NCAA Basketball Takeaways: UNC, Gonzaga, Houston and UCLA all get major wins

2. Freshman Jarace Walker leads Houston over No. 2 Virginia

After losing on the road at Alabama last weekend, Houston was looking to make up for it with a win at No. 2 Virginia, one of the biggest early surprises of the season. It was a battle of not only two top-5 teams in NCAA Basketball but also two of the top defensive units in the country.

The game went as expected, with both teams in a slugfest where both sets of guards found it hard to score. That includes star guard and All-American candidate Marcus Sasser, who scored 13 points on 4/14 shooting from the field. The good news for him is that all five starters scored for Houston in what ended up being a 69-61 victory.

The MVP of the game was Jarace Walker, who led all scorers with 17 points, while also leading the Cougars with seven rebounds and four assists. The former five-star prospect out of high school had a great start to the season, including 23 points against St. Joseph’s. But Walker has hit a bit of a “freshman wall”, with five of the last six games being single-digit scoring.

This breakout performance came at the perfect time for Houston, who gets a signature resume-building victory when it comes to potentially getting a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Outside of two games versus Memphis in AAC play, there won’t be any other opportunities to move the needle. Now the Cougars will need the Cavalier to handle business in order to have this win look as good as possible.