San Antonio – How much can one program take? How can Houston the stomach another of them? Another portrait so close, just to see that it is receding from the perspective, instead covered with incorrect color confetti?
On this Monday night in April, it was Emanuel a sharp crunching deep, his hands on his head when he saw that the court would be orange and blue. Ja’vier Francis swept beside him and refused to leave his teammate. Kelvin Sampson, coach, stared from the whole floor and hands on his sides. Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. leaned and offered a sharp hug from behind.
Houston’s journey to the National Championship ended either as the best night in the history of the school, or as another chapter in this cruel epic. An antagonist in the heroic search for Jim Valvan. Shadow in redemption Fred Brown. Even before Monday, the school had in the history of this sport instead of torture-leather for the last four performances without winning the National Championship.
There were six. Now, after somehow happening here, which is just the driving of 65-63 the loss of the Florida team, which watched Cougars 12 at the beginning of the second half-there are seven.
For a school that plays a role with an unenviable periodicity, this can be the most difficult. This end was supposed to be the one that erased everyone else.
“Incomprehensible,” Sampson said later, “in that situation, we couldn’t get a shot, we couldn’t get.”
The sequence will live in the depths of the coogs mind for generation or two.
Down two, 19 seconds left. Called the time limit.
How did Houston win 35 games this year? Because at these moments Sampson is talking and listening to Coogs. Then they do. Then they win. Normal teams will not be overcome in the road conference games. He did this.
Some things were clarified in huds. Coogs did not need 3. But they had to fire with sufficient time to have a chance to bounce. Sampson developed a game for LJ Cryer, Houston’s All-EventHing Guard. If the initial action did not jump, Sampson wanted the property to turn to the lift screen for sharp.
Everything has evolved too slowly. Cryer’s appearance wasn’t there. Now it remained 7.3 seconds and came sharp here, ran from the base line to the top of the key, wiped around Screener J’wan Roberts and tried to free. The screen? Clayton didn’t care about it. The 6-Naha-2 guards threw himself, and when he saw a sharp rise for what could have been a winning shot very well and carved the whole damn chapter in the university basketball anals, jumped in the sky and blocked the sun.
Obviously, it was when sharp thought about potential wrinkles in the game. If he saw the detail, he was told to put the ball on board and a dash in the trash. Go tie the game. Go to win overtime. As head coach Kellen Sampson, Kelvin’s son, he said later: “Emanuel is the same good creator of decisions in detail as he is. And he needs little space to get one.”
Sharp thought there was a shot, but then it wasn’t, and it was too late. The shooting window closed and Sharp fell off instead of being filled. There it bounced and bounded. With all, all 75 years of program history. And there stood sharp, absolutely helpless. If he raised the ball, he would be whistled for travel.
Under the basket, Roberts turned his back as Sharp picked up to shoot, waiting for possible offensive bouncers. It would be Coogs’s 16th night, doubling what Florida pulled down. But the shot never came.
“I turned back and it was just a bouncing on the floor,” Roberts said.
Florida Alex Condon, Holul, on the floor with two seconds on the clock and hit his shoulder to the shoulder with Francis. The ball rushed away, the last corner was, followed by impossible pain.
Roberts, originally from the American Virgin Islands, went to High School in Killeen, Texas to play university basketball. In September 2018 he committed himself to Houston as a three -star recruit. It was six years, seven months, five days ago. At that time, Houston came from the first performance of the NCAA tournament under Sampson. Since then, Roberts has seen every step this week, which seemingly led to the final goal in Alamodome.
Kentucky was lost in 2019 Sweet 16. The abolished NCAA tournament in 2020. National semifinals for Baylor in the finals in the finals. The loss of Villan in Elite Elite 2022. Sweet 16 for Miami as seed no. 1 in 2023.
When this year’s national semifinals ended in the fact that Houston yelled back from 14 points down, the remaining eight minutes defeated the same blue devils, it certainly looked as if it were. Monday was to be the last of Roberts’ program records of 173 career games. It was 300. Victory of Sampson at school and 800. The victory of his career.
Instead, Florida and her 39 -year -old coach won the third national championship. The others came in 2006 and ’07, when Kelvin Sampson, now 69, was in the middle of the crossing from Oklahoma to Indiana. What all feels like millennia.
Monday’s night corner was just before 22:15 local time.
“One shining moment” played at 10:38.
At 10:54, Houston’s cabinet opened its door and revealed the consequences. Roberts said it took Sampson to collect and approach the team. The old coach told this team that he would never go without any player. Specifically, he pointed to Sharp, a junior with 106 games played in Houston. Then Sampson invited every assistant coach to address the room. Then every senior spoke.
Sharp, according to Roberts, got up and apologized to the team. In fact, the night did not get lost for any unique possession. It was a 40 -minute rock fight, one full of moments Houston would want to go back.
“We are not Finna guilt (sharp),” Roberts said. “He did a lot of great things. We know how special Emanuel is. I will comfort him as much as possible and I will defend his name if someone tries to get worse than what it is.”
Sharp never appeared in the dressing room Postgame. A phone was discarded in his locker.
Outside, Alamodome emptied and approached midnight.
“What is today’s date?” Roberts asked and failed in his locker.
It was 7th April.
“June to April, man. Long journey,” Roberts said, remembering back to the first practice of Coogs 2024-25. “It’s just crushing.
Robert paused and conjured up all the voices of Houston’s past.
“I just wish we could start this game again.”
(Photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
