SAN ANTONIO—J’Wan Roberts and the Houston Cougars weren’t going to let it happen again.
Call it bad luck? Yep, they’ve certainly had plenty of it in March. Point out the offensive limitations that have crushed them in key March moments? All fair, too. But the one controllable in basketball, the free throw line? No, those woes weren’t going to happen again.
Houston’s three-point loss in the 2024 Sweet 16 to the Duke Blue Devils was an assorted collection of all those above, with two essential pieces in Jamal Shead and JoJo Tugler sidelined. But the Cougars were just 9-of-17 in that game at the stripe, and Roberts (just a 51% shooter that season) was a main culprit with just three makes in eight tries.
So from the moment he came back to campus in the first week of June, Roberts and the rest of this never-outworked Houston bunch stepped to the stripe seven days a week and made 150 free throws a day. No one was more diligent than Roberts. His shot steadily improved. In games, the percentage jumped 12 points up to 63%. In practice? He climbed over 20 percentage points up to 87% at Kelvin Sampson’s last check earlier this week.
So of all people to step to the line for a one-and-one with a chance to complete a monumental comeback against these very same Blue Devils, of course it was Roberts, the sixth-year senior who could practically write a book on “Sampsonisms” with all the time he has spent with the legendary head coach.
“The worst thing you can do is think,” Roberts says. “The moment you think and you try not to miss, I feel like that’s when you’re going to miss. I just tried to go to the free throw line, take a deep breath, and do my routine that I do, every day. When you go to the free throw line, it’s just you and the basket. You’ve just got to trust your work and you’ve got to live with the results.”
Roberts dried each hand on his jersey, took two dribbles, paused, and swished the first, leaning forward slightly as he watched the ball slide through the net. The first tied it, the second gave Houston its first lead since 6–5 with 15:25 to go in the first half. One defensive stop (with Roberts, of course, guarding phenom Cooper Flagg), a rebound and two more free throws was all it took to complete the unthinkable, a rally from 14 down with just over eight minutes to go and nine down with 2:15 to go for the 70–67 national semifinal win, slaying a Duke team that analytically was one of the best in modern college basketball history.
“Nobody ever lost belief,” point guard Milos Uzan says.
This was an extraordinary comeback, but one rooted in the ordinary. Key defensive stop after key defensive stop, holding Duke to just one field goal in the game’s final 10-plus minutes … and the defensive rebounds to end possessions to go with them. Four offensive rebounds in one possession that set up a three. A tipped-pass steal as Duke inbounded underneath its basket trying to hold on. A key free throw boxout that drew a foul on Flagg and sent Roberts to the free throw line. And of course, Roberts stepping to that line and making the two biggest shots of the season in men’s college basketball.
Were there highlights in the remarkable late Cougar surge? Of course, from elite shotmaking from Cryer that kept them afloat to Tugler’s high-flying putback jam on a putback that cut the deficit to one. But more telling than any one highlight-reel moment was Houston’s grit and commitment to all the little things that have made the Cougars the most consistently elite program in the sport. In the game’s final 3:24, Houston got every available rebound, rebounding all of its misses and all of Duke’s. If that isn’t Houston’s culture, what is?
Discipline gets you beat more than great helps you win. It’s a Sampson staple, according to his son and right-hand man Kellen Sampson, who said his father has used that line “100 million times” in his more than 40 years of coaching. Seven points in 15 seconds to go from down six to leading is undoubtedly great, but the process to get there was simply the 11-year culture built by Sampson at Houston played out on its biggest stage yet.
“A big-time free throw block-out [by Roberts] is exactly what was needed, maybe more so than a spectacular fadeaway jumper,” Kellen Sampson says.
“Culture, resiliency, but details and discipline, which is the hallmark of us, is rooted in this win just as much as anything.” Kellen Sampson
“Culture, resiliency, but details and discipline, which is the hallmark of us, is rooted in this win just as much as anything.”
Houston’s resiliency this season could never be questioned, not after its January rally at Allen Fieldhouse from down six with 15 seconds to go in overtime. There was slightly more time involved in this one, as Houston had all of 45 seconds to come from six down, but the script was remarkably similar. Each started with a made three by Emanuel Sharp that cut the deficit in half … or translated another way, one big mistake away from a tie game.
Sure enough, in both cases, Houston forced that mistake. Tugler’s hawking 7' 6" wingspan makes him an intimidating choice to guard inbounds passers, and both in the Kansas and Duke wins, his length forced an awkward lobbed pass to the middle of the floor. Against Kansas, it was Uzan who tipped away the pass and created the turnover. On Saturday, Mylik Wilson executed it to perfection by managing to both stay attached to Flagg while keeping his eyes on the inbounder, managing to knock the ball away with his right hand on a pass that came in short of its target. While Wilson’s three to tie clanged off, Tugler used his length yet again, this time to slam home a putback and keep the pressure on Duke. It was quite the change in fortune for Tugler, who had been on the verge of tears just moments before when he reached over the out-of-bounds line and touched the ball while the Blue Devils inbounded, a Class B technical that gave Duke a free point.
From there, Houston fouled Tyrese Proctor, who missed the front end of the one-and-one. On the rebound, Flagg came over Roberts’s back. All of a sudden, Roberts had his chance to take the lead. He didn’t miss his moment.
The big debate in the Houston huddle entering the final defensive stand was how to guard Flagg, who, without question, would end up with the ball. Watch back Duke’s other late-game possessions this season (early neutral-court losses to Kentucky and Kansas, its lone conference defeat to Clemson) and it was obvious how Duke would play it. Kellen Sampson said the staff discussed sending a trap to force the ball out of Flagg’s hands, but Flagg’s impact as a passer earlier in the game spooked them. The decision was made: Roberts would check Flagg one-on-one and they’d live with the results.
“We were going to trust our grown-up on the teenager,” Kellen Sampson says.
Flagg’s shot fell short, Houston secured the rebound, and Cryer (whose shooting spurts kept Houston within striking distance when Duke was dominating) made two more free throws to put the Cougars on the brink. Duke’s last-ditch heave never amounted to anything, with a loose ball squibbing to Proctor for a contested 35-foot prayer. The comeback was complete; the most fearsome dragon in the field slayed.
Houston has been knocking on the door, perhaps even with one foot already into the entryway, of a moment like this for years under Sampson. The Cougars haven’t finished below fifth in KenPom since prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and have danced until at least the second weekend in all five tournaments since. At times, the Cougars have almost seemed cursed. The 2024 tournament was the most blatant example, with their do-everything point guard, Jamal Shead, going down early against Duke with a sprained ankle that crippled an already shorthanded Cougar team. Two years before that, Houston had been dealt a devastating blow of losing Marcus Sasser from its championship-caliber 2022 team midway through the year. Sampson squeezed every ounce from that group and got them to the Elite Eight, but couldn’t get over the hump.
So Houston catching a break or two, from the missed free throws by Duke to the six-point possession sparked by a Blue Devils technical foul? If anyone deserved it, it was them. All the little things that Houston had mastered, the dominance of the details, all finally paid off Saturday night in a flurry that Cougar fans will never forget
“You know what, we’ve had some bad luck here in March the last three years,” Sampson says. “We took all of that bad luck and put it into one, and this is what we got.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as J’Wan Roberts Embodies Houston’s Discipline Mantra to Seal Final Four Win With Clutch Free Throws.