Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle
It was Thanksgiving week, and the University of Houston men’s basketball team had little to be thankful for after losing two of three games at the Players Era Festival.
One of the headliners in the NIL-backed event, held on the Las Vegas Strip, the sixth-ranked Cougars left town with a 4-3 record. Two days later, UH would tumble out of the top 10 in the national polls for the first time in two years.
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“Those weren’t anything to worry about,” guard Emanuel Sharp said of close early season losses to Alabama, Auburn and San Diego State.
Upon the return home, coach Kelvin Sampson said the Cougars “got inside our little bunker,” rolled up their sleeves and got to work on the “little things.”
So, perhaps it was fitting, as the Cougars celebrated the Big 12 tournament championship Saturday night, the team suddenly broke into a sing-along.
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Since the opening month of the season, the Cougars have gone 26-1, swept the Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles and are a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the third consecutive year.
UH (30-4), the top seed in the Midwest Region, will open against No. 16 seed Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville at 1 p.m. Thursday in Wichita, Kan.
After years of close calls and bad luck since reaching the Final Four in 2021, the Cougars are one of the most complete teams in the nation, a combination of shutdown defense and balanced offense, and a legitimate national title contender. And it could be a short drive: the Final Four will be held April 5-7 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
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“This is their best chance,” CBS Sports analyst Bill Raftery said.
How did the Cougars turn around the season?
“We learned, watched film and got better,” Sharp said. “It’s really not that complicated.”
During the first month, UH (shorthanded as big man Ja’Vier Francis recovered from a groin injury) was up nine points against Auburn — the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament — in an eventual 74-69 loss at Toyota Center. A few weeks later in Las Vegas, the Cougars had a chance to win at the end of regulation but lost to Alabama, 85-80. But it was a 73-70 overtime loss to San Diego State three days later that was the head-scratcher. Milos Uzan, the handpicked successor to All-American point guard Jamal Shead, was still figuring out UH’s system and fouled out in all three November losses. Was the loss of Shead too much for the Cougars to overcome?
With a week between games, the Cougars went through practices that were described as “intense.”
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“The vibe in the locker room was horrible,” guard Terrance Arceneaux said. “Nobody in this program likes to lose. We knew how good we were. We just stayed in the gym locked in and forgot about the outside noise.”
Besides, it wasn’t like the Cougars were blown out in any of the three losses.
“They were all close, overtime, one-possession games,” said Sharp, the Big 12’s Most Outstanding Player. “They were all against the top teams in the country. There was nothing to panic about.”
Said Uzan: “You need to lose sometimes to learn. I’m glad we went through that adversity early. We were able to grow.”
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UH found its footing, winning the final four non-conference games before beginning what would be the most dominant showcase in Big 12 history. They beat BYU by 31. They beat Kansas State by 30, Utah by 34.
“We just tried and not let 4-3 dictate our season,” forward J’Wan Roberts said. “We learned a lot.
UH survived close calls as Roberts made a last-second shot to beat UCF, and the Cougars won a double-overtime thriller against Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse. UH was 10-0 on the road this season, the only Division I team to go unbeaten away from home.
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While Auburn and Duke, along with the Southeastern Conference, have gotten most of the attention this season, the Cougars enter the postseason as the hottest team in college basketball. Sampson has his most complete team built on a shutdown, bruising defense (No. 2 nationally allowing 58.5 points) and a balanced offense that features scoring threats L.J. Cryer, Sharp and Uzan. Case in point: Sharp had a season-high 26 points and Cryer had 20 points in the semifinals against BYU; Uzan followed with a career-high 25 points in the championship game against Arizona.
“That’s why I came here,” said Uzan, a transfer from Oklahoma. “I came here to win a national championship.”
The Cougars retained their core with Cryer, Sharp, Roberts, Francis, Joseph Tugler and Mylik Wilson from a team that was a No. 1 seed and reached the Sweet 16 last season.
Entering the NCAA Tournament, ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said UH is “the best team in the country.”
“That was the beauty of 4-3,” Fraschilla added. “Everybody forgot about them. I think it’s almost fortuitous that they were 4-3 because they were able to stay under the radar nationally and it also put a huge chip on their shoulder.”
What separates UH from other contenders, Fraschilla said, is its defense and ability to shoot 3-pointers at a high percentage (fourth nationally at 40%).
“The fact they shoot 40% from 3 with all the other intangibles that come along with being Houston means they are one of the two or three favorites,” Fraschilla said.
The one possible roadblock: health. The last three NCAA appearances have been derailed by injuries, most recently Shead’s sprained ankle in a Sweet 16 loss to Duke in 2024. Roberts, an All-Big 12 first-team selection, missed the final two games of the Big 12 tournament with a sprained right ankle but said he will be ready for the NCAA opener.
“Only bad luck will hold them back,” Fraschilla said.
After watching UH win three games at the Big 12 tournament, commissioner Brett Yormark recalled a conversation he had with Sampson before the season.
“They’re the best team in the country,” Yormark said. “My expectation is — and I said this to Coach Sampson at the beginning of the season — is to see them in San Antonio. That’s been re-enforced this week.”
Nearly four months since a rough start to the season, the Cougars have set their eyes on the school’s elusive first national title.
“It wasn’t easy. It’s never easy,” Francis said. “It just shows the team we have. These guys are hard workers, and they don’t want to lose. We knew what we had. We struggled a little bit early, but we always knew what we had. We just had to tap into it.”
