UH Road Wranglers — How Milos Uzan Converted Colorado Fans Over to Houston, LJ Cryer Dodged Disaster And Kelvin Sampson Freed Up Terrance Arceneaux

BOULDER, Colorado — Milos Uzan gets stopped by a junior high school kid as he walks down a back hallway of the CU Events Center, on the way to the waiting University of Houston bus. “When you’re not playing Colorado, I always root for you guys,” the kid says. “Houston’s my other team, my March Madness team.”

UH’s starting point guard smiles and stops to pose for several photos with the young fan who’s wearing a gray Colorado No. 1 jersey and gray Colorado sweatpants.

“I picked you guys to win the national championship last year,” the kid’s dad offers between snapping smartphone pics.

“If Jamal Shead hadn’t gotten hurt, we would have won it,” Uzan shoots back with an even bigger grin. “Make sure you watch this March.”

With that, Uzan heads for the bus, giving the kid a final fist bump. And so the University of Houston’s Big 12 road show rolls on, stacking up wins and making new fans. Uzan uses “We” when referring to UH winning it all last March, even though he wasn’t on that team, because that’s how engrained seeing himself as part of Kelvin Sampson’s program is to the Oklahoma transfer in his first season at Houston. Uzan has long felt all UH, buying all in.

Being part of Kelvin Sampson’s (maybe not always merry, but definitely forever purposeful and intensely driven) operation can be quite a trip. And many of the best basketball players in the nation want to be a part of it.

This comes through in No. 5 Houston moving to 19-4 (11-1 in the Big 12) on a day when no other Big 12 team wins on the road. That includes No. 16 Kansas going down at Kansas State and No. 13 Texas Tech picking up its third conference loss of the season at No. 20 Arizona. Meanwhile Sampson’s Houston team moves to 6-0 on the road in the conference with a 69-59 win at Colorado, a team desperate to get any kind of Big 12 victory.

This the best road show in college basketball. Embrace the outside drama and win.

“I think it just shows how tough we are,” Uzan tells PaperCity. “We’ve got a great staff. They give us a great game plan every single game. I think it shows our discipline as well. We’re a little undisciplined. We foul a lot.

“But for the most part, we follow the game plan. That’s why we’re successful at it.”

It’s not always pretty amid the background Flatirons mountains of Boulder. Colorado guard Julian Hammond III drops five triples on Houston, most of them deep, many of them highly contested. There are several defensive breakdowns close to the rim in the second half. UH does not pull away for good until it outscores Colorado 9-3 in the last three and a half minutes. But in the college basketball dog days of February, a win is a win is a win.

Just ask Sampson. Houston’s demanding coach actually uses the word thrilled to describe his feelings about this team in a a one-on-one interview with PaperCity after his podium press conference.

“I’m thrilled with this team,” Sampson says. “This team’s had a lot of adversity, as all teams do. . . Our guards have been up and down. That’s why I think our best basketball is still ahead of us.

“We still have a ceiling we can get to. We just have to keep at it everyday. We know how to win here.”

With starting guard Emanuel Sharp sitting out the second game of his planned two game injury absence, UH scoring leader LJ Cryer struggling to find his consistent shot (before getting smacked hard on his right hand to aggravate the knuckle injury that’s been nagging him with three minutes left) and big man Ja’Vier Francis collecting fouls like they’re Super Bowl squares he’s desperate to get ahold of, UH still finds a way.

Third year guard Terrance Arceneaux is a major part of that way. The limber acrobatic Arceneaux scores 13 of his 15 points in the second half, with most of those points coming on confident drives towards the rim, often on the baseline. With Kelvin Sampson repeatedly calling set plays for him.

“When you have got guys who can score, you go to them in the areas they can score in,” Sampson tells PaperCity. “I thought that holding Emanuel out was the best thing for Emanuel. But it was also great for Terrance. Coming off the bench, Terrance gives us another weapon.”

“That’s why I think our best basketball is still ahead of us. We still have a ceiling we can get to. We just have to keep at it everyday. We know how to win. — UH coach Kelvin Sampson

The Arceneaux Arrangement

In the two games Sharp sat (he will return for the ESPN Big Monday matchup with Baylor at Fertitta Center tomorrow night), Arceneaux put up a combined 25 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, three blocks and two steals as a starter. Arceneaux’s teammates have seen his confidence grow, sometimes by the game.

“Terrance is good,” Uzan says. “Terrance is really good. Every game you can see Terrance getting more and more comfortable. And especially with EMan out, he’s stepping up big time.

“Terrance is good man.”

So is JoJo Tugler, who seems to get his Plastic Man arms on almost everything. Tugler’s credited with 10 rebounds (six offensive) in the official boxscore, but Sampson says he expects UH’s own internal tracking stats will show him with even more. Tugler gets two offensive rebounds on one possession, with the Cougars eventually scoring on their fourth shot of the trip.

“That’s just crazy,” LJ Cryer says. “But that’s JoJo.”

You get the idea that the Buffaloes couldn’t have blocked out JoJo Tugler even if they used a bulldozer. While at the postgame interview table, Kelvin Sampson would joke that JoJo needed to get all those offensive rebounds because J’Wan Roberts wasn’t getting any. With Roberts sitting right next to him.

A number of Colorado reporters murmured, not used to such direct talk from a head coach like that. Not understanding the bond the sixth year graduate forward and the 69-year-old basketball lifer of a coach have. Roberts just gives a bemused grin and a head shake at Sampson’s truth zinger.

Of course, it is also true that Roberts (a team-high 20 points) is the one who steadies UH at several key moments against Colorado, hitting nine of his eleven shots, seemingly scoring whenever the Cougars really need him to get a bucket. The 6-foot-8 playmaking forward’s offensive game is as serene and languid as a Sunday morning.

“Just being patient,” Roberts tells PaperCity, holding a pizza box that will be his plane back meal. “Reading the defense. The shots that I took today, I drill on those shots every day.

“I work on those shots every day. Just having confidence and getting to my spots. Not being in no rush.”

You’d have a better chance of rushing one of those Disney DMV sloths than J’Wan Roberts with the ball backing you down, surveying the defense.

You get the idea that the Buffaloes couldn’t have blocked out JoJo Tugler even if they used a bulldozer.

You can’t rush to get to March either. No matter how much you may want to sprint full bore to the Madness. Every step along the way counts. Even in the dog days of February. You’d better treasure every one of them Ws along the way. Especially when you seemingly avoid a major injury scare with your top scorer’s knuckle like Houston does with Cryer.

“Oh yeah, I’m for sure playing,” Cryer tells PaperCity of the Baylor game, which will be little more than 48 hours post hand smack. “I’m not letting this hold me out. God willing, I’m going to finish the whole season. Ain’t none of these little nagging injuries going to take me out.”

Houston has too many places to go, too many roads to conquer, too many near believers to convert to stop now.