There will be unfinished business to address for No. 4 Houston as it begins its march toward another NCAA Tournament when the Cougars open their season at home Monday night against Jackson State.
It is Houston’s third top-10 preseason ranking during head coach Kelvin Sampson’s 10 seasons with the program, with the Cougars advancing to the Sweet 16 in the last five NCAA Tournaments. But they have advanced only as far as the national semifinals in 2021 and have been eliminated in the regional semifinals in the past two seasons.
It appears that anything short of another Final Four appearance would be a disappointment from a program that will be led by a pair of players on the Naismith Trophy player-of-the-year watch list in graduate forward J’Wan Roberts and graduate guard LJ Cryer.
Roberts averaged 9.5 points and 6.8 rebounds in 36 games last season. Cryer scored a team-leading 15.5 points and made 112 baskets from 3-point range, tied for ninth most in Division I last season. He shot 38.8 percent from distance.
The Cougars finished 32-5 overall and in first place at 15-3 in their Big 12 debut. They fell in the Big 12 Conference championship game 69-41 to Iowa State.
Also back is junior guard Emanuel Sharp, who averaged 12.6 points and 3.5 rebounds last season when Houston was eliminated by Duke 54-51 in the South Region semifinals. The Cougars played the second half of that game without All-America guard Jamal Shead after an ankle injury. Shead now is a member of the Toronto Raptors.
“We’ve made it to the tournament every year, and we’ve made it to the Final Four, Sweet 16, Elite Eight,” Roberts said, addressing the team’s title hopes. “We feel like it’s one more banner that we need. To know that we have one more year coming back, why not use it to do something special?”
Houston earned a 79-64 exhibition victory at home over Texas A&M on Sunday when Cryer scored 18 points while going 6-of-12 from 3-point range, and Roberts had 10 points with eight rebounds.
Jackson State will be led by 6-foot-11 center Shannon Grant, a graduate transfer from Florida A&M. Grant averaged 10.4 points with 4.4 rebounds last season, including a 12-point game against Jackson State.
The Tigers’ top six scorers from last season all have departed, including Ken Evans Jr. (18.8 points, 5.4 rebounds), now at Florida Atlantic, and the now-graduated Jordan O’Neal (12.5 points, 6.0 rebounds).
“We have logged a lot of hours together, and it has built our chemistry,” said Mo Williams, a veteran of 13 NBA seasons, who is heading into his third season as Jackson State’s head coach. “It has built who we want to be as a team and who our guys are.”
After finishing 15-17 overall last season and 11-7 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, the Tigers were picked to finish fourth in the conference this season, behind Grambling State, Texas Southern and Southern.
Jackson State had an exhibition victory at home over Belhaven 93-52 on Oct. 24 and fell 92-85 in an exhibition game Monday at Southern Miss.
–Field Level Media
