After a night spent locking up college basketball's hottest shooter, Florida's Walter Clayton Jr., the roles reversed for Houston guard Emanuel Sharp on the biggest play of Monday night's national championship game.
Houston, which led by as much as 12 points during the game, needed a bucket to tie or win the game on the final possession. Sharp rose up for a deep three with just under five seconds left on the clock, but changed his mind as Clayton Jr. made an aggressive close-out. Sharp was caught in no man's land, with no one to pass to in mid-air, and the potential for Clayton to block his shot, and wound up dropping the ball. He scrambled to box out Gators players, hoping one of his teammates would be able to grab the ball and put up a desperate heave, to no avail. Florida would finish with a two-point victory, 65–63, to capture its first national championship since 2007.
It was the second consecutive turnover by Sharp to end the game, marring what had been a stalwart defensive performance against Clayton. The sharpshooting guard had been averaging 24.6 points per game in the NCAA tournament and was coming off of back-to-back 30+ point games against Texas Tech and Auburn in the Elite Eight and Final Four. He was held scoreless in the first half of Monday's game and finished with just 11 points on 3-of-10 shooting (1-of-7 from three), though he did add seven assists and five rebounds.
Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson didn't mince words about the final possession. "At the end you’ve got to get a shot," he said during his postgame press conference. "You’ve got to do better than that. ... He probably should have shot faked that."
After the dust settled on Houston's national championship loss, however, he had an uplifting message for his third-year guard, who was a critical contributor to the Cougars' success and MVP of the Big 12 tournament.
"I told him I loved him," Sampson said, per ESPN's Pete Thamel. "I told him I loved him, and I really focused on the job he did on Clayton. He did an awesome job on him. He made a couple reads that I'm sure he wish he'd had over, but we don't get there without that kid."
Houston finished the year 35–5, and was one play from winning the national championship. A veteran coach like Sampson, who has experienced just about everything that college basketball has to offer, won't let one bad play erase what has been a historic season for Sharp and the Cougars.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Houston's Kelvin Sampson Had Touching Message for Emanuel Sharp After Title Game Loss.
