KEYS TO VICTORY
3 key components for the Houston Cougars' championship journey
Mar 21, 2024, 10:58 am
March Madness is upon us. Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images.
After winning the Big 12 Conference regular-season championship, Houston is heading back to the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament as a No. 1 seed for the second consecutive year.
Even though the Cougars lost to Iowa State in the conference tournament final, this team is still well positioned to make another deep run thanks to some key players and head coach Kelvin Sampson’s excellent system.
1. The dynamic duo of Jamal Shead and LJ Cryer
Senior guard Jamal Shead has been nothing short of spectacular for the Cougars this season and was recently was named the Big 12 Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Year.
The 21-year-old has been a fixture for Houston since his rookie year and has become the unquestioned leader on this team.
Shead averaged a respectable 13.1 points per game this season, but doesn’t need to be the primary scorer for Houston to win games. He leads the team in both assists and steals this season and does an exceptional job of getting his teammates involved. That’s not to say Shead can’t take over a game offensively, for the senior guard scored over 20 points four times this season.
Overall, Shead might be the best player on this team, but the Cougars' best offensive threat comes from their other guard LJ Cryer.
Once Marcus Sasser was drafted, Houston knew they needed to replace him with another dynamic guard to pair with Shead and they brought in arguably one of the best players from the transfer portal.
The Katy, Texas, native transferred from Baylor to return home to play under head coach Kelvin Sampson and has been the Cougars best offensive player averaging a career-high 15.3 points per game this season. Cryer also brought with him years of winning experience, for he played in the NCAA Tournament multiple times with Baylor including coming off the bench on their 2020-21 championship team.
Shead and Cryer create one of the best backcourts in the country and both players were named All-Americans earlier this week.
With Shead’s leadership and Cryer’s prolific scoring, Houston has the potential to win any game in the tournament and either guard can take over at a moment's notice.
2. J’Wan Roberts’ injury status
Senior forward J’Wan Roberts has developed into one of the best overall players on this Cougar team thanks to his commanding defense and ability to score in the paint with ease. The 22-year-old is Houston’s leading rebounder and averaged 9.4 points per game this season. Needless to say, Roberts is just as important to this teams' success as the aforementioned backcourt duo of Shead and Cryer, so seeing Houston’s premier power forward get hurt was not a good sight to be seen.
Roberts was severely limited in the final two games of Big 12 Tournament due to a knee injury he suffered against Texas Tech. He was able to return the following day against Iowa State, but the Cougars fell behind early and coach Sampson took him out strictly for precautionary reasons.
At the end of the day, winning the Big 12 tournament wasn’t necessary for Houston to earn a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament, and if the game was close Sampson would have kept Roberts in.
The Cougars will need Roberts in the lineup especially considering they lost freshman Joseph Tugler for the season to a broken bone in his right foot about two weeks ago. Losing their best forward off the bench isn’t ideal, but Houston can make up for his absence thanks to their depth.
In addition to Roberts, Ja’Vier Francis, Cedric Lath and Damian Dunn have stepped up in Tugler's absence and have provided the Cougars with the necessary depth to stay competitive despite losing one of their best bench players.
In the end, it would be hard to envision Roberts not playing in Houston's first-round game against Longwood, and they could always take him out of the game if the Cougars take an early commanding lead.
3. Kelvin Sampson’s system
When Kelvin Sampson took over as the head coach back in 2014, Houston basketball was an afterthought at best. Since then, he built this program from the ground up, and is on the verge of potentially leading his squad back to the Final Four and beyond.
Coach Sampson has taken the Cougars to six straight NCAA Tournament appearances and has developed a winning formula that gets the most out of his players every year.
His system works by instilling a defense first mindset into his players and making sure everyone knows their roles on the team. Take Jamal Shead, Ja’Vier Francis and Emanuel Sharp as examples. All three started out their college careers as bench players and earned their spots as starters by playing with heart, hustle and becoming great defenders on the court.
Shead has proven himself time and time again to be a great point guard and defensive leader on this team. Sharp is a solid 3-and-D player and Francis leads the team in blocked shots this season.
Coach Sampson always gets the most out of his guys on defense, which makes Houston one of the best teams in the nation.
“Our defense is our defense,” Shead said. “We’re No. 1 in the nation. We take pride in that. We turn you over, cool. But we’re going to try to make you miss. We’re going to make it as hard as possible every possession.”
Looking ahead
As it currently stands, Houston is one of the favorites to win the NCAA Tournament and will play their first game against the Big South Conference champions Longwood Lancers
The Cougars are -23.5 favorites to win this game according to FanDuel and shouldn’t have any issues securing a victory on Friday night.
Their following game would either be against Nebraska or fans could potentially see a rematch against Texas A&M in the next round.
The last time these two Texas schools faced each other, Houston defeated the Aggies 70-66 on December 16th at the Toyota Center.
Houston is a No.1 seed for a reason, they are one of the best teams in the nation and have all the necessary skills to go back to the Final Four and potentially win their first championship in program history.
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or nine games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after a 4-8 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez (though not Breggy Bad). A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.