The Big 12’s Undisputed Toughness Champs — J’Wan Roberts and Houston Break Patrick Mahomes’ Heart, Hitting Texas Tech Where It Hurts Most

LUBBOCK — With 66 seconds left, with Texas Tech suddenly somehow within three points, with Patrick Mahomes so ready to go crazy in his center court seat, University of Houston coach Kelvin Sampson calls timeout. Sampson will draw up a play to get his team a good shot, but the last message he leaves his players with is much simpler than that. The Hall of Fame level coach stands in front of the bench and pounds his chest right over his heart, over and over again, making sure he catches the eye of all five of his guys on the court. Sampson doesn’t need to say anything. The message is unmistakable.

Toughest team wins. Toughest team wins.

And on a night when that expression takes on all kind of extra meaning, there will be no doubt who the toughest team in the Big 12 really is. Who’s got the biggest heart? Who just keeps finding a way to win in super-charged road cauldrons, with packed arenas swaying and the noise so loud you can’t even hear yourself think? That’d be the runaway Big 12 champs. Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Cougars.

You really want to get in a toughness staring contest with these guys? With Kelvin Sampson, the 69-year-old basketball lifer of coach who had to fight back to even get the chance to take over a moribund UH basketball program 11 years ago? With J’Wan Roberts, the undersized big man who likes to joke that Houston was his only real scholarship offer? With LJ Cryer, Emanuel Sharp and Milos Uzan who play off one another like great jazz musicians and don’t care who gets the big shots game to game?

Good luck with that.

“Earlier in the season, everybody was panicking,” Sharp tells PaperCity after Houston 69, Texas Tech 61, after another clinch night that guarantees a second straight Big 12 title for Sampson’s team and puts this 24-4 (16-1) squad one win from not having to share anything. “Earlier in the season, we lost a few games. But we knew that we were going to be battle tested for when it mattered.

“And you can see. We’re closing out games now.”

And shutting down debates. Texas Tech touted its team as the toughest in the land. Its student T-shirts for this ESPN Big Monday showdown declared “Toughest Team Wins” below the giddy picture Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland and the ejected JT Toppin took in the locker room after the Red Raiders win at Houston on February 1, the Cougars’ lone Big 12 blemish.

One of those “Toughest Team Wins” Texas Tech shirts found its way to the Houston locker room at United Supermarkets Arena before the game. And after UH won, Sampson’s Cougars left this scrawled on the white board in that visitors locker room at Texas Tech’s home: “Back to Back Big 12 Champs. Toughest team Won!!!”

To ESPN Big Monday analyst Fran Frachilla there is no doubt. Not after Houston wins like this. With J’Wan Roberts taking on a sometimes needlessly vile Texas Tech crowd and calmly hitting free throw after free throw in their screaming faces. Not with Kelvin Sampson’s team making the kind of plays that only take a coach’s breath away time and time again.

“Houston made about 15 defensive plays tonight that won’t show up on the stat sheet, but they were mind boggling,” Fraschilla tells PaperCity. “Ball stop moves on breakaways. Blocked shots. They just have an incredible toughness DNA.

“There’s very few teams in the country that have that.”

There is only one repeat Big 12 champions in their first two seasons in the league. Twice as nice. Only even more dominant this time. And extra gnarly.

Houston’s Sampson Masterpieces

Two of those “mind boggling” defensive plays see Cougars guard Emanuel Sharp turn Texas Tech breakouts into turnovers. The Red Raiders have a numbers advantage. . . and then they’re losing the basketball. That’s more deflating than an air mattress that’s sprung a leak in the dead of night.

“We work on making plays like that every day in practice,” Sharp tells PaperCity. “We practice hard. And we can make plays like that in practice so it carries over to the game.”

Yes, Texas Tech is playing without two starters, with McCasland relying on a six-man rotation. But J’Wan Roberts, Milos Uzan, LJ Cryer, Emanuel Sharp, JoJo Tugler, Mylik Wilson, Ja’Vier Francis and Terrance Arceneaux wear down the Red Raiders’ will too. The ultra talented JT Toppin is harassed into 6 for 18 shooting. The ever 3-point bombing crew from Lubbock is hounded into a 6 for 30 clip from distance. There’s no three is better than two math that can make that percentage work.

If only Patrick Mahomes could have thrown a penalty flag. Maybe Texas Tech can get a Super Bowl do over?

Toughest team wins. Toughest team wins.

“Houston made about 15 defensive plays tonight that won’t show up on the stat sheet, but they were mind boggling. Ball stop moves on breakaways. Blocked shots. They just have an incredible toughness DNA.” — ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla

This is how you turn a visitors locker room into a happy mosh pit of a dance party with Kelvin Sampson charging in, throwing his papers into the air and the jumping really beginning. The coach his players call Samps will emerge from that locker room with his gray polo semi soaked and his allotted joy for the night spent.

“As far as celebrating — Nah,” Sampson says in the hallway with a few reporters. “We’ve won a few conference championships. We’ll celebrate when the time comes.”

Twice as nice. Only even more dominant this time. And extra gnarly. Cougars style.

UH won the Big 12 in its very first year in the Power 4 league behind a master class of a season from point guard Jamal Shead. But those Cougars lost three times in 18 Big 12 games. This UH team of Milos Uzan, Cryer, Roberts and Sharp has lost once in 17 Big 12 games. By one point.

Kelvin Sampson won’t directly answer the question when I ask if this Houston team has exceeded even his expectations in this runaway romp through the Big 12. But the distance between UH and the rest of one of the best conferences in the land is starting to look like the distance between Tiger Woods and everyone else during his Tiger Slam days.

Toughest team wins. And wins, and wins, and wins.

“J’Wan’s a tough kid. He’s one of my favorites. All-time favorites.” — UH coach Kelvin Sampson on sixth-year forward J’Wan Roberts

This time, Milos Uzan (22 points) steps into the put-away three with no hesitation out of that timeout with 66 seconds left, off that Kelvin Sampson heart pound. After Cryer finds a way to get him the ball under pressure. If Uzan, the first year Sampson point guard revelation, looks like the most confident player on Texas Tech’s home floor, J’Wan Roberts is the most fearless.

Roberts calmly makes 10 of 12 free throws amid the manic din, refusing to let his status as a career 59.1 percent free throw shooter define him.

Kelvin Sampson begins the night by running into Mahomes in a back hallway, sharing a friendly moment and joking that he wasn’t sure if it’s Patrick Mahomes or Jesus getting introduced by the reaction of the crowd. He ends it raving about his sixth-year power forward, the former three star who only knows how to win.

“It’s been coming,” Sampson says of Roberts’ free throws moment. “You know when you do your work in anonymity, you prepare for the moments like this. It’s not always going to happen overnight. It’s not going to happen in a month or two months. But if you keep working and you’re tough enough to handle your failures, your success is already right around the corner.

“It’s amazing how many people quit before the success came. Because they’re not tough enough. J’Wan’s a tough kid. He’s one of my favorites. All-time favorites.”

This University of Houston team is starting to look like an all-time favorite too. From 4-3 to 24-4. And pushing for so much more.

“I feel like that makes it like a lot more special,” Cryer, the last man to the bus, says on this gritty night in Lubbock. “People were writing us off. Some people are still writing us off.”

Good luck with that.

Toughest team wins? Go ahead and try to find a tougher one.