Fourth-ranked Houston beat Texas A&M in a beautiful game (“Every win is beautiful,” Galen Robinson regularly tells me. But the way it ended, the offensive stagnation, and the injury to Terrance Arceneaux were not pretty. But UH moved to 11-0 on the season – one of just four unbeatens left – and Kelvin Sampson’s team heads into the holiday season with just two games in the next 20 days before WVU comes to town for the Big 12 opener.
the daily #139 | 12/17/2023 | Archives
If I told you Jamal Shead had eight assists, J’Wan Roberts had 10 points, 11 rebounds, and seven assists, and Emanuel Sharp scored 21 and had six boards, you’d wonder how much the Coogs blew out the directional school they played.
But four starters scored sixty of the 70 points and 16 of 18 assists. Those four guys played 140 of 160 possible minutes, which is fine in a quiet December stretch but is unsustainable come January.
Terrance Arceneaux’s (likely) torn Achilles is a gut punch. TA was starting to really come on and play well. He’s been rebounding well – he had 28 boards in the four games before A&M (13 offensive). He was starting to figure it out, and then a non-contact injury ended his season. Ugh. Hate to see it.
Remember last week, GoCoogs had a video about Emanuel Sharp not being happy with his FT shooting? He was at 79% for the season and decided to spend more time getting more reps from the line. Assistant Quannas White stayed with him on a free throw shooting drill for an hour that day. Emanuel wants to be at 90% and was frustrated that he’d missed more FTs this year than all of last year.
Two days after that video, he went 8/10 at the line vs. Jackson State and scored 25 points. Against the Aggies, he had 16 before burying a three with 29 seconds to play. Sharp was fouled for a one-and-one with UH up two with just over five seconds left in the game. A front-end miss, and the Aggies would likely get a chance to win it at the buzzer.
Emanuel swished the first to put UH up by three. The second hit the front of the rim but rattled in. They were the only two free throw attempts of his day, but he made both in the most pressure-packed moment of the season.
When I was at practice last Friday, the day’s work ended with Emanuel making 29 of 30 attempts from the line. As Quannas White walked off the floor with him, he said, “Make your damn free throws.” I didn’t even notice the line was in the video until a few days later:
