Houston is coming off its first close game of the season and now looks to remain unbeaten when it hosts Rider on Thursday night.The No. 2 Cougars (4-0) made some late defensive stops while squeezing out a 73-72 win over then-No. 22 Auburn in Birmingham, Ala., on Sunday.Freshman point guard Kingston Flemings continued his strong start with 22 points, seven assists and five rebounds. The scoring output was his best in four college games.Flemings is averaging 17.3 points and 5.3 assists while sinking 69.2% (27 of 39) of his field-goal attempts.Asked about the recruitment of Flemings, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson didn’t provide any deep insight.”We knew we needed a point, so we were specifically looking for a point guard,” Sampson told reporters. “And when we saw him, we liked him.”Another sparkling freshman is big man Chris Cenac Jr., who had a season-best 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting against Auburn. He also grabbed nine rebounds to narrowly miss his third double-digit outing on the boards.Cenac is averaging 10.8 points and a team-leading nine rebounds per game.Flemings and Cenac are excelling for young players who were in high school 12 months ago, but Sampson aimed to shut down any chatter about the duo being ahead of schedule.”We don’t think where guys will be at any point of the season,” Sampson said. “I coach our teams. I thought our team would be a little bit better defensively.”Both those guys are still adjusting to college. I can tell by the line of questioning that you guys are setting them up (for future criticism).”Senior guard Emanuel Sharp had 13 points against Auburn but made just 5 of 15 shots. He’s second on the team with a 16.3 scoring average.
