Milos Uzan Urges Mercy Miller To Be Great, Emanuel Sharp Sees a Future All-American — How Badly Does Miller Want Next In Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Program?

Milos Uzan pulls Mercy Miller into a hug amid the heartbreak and tears of the University of Houston locker room and delivers a simple, fiery message to the junior guard to be. “You can be great. Go be great,” Uzan declares. Time waits for no one in college basketball. Kelvin Sampson team’s season is barely over with that 65-55 loss to Illinois in the Sweet 16, one that punctured all those cute home game narratives and replaced them with the fickle, often cruel, reality of March.

Endings in this sport are ultra abrupt, leaving little time to brace for impact. Stalwart senior guards Emanuel Sharp and Milos Uzan have played their last game as Coogs. So have culture warrior Ramon Walker Jr. and Kalifa Sakho, the one-year transfer center whose summer back surgery rushed his clock from the beginning. Freshman wonder point guard Kingston Flemings — a projected Top 6 pick in June’s NBA Draft — is everything but officially done too. After one of the memorable and brilliant UH seasons ever. Freshman power forward Chris Cenac Jr. still most likely (and logically) is too.

Houston freshman power forward Chris Cenac Jr. on finality and emotions of seeing season end: “As soon as we got back in the locker room and Coach Samps started talking. That shit hurt for real. Houston’s forever my home. And I thank all the fans and everybody that’s even a part… https://t.co/THImxHaw4T pic.twitter.com/ftPVh85aDu

— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) March 27, 2026

One of the more dramatic roster flips for a Kelvin Sampson Houston team we’ve ever seen is coming. And new stars will be needed. Uzan is urging Miller to step up, certain that the 6-foot-4 guard can fill some of the void.

“I believe in him,” Uzan says when I ask him about his message to Miller. “I believe in him, man. I just think he will be great. Just in his ear reminding him of that. He can do it for sure.”

Miller says he will be driven by this season-ending loss, one where he cannot get anything going off the bench (0 for 4 from the field in seven minutes). But in college basketball in 2026, there are almost no guaranteed, coming back no matter what players.

“There’s definitely going to have to be some conversations and stuff like that,” Miller tells PaperCity when I ask if he knows he’s coming back next season to UH. “I love it here and I just want to keep getting better. However it is, at the end of the day, I love everybody. And that’s what it is.”

Uzan is hardly alone in his belief in Mercy Miller. Emanuel Sharp thinks the 20-year-0ld can be the next Houston guard too, the one who takes the elite guard mantle.

“I think Mercy can be an All-American,” Sharp says, sitting at his locker, still in his No. 21 Houston uniform, with a lot of his teammates having already headed to the bus. “He just needs a couple of more years. It should be here. I’m going to talk to him for sure. It should be here.”

Sharp brings up Chase McCarty, the 6-foot-5 lanky guard with the smooth stroke who hits three second half threes against Illinois to give Houston jolts of hope, as a possible co-next with Miller. This is how invested Emanuel Sharp and Milos Uzan are in Kelvin Sampson’s program. Their own college careers are barely over, with the storybook ending they worked so hard for ripped away. And yet, they are already thinking of the future for Houston.

And the future of the teammates they’ve grown to love rather than their own NBA Draft preparations.

“That’s the mark of a great program that the next guy up has the responsibility of being the guy,” UH lead assistant coach Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity. “This time last year it was LJ (Cryer) talking to Emanuel about it being his time. Great programs don’t rebuild. They just reload. And they work from within and it pulls up to the top. Tonight’s tough.

“We’ll be good again next year.”

Seven straight Sweet 16s. Five straight 30 win seasons. Someone has to be Next. Because no one in this Houston program wants to stop counting.

“I believe in him. I believe in him, man. I just think he will be great. Just in his ear reminding him of that. He can do it for sure.” — UH senior guard Milos Uzan on Mercy Miller

Inside Mercy Miller’s Houston Future

Mercy Miller can be a major part of that if he chooses. “I feel like I’ve got to take that leap,” Miller says when I ask what the next step he needs to make in his game is. “I can’t hold back anymore. Just certain things I can do better. I know I can do better. And I’ve got to be more assertive in that.

“So I feel like that’s the next thing for me.”

Miller carved an important role out for himself over the last 10 games of Houston’s 30-7 season. Chase McCarty did too, despite being hindered by a wrist injury on his left, non-shooting hand that he tells PaperCity he’s been told will not need surgery. “Giving it a chance to rest and heal should be enough,” McCarty says.

There is no tidy way to pack away a season. The 70-year-old Kelvin Sampson will be as busy as ever these next several weeks as he makes sure the four seniors and Kingston Flemings and Chris Cenac Jr. are set on their next steps. There will be the kind of talks Mercy Miller wants to have with every player on this roster. With the transfer portal opening up on April 7 this year, the day after the national championship game.

As he sat in the visitors locker room at Toyota Center — the same one that NBA teams come through and Jimmy Butler’s lighted scented candles in — still in his No. 7 white Houston uniform, Milos Uzan finds himself  thinking of his UH roommate’s future.

“Mercy puts the work in every day,” Uzan says. “That’s my roommate. I see it. I believe in him. And I think he definitely can be that next guy to have a breakout year. . . I think the way he ended this year. You see what he had. You see the potential in him for sure.”

“I think Mercy can be an All-American. He just needs a couple of more years. It should be here.” — UH senior Emanuel Sharp

Across the room, Emanuel Sharp hugs John Houston, UH basketball’s associate athletic director for sports medicine, and takes a knife to cut off the athletic tape tightly wrapped around his ankles. Uzan and Sharp’s season and UH playing careers have just ended.

But they already want to make sure somebody has Next for Houston.