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.
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When DeMeco Ryans became coach of the Houston Texans before last season, the two-time Pro Bowl linebacker brought his swarm defense with him.
It’s an identity the Texans have embraced as they prepare for their second straight trip to the divisional round of the playoffs Saturday where they’ll face the Kansas City Chiefs.
“You really can’t go out there if you’re not about it,” Ryans said.
And while every member of the defense has bought into Ryans’ aggressive style, there is one player who epitomizes it like no one else.
“Will every time,” cornerback Derek Stingley said of defensive end Will Anderson Jr.
Anderson, last year’s AP Defensive Rookie of the Year, has taken his game to another level this season and had 1½ sacks last week after piling up 11 in the regular season.
He described what playing swarm defense means to him.
“Do whatever it takes to get the ball, attacking the ball,” Anderson said. “We’ve got this saying in our D-line room; ‘who gonna pop it off?’ Whoever pops it off first, that’s swarming. Like who’s gonna make the big play? And I feel like there’s a lot of guys on defense that pop it off, who swarm.”
The Texans intercepted Justin Herbert a career-high four times, including one which was returned for a score, in last week’s win over the Chargers after he had been picked off just three times all season. Houston’s four takeaways in the first week of the playoffs are tied with Philadelphia for most in the NFL.
That performance came after Houston ranked fifth in the league in the regular season by forcing 29 turnovers.
Stingley, who had two of the interceptions last week a day after earning AP All-Pro honors, shared his mindset on the team’s defensive mentality.
“It really just comes down to if I was to tell you this is the last time you’re gonna do something, how you gonna do it,” Stingley said. “It’s simple as that. Just do that every single play.”
Ryans said there’s really no secret to why his team has such a knack for forcing turnovers. He believes it’s because he has good players, and they emphasize it in practice which translates to games.
“That’s our main thing that we go into every week is talking about attacking the football, taking the football,” Ryans said. “Because we know, when you take the football away, it just raises your percentages of winning the football games… it’s the defense helping the team win the game.”
While all of Houston’s takeaways last week came on interceptions, Stingley was quick to point out that those picks wouldn’t have happened if not for the pressure the defensive line put on Herbert. The Texans sacked him four times and hit him another nine in the 32-12 victory.
“The defense starts with them up front,” Stingley said. “They’re doing their job and it just makes it easier for us on the back end.”
Anderson said with each turnover, the defense got more and more amped up and was pushing each other to see who the next player would be to force one.
“That’s just that swarm mentality and we just feeding off each other,” Anderson said. “This person can’t do it by themselves so who is gonna be next and that just generates that contagious energy.”
The Texans were the fifth team since 1963 to have at least four sacks, four interceptions and an interception return for a touchdown in a playoff game last week. The past three teams to do it all went on to win the Super Bowl, with Tampa Bay doing so in the 2002 season, Baltimore in 2000 and San Francisco in 1989.
This Texans team would love to keep that going. But first they’ll need a win Saturday to put them in the AFC championship game for the first time after losing their previous five divisional matchups.
“That’s what you come here for,” Anderson said. “That’s what they’ve been rebuilding for is moments like this… we’ve got all the right pieces, we’ve just got to go out there and make it happen.”