Emanuel Sharp’s basketball life started while he was still in diapers. His professional hooper parents Derrick Sharp and Justine Ellison Sharp made sure of that, putting a basketball in his toddler hands as early as they could. “I knew all my kids were going to play,” Derrick Sharp says. “Emanuel started in diapers.”

The University of Houston senior guard cannot even remember when he first picked up a basketball. But he quickly picked up on what a force his mom is. On the court and otherwise. “My mom used to push us in the stroller,” Emanuel Sharp tells PaperCity. “And go to the park and play three on three with the men. And have us sit in the stroller on the side and watch her play.

“I’ve been growing up around basketball before I can remember it.”

Now all these years and seasons later (basketball lives are measured in seasons), Sharp is both one of the most important and somehow most underrated players in college basketball. The lifeline heartbeat of Kelvin Sampson’s third ranked Houston team, the defensive stopper who Sampson likens to a shutdown corner and steady anchor that allows star freshmen Kingston Flemings and Chris Cenac Jr. to take off. Every team, every elite program needs a bedrock and Emanuel Sharp is that for these Coogs.

“To me he’s one of the most underrated players in the country,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla tells PaperCity of Sharp. “In some ways, Emanuel Sharp is as much the heartbeat of the program as anybody on that roster.”

Sharp rushing over to the stands to wrap his mom Justine Ellison Sharp into a long hug after he powered that win over Utah this week isn’t just about him breaking Houston’s career 3-point record. It’s about the journey, the people who were there for him every step of the way. Including that cruel stretch after UH’s national championship game loss when so many Internet trolls tried to blame Sharp when he did not get off a final shot. Forgetting all the big ones he made before, never once shrinking from the moment.

“She’s my biggest fan, my biggest supporter,” Sharp says of the hug. “And she just made a point to be at a lot of games this year. It means a lot to have her here. . . She was just so happy.

“She said I deserve it. That’s the work I put in. And she told me how much she loved me.”

Kelvin Sampson told Sharp the same thing on the plane ride home late Tuesday night/Wednesday morning after the Utah win, going down the aisle to deliver that message and add a fist bump.

Underrated and indispensable.

Sharp reminded those sleeping college basketball observers just how impactful he can be as UH went 2-0 in that trying Big 12 swing (playing BYU and Utah back-to-back on the road, a slate which only one other team has swept this season). The eight threes he needed and hit (including six in a dazzling eight-minute stretch in the first half) to break Marcus Sasser’s school record in a 27-point night shouted loudly. Houston’s version of a trusted gunslinger energizing an entire team at the end of a long five day road trip as he passed his friend and former practice tormentor Sasser in career 3-pointers.

But Sharp is equally instrumental in that statement win at BYU, which puts the Cougars back into the race for a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed. All Sharp did in that game is play one of the more quietly complete games you’ll see — 14 points, four assists, four rebounds, while taking on his usual supreme defensive burden. So Houston takes a 22-2 (10-1 Big 12) record, tied for first in the best college basketball league in the land, still in reach of that conference title three-peat, heading into a 3 pm Saturday afternoon game against Kansas State (10-14, 1-10 Big 12) at Fertitta Center.

Emanuel Sharp’s Closing UH Statement

Sharp knows this is his final run with Houston after five years with Kelvin Sampson. He found himself thinking of former UH assistant Quannas White after breaking the 3-point record, of all the times he and White, who is in his first season as the head coach at the University of Louisiana, spent together in the gym.

“He’s a coach who put as much as much confidence and knowledge in me, along with Samps,” Sharp tells PaperCity of White. “I spent so many hours with Q in the gym. Not even just basketball. But sitting down and talking about just everything. He’s given me so many pointers.”

Both Sasser and White reached out to Sharp after his record-breaking moment.

Emanuel Sharp’s cousin Joshua Lewis, a 6-foot-7 freshman forward who is the highest-ranked recruit in Louisiana basketball history, now plays for White. Basketball is a small world. Especially when you treat people right.

Sharp’s own basketball story started in diapers with battles against his older brother on a Little Tikes basketball hoop. “We used to always just sit in the house and play one-on-one,” Emanuel Sharp says. “I feel like that developed a lot of my toughness. . . He always used to just bully the mess out of me when I was growing up.”

Emanuel Sharp could have made this season about him, focused on trying to pour in the points, insisted on leading the team in scoring to showcase his own game. Tried to go on something of a post championship game revenge tour. Instead he’s given UH’s uber talented teenage stars plenty of room to shine.

“It just shows what kind of guy he is,” UH senior forward Ramon Walker Jr., who’s been there for every one of Sharp’s 277 threes (and counting) at UH, says. “He’s very selfless. He cares about others a lot more than he cares about his own success. Whenever one of us has success in anything, he’s the first person you hear from.”

“Guys like Emanuel Sharp are what make college basketball awesome. They did their time. They waited their turn. Those are the guys that when you get to March, they never disappoint you.” — UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson

Underrated and indispensable. Much more appreciated in his own locker room than he is in the Twitterverse.

“I don’t think so,” Houston assistant coach Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity when asked if Sharp receives the national attention his game says he deserves. “And I think that’s the case with a lot of veterans across college basketball this year. I think there’s probably quite a few guys who put in their time, put in their effort. . . But this (freshmen) class is magical and it’s a heck of a storyline.

“But guys like Emanuel Sharp are what make college basketball awesome. They did their time. They waited their turn. Those are the guys that when you get to March, they never disappoint you.”

Emanuel Sharp’s time is fast approaching. But he’ll savor every step along the way. After setting that 3-point record against Utah, Sharp found himself taking a very long walk to the interview room (it’s hard to imagine a much longer one in American sports) with Kelvin Sampson that included an uphill straight up a not-unsteep slanted ramp that seemed to stretch forever.

“It’d be a lot longer walk if we lost,” Sampson cracks. Sharp smiles. Coach Samps never changes. Houston’s bedrock shooing guard is pretty steady too.