Oklahoma’s Paul Bunyan Helps Bring Dominant J’Wan Roberts Back For Houston — How Kelvin Sampson’s Basketball Family Crosses Generations and Even Schools

Stillwater, Oklahoma — This is one of those stories that could only really happen in a Kelvin Sampson program, with players from different teams and completely different universities connecting across generations. Considering themselves part of the same greater family. The Sampson basketball family. That is how Oklahoma’s Paul Bunyan ends up helping University of Houston power forward J’Wan Roberts get back on track.

Kevin Bookout is the former University of Oklahoma star who Sampson and assistant coach Kellen Sampson call Paul Bunyan for his feats of strength and skill across multiple sports. Bookout starred for Kelvin Sampson’s Oklahoma basketball teams from 2002 to 2006, but he also stood out in track and field, competing in the NCAA finals and making the Olympic Trials. He also had a 95 MPH fastball (long before every elite pitcher threw 95) and clubbed 65 home runs at Stroud High School, breaking Mickey Mantle’s Oklahoma state high school home run record. Bookout even earned a tryout with the New York Jets years later even though he hadn’t played football since he was a ninth grader.

This is Oklahoma’s Bo Jackson in many ways.

“It’s not just that he was a good player,” Kellen Sampson says. “He was good at everything. . . He was as mega and big a recruit as it gets.”

Kevin Bookout is also as loyal to Kelvin Sampson as it gets. Nearly 20 years after he last played for Sampson at Oklahoma, Bookout devoutly follows the coach’s University of Houston teams. Bookout knows the UH players’ games. Especially the front court, rebounder types like himself. A J’Wan Roberts is certainly a Kevin Bookout kind of battler. So with Roberts off to a somewhat, low key slow start to the season for Houston, Bookout felt it too.

“What is so cool to merge the two is that Booky, who was my college roommate (at Oklahoma), texted me and said I’m coming (to Houston’s game at Oklahoma State),” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity. “And Booky had four straight double-doubles in here as a player and he said, ‘I’m coming to get J’Wan Roberts going. We need to get Roberts going.’ ”

Consider J’Wan Roberts going. UH’s sixth year graduate senior puts up 20 points, 11 rebounds, two steals and a block in the Cougars’ Big 12 opening 60-47 win at Oklahoma State. That is a Kevin Bookout-worthy road game double-double if there ever was one. With No. 14 Houston (9-3) now set to host a talented 10-2 BYU team that blew out Arizona State in its own Big 12 opener on Saturday afternoon at Fertitta Center and then TCU in a quick turnaround Big Monday matchup, Roberts’ dominant game couldn’t be more timely.

“I think J’Wan’s a guy that he just feels the moment,” Kellen Sampson says. “He knows the time. He knows like a good racehorse when to get to his kick. He knew that first road game of the year he needed to come. At this point, nothing fazes him. His poise and his composure and feel for the moment is real.

“And I think our guys generate a lot of confidence from him.”

Roberts is the best player on the floor in Gallagher-Iba Arena, dominating the game from the power forward position, something that is not easy to do in a college basketball universe where guards tend to dictate almost everything. “We had a game plan from the get-go — was to get it into (J’Wan),” Kelvin Sampson says. “Get the ball to him and see where they were going to double him. Where they were going to bring their help.”

It turns out an Oklahoma State team used to creating havoc on defense would have no answers for J’Wan Roberts. Playing through its skilled passer of a power forward unlocked Houston’s offense in a Big 12 slugfest where scoring wouldn’t come easy for either team. While Roberts is only officially credited with one assist in the game, he turned into a 6-foot-8 tactical surgeon, racking up hockey assists (the passes that led to the assists). One memorable sequence saw Roberts drop a perfect bounce pass from the top of the key to point guard Milos Uzan, who was set up for an easy pass to a cutting Ja’Vier Francis for a dunk.

As Houston heads further into this new gauntlet of a now 20-game Big 12 conference season, it’s a reminder of all the different ways this talented team can play. If a defense wants to fixate all its attention on Houston’s sweet-shooting guard combo of LJ Cryer (18 points and four steals against Oklahoma State) and Emanuel Sharp, UH can play through Roberts. With Sharp currently fighting a nagging right ankle and foot injury (missing practice and having his right foot put in a boot), Roberts raising his game takes on even more significance.

“When he’s on his game, he’s the hardest matchup in the league,” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity of Roberts. “And he’s starting to feel it. Feel the moment. And he’s starting to go.”

J’Wan Roberts is the best player on the floor in Gallagher-Iba Arena, dominating the game from the power forward position, something that is not easy to do in a college basketball universe where guards tend to dictate almost everything.

J’Wan Roberts — No Breaking For Christmas

No one needs to tell J’Wan Roberts that he wasn’t at his best in Houston’s three closes losses in the non-conference season (to No. 2 Auburn, No. 5 Alabama and San Diego State). This is one of the most prideful players in all of college basketball, a trait Kevin Bookout also displayed in his run for Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma. These guys are pissed when their team loses with them not playing well. They take it personal.

Kellen Sampson saw that prideful drive play out in Roberts’ decision to stay on campus and get in extra work during UH’s rare four day Christmas break rather than go see family in Killeen, Texas or the U.S. Virgin Islands where he grew up. Most of Houston’s players jumped at the chance of likely the last break they’ll have before late March (or mid April if things go right). Guard Terrance Arceneaux jokes that it was “the shortest four days of my life.” In his real last final run at Houston, Roberts decided he couldn’t even allow himself those four days off.

He’d spend his break in the gym and with associate AD for sports medicine John Houston making sure his bothersome foot got as right as it can.

“He stayed in Houston,” Kellen Sampson says. “He got in the gym. He got himself to the foul line (to work on free-throw shooting). He knew it was time to work himself into a rhythm. And he’s been our best player, far and away, every post Christmas practice.”

These Cougars are a different team when J’Wan Roberts plays like this. When he takes ownership of his own situation and the team in many ways. New starting point guard Milos Uzan’s leap from even late November to early January may be more dramatic. Uzan is arguably the second best player on the floor in Oklahoma State’s gym. Uzan is as efficient and controlled as Marie Kondo, putting up 12 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals while playing 36 of the 40 possible minutes. Kelvin Sampson raves about Uzan’s progress.

“We were never broke,” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity. “We just need to find the right course setting for this particular group. A lot of that was Milos. If you don’t have a point guard-friendly system, get a new system. We had to figure out what’s the best way to utilize and get this group organized.”

“Just sticking to the plan,” Roberts says of UH’s revitalized show of strength.

“When he’s on his game, he’s the hardest matchup in the league. And he’s starting to feel it. Feel the moment. And he’s starting to go.” — Kellen Sampson on I’Wan Roberts

J’Wan Roberts being a steadying heartbeat and consistent producer is a major part of that plan. When Roberts is done against Oklahoma State, after putting Steve Lutz’s Cowboys in a blender, he gets enthusiastic chest bumps and hand clasps from all his teammates on heading to the bench with 76 seconds left. After talking in the interview room, he heads down one of the many back hallways of Oklahoma State’s 86-year-old arena, past the mammoth Thurman Thomas and Barry Sanders trophy case displays, and finds Kevin Bookout waiting for him.

Bookout wraps Roberts up in a giant hug too. Two very different generations, from two very different colleges Kelvin Sampson won big at, somehow feeling connected as family. Soon Kelvin Sampson appears and pulls Bookout into an embrace, with the coach laughing and joking with his former player’s kids. Former Oklahoma guard Tim Heskett is also in the hall with his family. Once you’re a Kelvin Sampson player, you’re always a Kelvin Sampson player. Forever family.

“Kevin was the starter on an Elite Eight team (at Oklahoma) along with (current UH assistant coaches) Quannas (White) and Hollis (Price) when he was a true freshman,” Kelvin Sampson notes of Bookout.

“It’s awesome that he pays that much attention to us,” Kellen Sampson says. Kevin Bookout is still a hulking man who you won’t want to have to guard in the post today. Oklahoma’s Paul Bunyan looks a lot like you might expect Paul Bunyan to look in 2025. Sans the beard. But he’s all in Houston too these days, still riding with the Sampson family.

Urging his guy J’Wan Roberts on.

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