NORMAN, Oklahoma – I want to be like Jamal Shead when I grow up.

Talented.
Capable.
Charismatic.
Respected.
Dependable.
Tenacious.
Polished.

Worker.
Confident.
Disciplined.
Fearless.
Creative.
Accountable.

Focused.
Adaptable.
Determined.
Patient.
Decisive.

Disruptive.
Gritty.
Self-assured.
Formidable.

Go-to.
Leader.
Tough.

Triumphant.
Winner.

Badass.

the daily #212 | 3/3/2024 | Archives
 

Kelvin Sampson says that the end-of-the-game play is Jamal. It’s just Jamal. They goofed it at TCU but immediately corrected it. Now, everyone knows it’s coming. UH fans. Fans watching on TV. Opposing players. And every coach that has scouted and game-planned against Houston.

Uno end of game. This time, Jamal missed. But after a massive J’Wan Roberts offensive board and dish back to Jamal, he hit a little jumper with .4 seconds left.

Because box scores are imperfect, technically, it all happened with no time left:

Of course, it was the same timekeeper from the last three seconds of the first half.

But while that moment solidified Shead as Big 12 Player of the Year, it was not the game-winner. The game-winner came 18 seconds after tipoff, J’Wan Roberts again getting the ball in the high block and backing down a defender for a layup. How many times has UH opened a game with that same move?

The game-winner wasn’t a shot. The game-winner was normalcy. Not our normalcy, but theirs. This top-ranked team doing what they do, time and again, just like their coach. It’s a winner’s consistency. It’s the internal expectation that we’ll do whatever it takes to win, always just a little more than you’re willing to do.
 

With about 11 minutes to play, Jamal Shead hit a pull-up jumper to go up 14, and the shorthanded Cougars were cruising. But a couple of minutes later, he picked up his fourth foul. Disaster. He’d have to come out, probably for five minutes, likely til the under-4 timeout. The lead was down to 11.

L.J. and Emanuel and J’Wan and Mylik and Damian would have to hold on for five minutes. It wasn’t the most unconventional lineup of the night – Ced Lath and four guards would take that distinction – but it wasn’t ideal. Number four would have to man up on the power forward. Predictably, OU fought back.

Jamal returned with 3:56 left, the under-4 timeout triggered by an L.J. shooting foul. Good-good. Lead down to four. It crept to two before Emanuel caught a kick out from L.J.

In practice, in pregame, in shooting drills, and often in games, Emanuel shoots a step behind the three-point line. It’s his spot. His happy place. But in this moment, he took his shooting crouch three steps behind the line. Emanuel let it fly, surprising even Milos Uzan, who had a hand in his face. Uzan let his hand drift down as the shot soared over him.

Bucket.

Uzan scored at the other end, and UH came back down. Jamal Shead holds it, tries to penetrate it, and then hands it off to Emanuel as the shot clock tumbles below five. The ball gets away from him and nearly goes across midcourt. Emanuel recovered and launched an impossible shot, maybe two steps deeper than the previous one. It was a rainbow, the apex too high even for the ESPN2 camera. It hits back iron – as close as could be, really. It’s an inch from ending the game. Maybe less.

After Oklahoma improbably tied it with a free throw, an offensive rebound, a heads-up play to knock the ball out of bounds off Sharp, and a drive to the hoop, Houston was left with 11.8 seconds.

Following a Kelvin Sampson timeout, Jamal Shead inbounded to Emanuel, who quickly popped it back. Shead came down the floor with some pace but then slowed as he surveyed his options. He drove right, pivoted, and put it up with five seconds on the shot clock. After the game, Kelvin Sampson said he’d threatened his life if Jamal had shot a jumper. A three-way was needed: get inside where you can hit a game-winner, get fouled shooting, or get an offensive rebound and put it in.

You know the rest.
 

In a season of timely, often improbable, often logic-defying wins, this was on another level. Could it be the grittiest win of the Kelvin Sampson era? The most important win? Allowing for circumstances – the point in the season, overall and conference record, conference standings, all of their goals inching closer, the way OU shot the ball and battled for 40 minutes, the lack of depth, and the mounting injuries, including those in-game – a very good case can be made. GoCoogs.com contributor Jayme Hollingsworth’s mantra is the toughest team always wins. This Houston Cougar team showed there’s no tougher team in the toughest conference in the land.

UH effectively played the game with seven players, including a four-guard lineup almost half the night. Losing your sixth man in the days before the game was a gut punch, on top of the two quality players you’d already lost. Perhaps the deepest position in the program early in the season – the four spot – is down to one guy, playing on a bum knee and, just before the half, lacerating his right hand, requiring seven stitches in OU’s sports medicine facility.

Your all-world PG played on a bad leg. Your starting center registered barely 12 minutes, picking up his third foul in the first half, his fourth literally seconds after halftime, before fouling out with over six minutes to play. Your shooting guard, who Kelvin intentionally played heavier minutes early in the season, had a +/- of two. Plus-minus registers how the team did when you were on the court, and Cryer’s +2, the winning margin, is easily explained: he played every second. If 40 minutes wasn’t enough, he often found himself guarding Oklahoma’s power forward, too.

Every man stepped up. Every man played above expectation. Every man dug deeper, knowing the psychological importance of this game. And it came from unlikely sources: Ced Lath was a revelation, playing vital minutes in the first half. Mylik Wilson, athletic as anyone on the team, nearly face-colliding with the rim as he devastatingly blocked a shot, even getting oooohs from the home crowd. Despite the almost-topless moment his traveling violation nearly induced from Kelvin Sampson, Damian Dunn played solid and stepped up when needed.

Kelvin would not let his homecoming be the story of the night. He was happy to head fake the local and national media, wanting just to discuss his trip back to Norman. He was happy to take the distraction off his players. But when it came down to it, it was business as usual. No night-before parties for old friends. No slipping out, as surely would have been expected, to raise a glass and reminisce. Who could have blamed him if they practiced early, sent the players back to the hotel, and then spent the night reconnecting?

But players insist he’s the most consistent person they’ve ever met. No day, game, or road trip is more important than another. Flight, practice, go to the hotel, meetings, wakeup, breakfast, shoot-around. Same as it always was. Normalcy.

The #1 team from the #1 conference being who they are. A win away from history – at least a share of the Big 12 title and locking up a #1 seed – and it’s all just perfectly normal for Kelvin Sampson’s men.