Ja’Vier Francis Fights Back Against Baylor, Answers Kelvin Sampson’s Loud Challenge, Showing No. 1 Ranked Houston Can Reach Even Higher

WACO — Baylor’s new show palace of an arena is roaring, bringing all the noise, feeding off any doubt. But University of Houston center Ja’Vier Francis can hardly notice it. Not with Kelvin Sampson in his face.

Again.

In one sequence early in the second half, Sampson screams at Francis as he comes off the floor, his face inches from his big man’s and gets on him some more in the timeout huddle. Then point guard Jamal Shead yells at Francis too. Everyone is urging — no outright demanding — that the 6-foot-8, 240 pound sometime force with natural shot blocking skills play with more energy. Loudly. At this point, it’s natural to wonder if the extremely soft spoken Francis might retreat into himself, back away from the moment.

Instead, Francis powers the toughest, maybe the single best and the new No. 1 ranked college basketball team in the land to another signature statement win.

“I already know what he’s expecting,” Francis tells PaperCity of Sampson, the 68-year-old basketball lifer of a coach who drives this Houston team. “I knew I wasn’t doing my part early in the game. So I already knew it was coming. It just came and I just took it and tried to come back stronger.”

Francis is strong enough to make several plays that turn a game with more subplots than a long-running soap opera in Houston’s favor. UH does not beat Baylor 82-76, move to 24-3 and take over the as the new No. 1 ranked team in America without Ja’Vier Francis’ unblinking resolve.

“I thought the last 10 minutes he was great,” Sampson says of Francis.

This Houston-Baylor game will be remembered for a number of things. Jamal Shead almost one upping the epic buzzer beater he hit at Memphis last March, coming within a millisecond or two of beating Baylor at the regulation buzzer with a leaning 35 footer that is released just as the red light flashes. LJ Cryer returning to Baylor and taking all the boos, getting called “the toughest dude on the floor” by Sampson in the postgame locker room. J’Wan Roberts continuing to flex his point forward skills, picking apart Baylor’s 1-3-1 zone with his passing and being as destructive as a toddler let loose in an antiques store, often smashing Baylor coach Scott Drew’s offensive schemes before they can even get started with his steals and long-armed deflections.

But Francis’ bounce back fight may end up the meaning the most of all to this Houston team’s national championship dreams. With wing Ramon Walker Jr. (torn lateral meniscus), who largely played a forward role for this guard-rich UH team, joining the uber talented Terrance Arceneaux on the lost for the season list, these Cougars need Francis to be a consistent force more than ever.

“We’ve got a lot of confidence and trust in Ja and we just want him to show the type of player he is,” Roberts tells PaperCity.

Francis becomes that type of player when Houston needs him most against Baylor. He athletically snares an Emanuel Sharp miss and puts it back in with 2:32 left in regulation. He converts a perfect alley-oop pass from Shead, rolling to the rim with less than two minutes remaining. He hits a 10 footer in overtime, one of only two baskets the Cougars will make in their dominant 13-7 extra session (Roberts makes the other). Francis also adds a block and changes at least two other shots in the decisive OT.

This is the only right way to answer a Kelvin Sampson screaming session. By playing with force. By fighting back.

“He’s really worked,” Sampson says when I ask about Francis. “He’s a very soft spoken kid, but he’s also a hard worker. All of our staff — I have to give our entire staff a lot of credit for developing our guys. It’s a village. But we like to develop these kids.”

The Ja’Vier Francis Experience

In his third year in Kelvin Sampson’s program, having working with assistant coach Kellen Sampson almost every day on his skills, Ja’Vier Francis is still developing. He’s learning what it means to grab the moment, something guys like Shead (12 points, 10 assists) , Cryer (15 points, six for six on free throws in overtime) and Roberts (17 points, eight rebounds, six steals, four assists and three blocks) already understand. Ja’Vier Francis isn’t close to Houston’s smoothest player. He’s not a guy who opponents game plan around.

But Houston doesn’t get to 24-3 and has no chance to reach its One Shining Moment without him. For Ja’Vier Francis helps change games for the toughest college basketball team in America. Against Baylor, he helps make Yves Missi, a 7-foot first round NBA Draft pick to be, disappear. Missi finishes with one made basket, five rebounds and four turnovers in 33 minutes, swallowed up by Houston’s interior defense (Roberts and Francis combine for five official blocks and alter a good half dozen more attempts) and toughness.

“I already know what he’s expecting. I knew I wasn’t doing my part early in the game. So I already knew it was coming. It just came and I just took it and tried to come back stronger.” — Ja’Vier Francis on Kelvin Sampson getting on him.

Houston has every chance to lose this game, to give in to the seemingly inevitability of a Big 12 road loss like so many other teams do in the best basketball conference in America. Baylor rips off a 12-0 run to open the second half, erasing almost every bit of the advantage the Cougars built in a dominant clinic of a first half. The Bears talented offensive trio of Ja’Kobe Walter (23 points), RayJ Dennis (21 points) and Jalen Bridges (17 points and 13 rebounds) are rolling.

Many a lesser team would fold faced with this onslaught. Even most excellent teams lose this type of game. This Houston one doesn’t.

Instead with Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark watching with his son in Baylor’s new $212.6 million Foster Pavilion, Shead and Co. find a way to move to 11-3 in the league, keep themselves in the pole position to win the Big 12 championship in Houston’s first spin through the conference many thought it should fear.

These Cougars do it by sticking together. By leaning on each other amid the chaos and Baylor bonkiness playing out all around them.

” Jamal just kept telling everybody to stay together,” Roberts tells PaperCity. “Just stay together. It’s a game of runs. And if we stay together, we know we can find a way. . .

“Just having everybody’s backs. It gives us a lot of confidence.”

A Boo Proof LJ Cryer

Houston is now 10-1 in its last 11 Big 12 games, matching the feat of the 2021 Baylor team that won the national championship, beating UH in the Final Four along the way. Houston’s lone loss in this span came at Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse when Cryer did his best to lead the Cougars back in the second half.

Against Baylor, Cryer gets booed when he’s introduced and every single time he touches the ball, feeling the wraith for having transferred to Houston.

“Every time I touched the ball, they booed,” Cryer marvels later. “It was wild.”

But not enough to throw Cryer off his game. “I just kind of laughed when they first did it,” Tamica Cryer, LJ’s mom, tells PaperCity. “But it didn’t upset me or anything. I’ve seen worse with players who return. It could have been worse. It’s not like he’s done anything that they could say anything worse.

“So I guess all they could do is boo.”

Teams and opposing crowds are finding it harder and harder to rattle this Houston team. One that seems to be getting stronger with each high pressure, high stakes Big 12 win.

“They don’t give you anything,” Baylor coach Scott Drew says of Houston. “They’re like (Sampson). They fight you on everything. So there’s a reason they’re No. 1, No. 2 in the nation.”

The soft spoken man in the middle is part of that reason. Ja’Vier Francis is so polite that he stoops his head down to answer questions and better be heard by a more earth bound reporter. But he’s learning to play with more ferocity, to make opponents adjust to him on the basketball court.

Thanks to his teammates urging, his teammates pushing right along with the coach who’s built a Hall of Fame worthy legacy on demanding more.

“It was just my teammates getting on me, telling me, you know, lock in,” Francis tells PaperCity. “My energy was going down. So they raised me up. Told me to lock in. Because they know what I can do.”

“They don’t give you anything. They’re like (Sampson). They fight you on everything. So there’s a reason they’re No. 1, No. 2 in the nation.” — Baylor coach Scott Drew

Those last five minutes of regulation and overtime against Baylor are Ja’Vier Francis unleashed. He listens to the message in Kelvin Sampson’s yelling rather than the volume. Responds with toughness. Like a true Kelvin Sampson player.

“Our guys are tough,” Sampson says. “They’re not always the prettiest. But last time I checked it’s not a beauty contest.”

Jamal Shead almost ends it at the buzzer with one of the most beautifully difficult game winners you’ll ever see. Instead, Houston plays on and finds out more about its center, the man who can change so much for a team that’s already proven it is elite.

“We all love Ja,” Shead says. “We all know he doesn’t even realize how good he can be. He’s so talented.”

“It’s just trying to be the older brother for him,” Roberts tells PaperCity. “Let me know it’s OK to make a mistake, but don’t try to repeat it every time. We knew what type of game it was. And we need everybody to be sharp.”

There is so much noise at Baylor’s new arena. But Ja’Vier Francis only hears his coach, his teammates. He answers their call, shows there may be another way to leap forward for this toughest Houston team of all.