cougars will take a seven-game winning streak into Wednesday night’s game against Tulane inside the Feritta Center, where a victory will secure at least a share of a fourth AAC regular-season championship in a five-year span.