J’Wan Roberts handled the postgame press conference after the University of Houston lost to Duke in the Sweet 16 as well as any player could, considering the circumstances.
The suddenness of the end to a season after months and months of practices and travel and games always hits hard. Late Friday night, it was worse.
Roberts maintained his composure, giving honest, insightful answers to questions despite the disappointment of his season being over. His team having been eliminated from the NCAA Tournament, well before expected, well before it deserved.
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He talked about leadership, how losing Jamal Shead to an ankle injury in the first half affected the game, and the mistakes the Cougars made that resulted in the loss.
WHAT'S NEXT? It won't be the same team next year
Roberts held strong until he was asked about the emotions running through him at that moment, 30 minutes after the defeat.
“One, we lost,” he said. “Two, we don’t have practice tomorrow. You know, we don’t have any more film sessions. We don’t have any wake-up calls anymore. The season is over with.”
Roberts wanted more, but the 2023-24 Cougars are done.
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“I try to tell the guys, be sad that we lost, but …,” Roberts, overcome with emotions, stopped short of completing the thought.
Let’s do it for him.
While there was so much more out there for them, the Cougars had a spectacular season.
This team’s accomplishments will be long remembered.
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Winning the Big 12 regular season championship in UH’s first season in the league was a huge achievement.
No doubt Kelvin Sampson’s system works. Five straight trips to the Sweet 16 is evidence of that.
The question is can/will the Cougars win a title?
Sampson isn’t doing anything wrong. UH just hasn’t gotten it all right.
Sampson will have to retool next year, likely having to build a new backcourt with the loss of the best leader he says he has ever coached in Shead, and L.J. Cryer, who was the Cougars’ leading scorer.
In the locker room following the Duke loss, Cryer said he hasn’t ruled out a return to UH for another season.
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Cryer, who played at Baylor for three years before joining the Cougars, said this season was the most fun he ever had playing basketball.
“I was having fun out there,” Cryer said. “It didn’t feel like basketball was a job. I felt like I was out there playing with my brothers, having fun playing with my friends.”
Some Baylor fans took that as a swipe at their program, which clowns are wont to do on social media, but the young man recognizes his growth as a player and appreciated being welcomed in and allowed to flourish.
UH will be a top-10 caliber team next year. Should Cryer come back, it will be on the short list of national title contenders.
Every school has to rebuild yearly, that’s the way the game is these days, but UH does less of it because of the type of players Sampson recruits.
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As selective as Sampson is, the range for players who fit at UH is narrow. Superstar divas can’t handle his coaching and he can’t handle them.
UH rarely loses key players to the transfer portal because Sampson has a long track record of developing talent and getting the most out of players. And the Cougars win.
UH has been good enough to win it all, but has had some tough breaks in recent years.
This wasn’t the Cougars’ year.
As disappointing at the loss to Duke was — and there is little doubt UH would have won had Shead not suffered the injury — this isn’t the one that got away.
Had the Cougars gotten past Duke, they would still have needed to win three more games to win the school’s first national championship.
They would have been huge favorites over N.C. State in the Elite Eight and probably would have blown the Cinderella Wolfpack out of the arena, but would have been underdogs to Purdue in the Final Four.
Defending champion UConn, a double-digit favorite over Alabama, would definitely have been favored over the Cougars in the championship game that UH didn’t make it to.
Wait ‘til next year is a tough sentiment to end a sports season, mostly used as ridicule for teams that can never get over the hump.
For Sampson and the Cougars, it’s not an insult. It is more a matter of they can’t keep being this good without eventually winning it all. Theoretically.
“We come out and compete every night,” Roberts said. “We deal with adversity and fight through it. The character and culture here will always be here.”
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