Basketball’s New Mr. Clutch — How Jamal Shead Makes Buzzer Beaters Somehow Seem Routine For No. 1 Houston, Gives His Teammates Belief

NORMAN, Okla. — Jamal Shead is half limping up and down the floor, dealing with a hurting ankle. Kelvin Sampson’s Houston roster is hobbled, seemingly held together by Scotch tape and elbow grease. And the old Lloyd Noble Center is louder than Oklahoma observers can remember it being in more than a decade. No matter. This University of Houston basketball team will find a way to pull out this game, to grab another Big 12 road win, the most prized commodity in college basketball this regular season.

Houston will do it in no small part because Jamal Shead gets the last shot. Two of them in fact — thanks to the always battling, ever active J’Wan Roberts. It’s not In Jamal, We Trust for these now 26-3 Cougars. It’s In Jamal, We Know.

“I’ve seen him hit those shots before I even got here,” UH shooting guard LJ Cryer tells PaperCity. “I’ve seen him hit one at Baylor. Didn’t count, but we’ve seen him hit them in practice. Whenever we get in those situations, I feel like we’re going to win.

“Just because we’ve got Mal.”

Jamal Shead now has two essentially buzzer beating game winners, and another would have been one released a millisecond or two late, in the last year for Houston. That pull-up just inside the 3-point line that stunned Memphis and instantly quieted another rock concert loud arena in the early days of March 2023, which Jim Nantz still hasn’t stopped talking about. This eight-foot baseline jumper that buries Oklahoma with 0.4 seconds left on the clock. And the just late one at Baylor — a leaning 35-footer that settled into the net and might be the most impressive of them all.

This isn’t normal. Buzzer beaters are as rare as leprechauns in basketball. Michael Jordan, the best basketball player of all time and arguably the game’s biggest winner (with apologies to Bill Russell), hit nine buzzer beaters in his entire NBA career, the most of all time. Kobe Bryant, who may have taken the most buzzer beating attempts and made Hero Ball look cool, sunk eight.

Jamal Shead has two in his Houston career. And is a millisecond away from an even more impressive third. This is basketball’s new Mr. Clutch. Shead’s teammates believe they’re going to win every game because they have Mal and you don’t. Even down to seven useable players, with invaluable freshman force JoJo Tugler out for the season with a stress fracture in his right foot (as PaperCity first reported on Saturday), starting center Ja’Vier Francis fouled out and Roberts playing with one useable hand.

In Jamal, We Know.

These No. 1 ranked Cougars don’t have close to the roster that Kelvin Sampson expected to be taking into March. They may struggle at times to play the type of stifling, shutdown defense that defined them for most of this season with so few healthy bodies, like they do in stretches during the 87-85 win over Oklahoma. They’re more vulnerable to foul trouble than NFL teams are to becoming falsely smitten at the draft combine.

But as long as long as this now different Houston team can keep it close and get a game until its final moments, they’re sure they’ll find a way. By Mal.

“I’ve kind of been there over the years now,” Shead tells PaperCity. “I don’t really feel pressure in those moments. Especially tie game. If we don’t make it, we go to overtime and I feel like we’re tough enough to win it out in overtime.”

These first place Big 12 Cougars have already won overtime games at Texas and at Baylor this season. But they do not need an extra session against the upset-driven Sooners. When Kelvin Sampson takes a timeout in a 85-85 game with 11.8 seconds left, everyone knows he’ll put the basketball in Jamal Shead’s hands. But Kelvin Sampson also delivers some very clear instructions, game winning guardrails if you will.

“The main thing was get it to the rim,” Sampson says when I ask about the game deciding sequence. “We were not going to shoot anything outside of five feet. I wanted to give the referee a chance to blow the whistle. . .

“That’s what we hammer. I threatened his life if he pulled up and shot a jump shot. We were going to get that ball to the rim.”

Shead gets to the basket and gets off a twisting layup that goes off the front of the rim. Roberts, with an Oklahoma player on either side of him, somehow gets his one good hand on the ball and manages to tap it once, twice out to Shead on the baseline.

“I felt like it was a good (first) shot, just missed the layup,” Shead tells PaperCity. “But J’Wan (Roberts) got two extra tips. . . Yeah, we don’t win that game without J’Wan’s one-handed tip. Who played with one hand the whole second half.”

Jamal Shead and The Toughest Team In the Land

Roberts (20 points on 10 for 12 shooting) gets seven stitches to close a deep cut on that hand in the visitors locker room at Lloyd Noble during the game and comes back to play 16 of the 20 minutes in a ultra high-intensity second half and make the game-shifting play. Houston also does not win this game without sixth man guard Mylik Wilson, who scores eight of his 10 points in the second half, grabs three critical offensive rebounds (including a one-handed snare in traffic that’s a thing of athletic ferocious beauty) and blocks Oklahoma guard Javian McCollum at the rim with less than three minutes remaining. The Cougars do not win without Cryer going on a second half bender, pouring in a game-high 23 points overall, hitting five threes. Or without Emanuel Sharp who drains two second half triples that are as cold blooded as a Cobra, and fights hard every possession.

These Cougars do not win without leaning on each other.

“Tough,” Shead says. “We’re a tough group. And next man up is a real thing. I commend the guys that have been ready and have stepped up in those roles that we’ve needed. We’re just tough. A tough group. . . When you’ve got a lot of guys out, a lot of guys hobbled and still pull out a win on the road — in this conference.

“That brings you together a little bit.”

In many ways, this is the ultimate Kelvin Sampson Culture Win. To call it the biggest win of the Sampson Era is just silly — and shows a lack of awareness of what this program has done in this Golden Era of Houston basketball. Those overtime wins at Texas and at Baylor are arguably even more important in just this season. And that NCAA Tournament win over Rutgers, with Tramon Mark’s tip in traffic, the DeJon Jarreau guts-out takeover against Syracuse in the Sweet 16, the punching of a Final Four ticket by out scrapping Oregon State, Jamal Shead completely taking over against No. 1 seed Arizona to push an injured team to the Elite Eight all far surpass this one by giant margins.

But Houston 87, Oklahoma 85 is one of the most emotional regular season games you’ll ever see.

“Whenever we get in those situations, I feel like we’re going to win. Just because we’ve got Mal.” — Houston shooting guard LJ Cryer

The Sampsons Coming Home to Oklahoma

Kelvin and Karen Sampson return to the University of Oklahoma where he coached for 12 seasons and really made his national name. UH coaching staffers Hollis Price and Quannas White, former players on the Sampson’s breakthrough OU Final Four team, get their own special intros too.

“I got really emotional on the way to the game,” Hollis Price tells PaperCity. “I texted Coach before the game: ‘Is it normal for me to start crying like this?’ Just to get that ovation from the fans that we put our heart and soul into for four years, and Coach put it in for 12 years, it was awesome. . .

“I want to thank our guys for finding a way to pull this game out. We were down a few guys and our culture and our toughness, we pulled it out.”

Karen Sampson visits the house she helped design where she and Kelvin used to live and largely raised Lauren and Kellen, hangs out with the women in the cul-de-sac who remain some of her best friends. “It’s wonderful to be back,” Karen Sampson tells PaperCity with a giant smile. For Kelvin, it’s a little different. “He just want to get the game over with,” she says.

When it is, a broad smiling Kelvin Sampson holds court with a near receiving line of former players and OU connections. His former sports information director is over there, beaming with his wife who Kelvin knew from the start of the relationship. Sampson’s old athletic director Joe Castiglione, wearing a bright red sports coat, engulfs Houston’s coach in a monster hug.

“We’re beat up,” Sampson tells his former athletic trainer at Oklahoma. “. . . We’re just holding it together with baling wire.”

“That’s usually when you’re at your best,” Sampson’s old trainer shoots back. “March and you’ve got to come up with some way to make it work.”

Houston’s 68-year-old basketball lifer of a coach chuckles at that one, gives a rueful shake of his head. This is what it’s come to for a team that is a win at UCF on Wednesday from clinching at least a share of the Big 12 regular season title. Down to seven regular rotation players with freshman big man project Cedric Lath thrust into becoming the new emergency No, 8.

“When you’ve got a lot of guys out, a lot of guys hobbled and still pull out a win on the road — in this conference. That brings you together a little bit.” — UH point guard Jamal Shead

What UH does still have is Jamal Shead and Kelvin Sampson, a point guard-coach combination for the ages that seem made for each other, and the toughest team in all the land. Basketball’s new Mr. Clutch (Jerry West enjoyed more than a nice run with the title) gives his guys plenty of reason to still believe.

“We have a lot of winning DNA,” Cryer says.

Houston also has Mal — and no one else does. The man who makes buzzer beaters, big time basketball’s unicorns, almost seem routine.

“Shoot, we still have the best point guard in the nation,” Hollis Price tells PaperCity. “So we always have a shot.”

In Jamal, We Know.