Sweet 16: UH men's basketball moves on to face Arizona on Thursday

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The University of Houston men's basketball team is back home, but they won't be here long.

The Coogs will leave Houston on Tuesday for San Antonio, where they will face No. 1 seed Arizona in the Sweet 16 at AT&T Center.

Game time is set for 8:40 p.m.

This will be Houston's third straight Sweet 16 appearance.

Houston advances after defeating Illinois 68-53 earlier Sunday.

Once back in their locker room, Houston's players emptied their water bottles on coach Kelvin Sampson, who peeled off his shirt for the celebratory dousing. A sweet soaking indeed.

"It was crazy for real. I ain't never seen anything like that before in my life, but it was a good thing. I'd rather see him like that than him getting on us," said guard Taze Moore once the team returned back to campus in Houston.

"That wasn't the plan. Sometimes emotions get the best of old guys," said Sampson.

Moore scored 21 points and Jamal Shead added 18 as the Cougars, a Final Four team last season, advanced in the South Region of the NCAA Tournament with a 68-53 win Sunday over Illinois, ousted in the opening weekend for the second straight year.

The fifth-seeded Cougars (31-5) are making another serious run at a national title despite losing their two best players to season-ending injuries. Now, with a trio of transfers and a defense with some serious teeth, they're headed for the next round.

"It's our heart," Shead said when asked about this team's toughness. "We don't want to lose. We want to win for each other. We love each other so much, these guys are like my brothers, you know, it goes way beyond basketball. We want to keep it going as long as we possibly can."

Kyler Edwards added 15 points for Houston, a team often overlooked but making major noise again this March.

With Houston's fans chanting, "Sweet 16, Sweet 16" in the closing seconds, Edwards dropped one last 3-pointer from the corner and seconds later lifted Moore, another of Houston's transfers, off the floor.

The Cougars faced major adversity in December when guards Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark, two of the holdovers from last year's talented squad, were lost to injuries. But instead of folding, Houston's players formed an even tighter bond.

"We got a brand-new bunch," Sampson said, dried off and fully dressed. "But the culture never changes. Because they're great kids and they're high-character kids, they buy in. It's never about them. Our program is always about we and us, and that's what happens when you have great kids."

Houston's Fabian White Jr. made the play of the game by racing into the backcourt and swatting the ball before it went out of bounds with his left hand to Moore for a layup.

"Culture play, that's what we call it," Sampson said. "Those are culture plays. Whenever we watch film, we do edits. We always end our film sessions with culture plays. Everybody wants to be on the edit.

"There were three guys involved in that play. Somebody made a great effort play on the baseline, Fabian made a great effort play, and next thing you know, Taze is getting a layup."

The squad arrived back in Houston Sunday night to cheers and welcoming fans. Players again spoke to the team's grit, despite others writing them off.

"We put in a lot of hard work just to be here. A lot of people counted us out, and we counted ourselves in and that's all that matters," Moore told ABC13. "We couldn't care less what people had to say because they weren't in the gym with us at 5 o'clock in the morning in June. Not saying that we knew we would be here, but we had a good feeling. We never doubted ourselves and we always just wanted to be winners from jump."

It might be too early to start thinking about this (but really, is it ever too early if you're rooting for the Coogs?), but if Houston wins Thursday night, they'll play on Saturday night. The opponent at that point is TBD.

If UH wins Saturday, they make it to the Final Four in New Orleans.

And if you want to really look ahead, Houston hosts the Final Four next year at NRG Stadium.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.