Kelvin Sampson’s NBA Senior Night Encounter, Emanuel Sharp & Ramon Walker’s Rare Together Legacy and J’Wan Roberts’ Cameo

Kelvin Sampson knows that the bonds and the memories do not end on any Senior Night. He even felt that in Los Angeles at the then-Staples Center, amid the glitz of facing Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard, while serving as acting head coach for the Houston Rockets, filling in for Kevin McHale. “Somebody kept screaming my name,” Sampson tells PaperCity with a chuckle. “I just thought it was a fan. Because everywhere you go, it’s the NBA. Then the guy said Orediggers.’

“It was Mike Mitchell. Played for me at Montana Tech.”

Mitchell was one of the first seniors Kelvin Sampson ever celebrated in a Senior Night. A Montana Tech Oredigger. On Wednesday night at Fertitta Center, he’ll celebrate four more four decades later, his latest seniors at the University of Houston. Emanuel Sharp, Ramon Walker Jr., Milos Uzan. And Kalifa Sakho.

Walker, Sharp and Uzan are already well aware these bonds will not end in what’s sure to be an emotional pregame ceremony before the 24-5 Cougars take on Baylor (8 pm tip, ESPN2). Walker found himself texting with Jamal Shead, his former teammate turned NBA uber leader whose own Senior Day in 2024 culminated in a 76-46 beatdown of Kansas, just a few days ago, sharing memories. Then a good chunk of this current Houston team got on the phone with J’Wan Roberts, whose emotional Senior Night hug with Kelvin Sampson last March captured the sporting world’s heart and Scott Van Pelt SportsCenter acclaim.

“We were literally all just talking to J’Wan before practice,” Walker says. “. . . We were getting on him because he didn’t come see us. He was down here (in Houston) for a couple of days and he didn’t come see us one day at the gym. We were just giving him hell for it.”

Walker laughs. You don’t ever get a free pass when you’re part of this rare Sampson Cougar fraternity.

It is extra special to both Walker and Sharp that they’re going out together, not just likely starting together in this final game for them at Fertitta Center, but doing this whole last ride of a final season at each other’s side. “It means the world,” Sharp tells PaperCity. “That’s my guy. Ever since my sophomore year when we switched roommates and we became roommates, it’s really just been us two rocking with each other.

“Every time you see him, you see me. It’s just a blessing I could have my senior year with him. I love that dude.”

Sharp is one of the most impactful players of this Sampson Golden Age of UH basketball, overcoming a horrific leg injury that saw him give up his senior year of high school to enroll early at UH to rehab, contributing in an important role since his freshman season. He’s been at the heart of some of the program’s biggest moments. Always willing to take a pressure-packed shot. Charged with shutting down the other team’s best perimeter player. It is easy to imagine him playing professional basketball for a long time, much like his father Derrick Sharp and mother Justine Ellison Sharp.

Kelvin Sampson finds himself thinking of how far Emanuel Sharp’s come when he gets on freshmen Chris Cenac Jr. and Isiah Harwell hard at Monday’s practice. “Pretty soon, I looked over there after I was done and on to something else, and I saw Emanuel over there, talking to ’em,” Sampson tells PaperCity.

“That’s what reminded me of Senior Day.”

Seniors lead. Seniors lift their teammates up. And that is what Emanuel Sharp has been doing for this much younger Houston team this season. Even as he insists he still needs to get better at it.

Ramon Walker is the Houston culture warrior who has never gone into a season with a n0-doubt role, but still kept choosing Sampson’s program over and over again. Even when others urged him to consider transferring to a less elite program where he could be guaranteed more playing time. Still, five times in all, he chose Houston. Played through injury to help drive that miracle 2021-22 Elite Eight team that came within a basket of the Final Four despite losing both Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark Jr. before Christmas. Came off the bench to save Houston in that wild overtime NCAA Tournament win over Texas A&M in 2024 when so many Cougars fouled out.

Houston assistant Kellen Sampson gets emotional, tears up talking about Ramon Walker Jr.’s Senior Night: “He wears Houston on his arm.. I can’t talk about him.. He’s a guy that we’ll talk a lot about long after he’s gone. That might be the best thing you can say about anybody.” pic.twitter.com/4m1QtNLaUt

— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) March 3, 2026

Ramon Walker’s Houston Real Estate

Walker became a big fan of the Property Brothers show and he’s already used some of his name, image and likeness (NIL) money to start building his own real estate portfolio. This product of Houston (Shadow Creek High School) is just starting to make his mark in his city in many ways. Walker envisions himself and his girlfriend Kyla, who will walk with him on Senior Night, being one of H-Town’s power couples one day.

“Guys that go to school for a year and then leave, go to another school for a year, then leave, when you’re four or five years removed from that school, when people look back, they won’t remember you,” Walker tells PaperCity. “When you stay in a program for five years and then you look back at those five years, people are like, “Oh Ramon was on that team. Oh Emanuel’s on that team. Oh J’Wan was on that team.’

“You create a legacy for yourself. And I feel like that’s definitely a benefit of me staying homegrown. Staying with the team you committed to, giving your all to a program.”

Walker and Sharp are two of only 22 high-major scholarship players in America who are taking part in Senior Night at the same university they started at. Two originals. Forever linked.

“It means the world. That’s my guy. Ever since my sophomore year when we switched roommates and we became roommates, it’s really just been us two rocking with each other.” — Emanuel Sharp on going through Senior Night with Ramon Walker

Of course, UH never repeats as Big 12 champions and gets to the national championship game without Milos Uzan, the point guard Sampson picked in the transfer portal before last season to handle the impossible mission of following Jamal Shead. Uzan has more big-time moments packed into two seasons than seems possible (at Kansas, at Arizona, that Big 12 Tournament Championship game, the game winner against Purdue in the Sweet 16). And if the Cougars are going to go on another deep NCAA Tournament run this month, it will need a boost from Kalifa Sakho, a one-year senior Coog who Kelvin Sampson and assistant coach K.C. Beard have both lamented not being able to coach for more than one season.

Sakho is still a Kelvin Sampson senior though. That doesn’t end. And you never know when or where it will show decades later.