University of Houston Post NCAA Final Presser

We're joined by Houston's head coach, Kelvin Sampson, student athletes Juwan Roberts and LJ Cryer. We'll ask Coach to begin with a statement, then we'll take questions first for the student athletes.

Coach.

Yeah, I told our guys after the game to be disappointed you lost, but do not be disappointed in your effort. Defending Florida is difficult. They got a really, really good team. Coach Golding has run great schemes over there, but, you know, we guarded them. We held that team to 65 points. I thought if we held Duke to under 70, we'd have a good chance to win. And I felt like if we held Florida under 70, we'd have a good chance to win. Saturday, we found a way to win. Tonight, maybe not so much. But two great two great teams, two tough teams. You know, we lost by two points. They made they made a one more play than we did tonight.

LJ Cryer and Juwan Roberts have been kind enough to join us all week in the. Media room. Let's raise our hand if we have a question for them. We'll start up front.

Juwan, 6 years with Coach Sampson. What has he meant to your life? What has Houston meant to your life? And how do you— are you looking at all toward the future with leaving this program as a player?

Coach Sampson's been everything to me. From Coach Sampson down to grandkids, everybody played a part in me being here for 6 years. And I wanted it so bad for them, so, so, so bad. And it hurts because I can't do it next year. I can't put myself in position to do it next year. Um, this will be my last time wearing my jersey, and I feel Terrible. But I told the younger guys to, uh, the returners to remember this feeling. So when you in this moment again, or you in this situation again, you'll be on top. And I, and I feel like everything you go through in life is a lesson. And, uh, you know, I'm glad I could play with LJ. You know, I can get up, glad I played with all those guys, but Coach Sampson, the role that he played in my life, you know, it's— I can't even put into words.

Continuing with questions for Juwan and LJ, we'll take one in the back of the room, left of the aisle, Mid-Major.

Isaac Bourne, Mid-Major Madness. For both LJ and Juwan, you guys leading this team this season, can you talk about what it's been like with this group of guys and what it means to be able to still go out with them?

All right.

Oh, the journey's been great. You know, I had a lot of ups and downs, fought through a lot of adversity. And, um, you know, we all stayed together. You know, we all believed in each other. And, uh, you know, we just came up short. And there's probably a lot of stuff that we wish we could do. But I mean, I'm proud of these guys, but I'm mostly sad that I can't do it with them again. That's, that's the, that's the worst part. I'm not gonna be teammates with Emmanuel again. LJ, Malik, Jay. Um, this is by far out of my 6 years the best team I've been on.

Yeah, I'm just proud of, uh, the way we fought all season. Um, you know, we went through some adversity early and people tried to kind of write us off a little bit. Not expecting us to get to this point. But, you know, we kept our head down and kept grinding all season and we flipped it around. Went 19-1, Big 12, Big 12 Tournament champs and made it all the way to the last game. So, I mean, it didn't end the way we wanted to, but, you know, we just got to hold our heads high because we did accomplish a lot. So.

Yeah.

In the center of the room, reach for that microphone on your left. Thank you.

Greg Rodgen, Houston Chronicle. LJ, you made 2 decisions. You made one to transfer to Houston. You made one last summer to run it back. What was the experience like for you playing in your hometown, helping take this program to another level in a new conference?

Man, this experience was— it's hard to describe it. I mean, I remember before I got to Houston, um, I had 3 foot surgeries before I got here. And I, after those surgeries, I was kind of questioning myself if I was going to ever be the player I once was before. Never. My confidence was kind of shook. I wasn't confident in my movement, but, um, coming to Houston, uh, the coaches, they believed in me. Coach Q, I used to have talks with him every single day in his office telling him these things. Like, he'll be like, man, go out there and be free. But I used to tell him I was scared because of my surgeries and stuff like that. But they believed in me, told me to trust God. And, you know, I've accomplished a lot because I listened to them and put my faith in God. So it's been a blessing being here. It's been the best year of my life so far. So yeah, I'm just proud to be a Cougar, man.

If you have a question for LJ or Juwan, please raise your hand. Let's get the gentleman a microphone all the way up front and to the right.

Antonio Castillo, Alamo City Hoops.

Hand up.

Antonio Castillo, Alamo City Hoops. Juwan, I know you just mentioned the last 6 years, but, you know, just obviously the pain is tremendous right now. But we've followed you the last 8 or 9 years, and people may not know, just up the road right here at the Shoe, Shoemaker High School. And again, just talk about the trip that it's been, you know, these last 8, 9 years, and just reflect, obviously, like you're talking about the positive vibes. And did you ever think you would end it this way at a pinnacle, right, and playing for a national championship?

Um, I want to thank the coaches for, um, you know, coming to one of my AAU games, you know, looking at me and giving me opportunity to play at University of Houston. You know, that's step one for giving me the opportunity. And, um, they invested so much in me, you know, development-wise. Redshirted my first year. And, um, 6 years later, who knew that I would have been playing, you know, for a national championship? You know, when I first got here, I wasn't nobody's scout on report, you know, and I worked my butt off and, you know, they continued to help me along the way. And 6 years later, I had a different role and I feel like the coaches had a lot of trust in me, uh, to lead this team. And You know, these past 6 years have been the best years of my life, you know? And like I said, the worst part about it is I can't do it again, but I'll always be a Cougar, you know, no matter how you try to shape it. I'm always going to be a Cougar and this is going to always be my home. So 10 to 15, 20 years from now, you know, I'm always looking back on this game and remember the team, you know, and remember the coaches that put me in position to be the best I can be. So. I give all the credit, you know, to, to my teammates and, and my coaches for, you know, giving me the opportunity.

We want to thank Juwan and thank LJ for joining us here tonight and all week. They're going to head back to the locker room. The Houston locker room is open till 11:35. Our first question for Coach Sampson is up front to the right. Dennis.

Dennis Dodd, CBS Sports.

Kelvin, just what's going through your mind right now?

Big picture.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm just going through those last 2 possessions more than anything else. You know, it's incomprehensible. In that situation, we couldn't get a shot. Couldn't get a shot. We're down 2, and obviously we didn't need a 3. But, you know, with Immanuel, we were struggling to score the entire second half. We got, you know, good looks, but Florida was doing a good job running us. running us off the line and forcing us to score it. But we just didn't do a very good job of finishing some shots. You know, guys that's been in the paint scoring all year. You know, LJ's developed a really good runner, floater. I didn't go very much tonight. Milos, But, you know, give Florida credit too. You know, I'm not going to sit up here and poor-mouth and pity-mouth us. You know, we held that team to 65 points. You know, Clayton and Martin combined to go 5 for 20. If you'd have told me we'd hold those 2 guys to 5 for 20— and we had a good plan. We just didn't— we didn't score it well enough to win. We scored it well enough to be in a position to win. But, you know, it comes down to those— at the end, you've got to get a shot.

That's—

got to do better than that.

Coach, you mentioned the Coach, next one's up front to the left. Aaron.

Aaron Beard with the AP.

Kelvin, what were you hoping to get out of that last play?

Yeah, we, we have a set where it's a stagger gate, and, and we thought if we could get Emmanuel to, to shot fake and get downhill— I don't, you know, I have to look back at the film and I don't know if the ball slipped out of his hands or—

Clayton.

Clayton had his back. Yeah. He probably should have shot-faked that. You know, that's a— both those guys, Richard and Martin, both really good defensively. Clayton made a great play on that, but that's why you got to shot-fake and get in the paint.

2.

2's fine. You know, we— Jaylon has been awesome all year. Tonight was not his night. Florida was really physical with the way they were chucking and bumping when he was going. And he had a lot of balls that just fell right off the rim, seems like. But, you know, at the end of the day, they scored 65, we scored 63. They struggled scoring on us and we struggled scoring on them. That's what— when it gets down to the 2 best teams left, that's— it's not going to be easy for either team.

3rd row on the left.

Hey, Coach. Evan Miyakawa from evanmedia.com. Tonight you guys only had 5 assists. That's the fewest you've had in a game since 2020. Was there anything that Florida was doing you think that took away—

What's your first name?

Evan Miyakawa.

Well, let me explain how an assist works, Evan. I'm not sure, but when you throw the ball to somebody and they score, that's an assist, right? Well, we threw the ball a lot to J1 in the post, you know, and he missed some shots that he normally makes. So those were possible, potential Assists that we had a lot. We just didn't make a lot of shots. I don't know if it's— certainly Florida, let's give them credit for being a good defensive team. But we threw the ball and passed the ball enough to get more assists. We just didn't make enough shots. That's what I would say right off the bat. But— You know, You're the stat guy, right?

On the right side, Coach, just to the left of the aisle.

Kirk Bowles from the Houston Chronicle. Kelvin, as good as your guards are and as many turnovers as you guys have forced all year long, you know, how rare is it that the turnover bug kind of bit you the last 4 minutes?

Yeah, the last 4 minutes. You know, we— our defense was so good. You know, the first half. And of course, a big part of our defensive plan was Clayton, because he's elite. He really is. You know, we missed an assignment when he came off. You know, if we— we wanted him to not— our goal was to not give him a—

A foul.

A full-court layup. He gets that a lot watching the SEC games. So we took that away, and we, we didn't want him to get a shot going to his left. If he was going to shoot a 3, we wanted it going right. And, and we did an awesome job on that except for one. He made a big one late. I don't remember how much time it was, but—

2:30.

You know, I'm proud of our guys for how they guarded tonight. That was a tough ballgame. 2 tough teams. Florida's tough. You know, Martin's a tough defender. He gave LJ some problems. The big kid, Condon, at 6'11, and—

Chinyelu.

Chinyelu.

Those guys are all big, strong, physical guys, just like our guys are. You know, we got an offensive rebound, chance to get a kick-out 3, and JoJo did the one thing that we really emphasized— don't bring the ball down. Turned into a turnover. Probably put them on the line a little too much, and they made their free throws. But the way we looked tonight, we've won a lot of games like that. You know, we just, you know, some nights we struggle offensively, but we usually find ways to win. Tonight we didn't.

Second row center, likely the last question.

Kelvin, to what degree did the way that they were breaking out on you, which is something that you rarely ever face— I'm sorry, Adi Joseph, CBS. The way that they were breaking out on you early in the game to get some long passes to the big men. Yeah, did that surprise you? Was that something that you were—

What surprised me that we didn't do a better job guarding it. It didn't surprise me that they did it. They're good at that. But, um, um, you know, we settled in. That was a couple— what, they'd score 2 or 3 early, I think, and I'm not sure they got another one after that.

Yeah.

Yeah, our guys figured that out. I think by the time we got to the first TV timeout, we kind of— sometimes guys try to guard their man in transition, and you have to guard the guy that has the deepest position. But again, you know, we're disappointed we lost. We thought this was a game that if we played Well, we could win. And we did play well. We just didn't play very good the last 3 minutes. And that's been a strength of ours all year long, was winning close games. Tonight we didn't. But give credit to Coach Golding and Florida. They're, they're a very worthy champion.

Want to thank Coach Sampson for joining us tonight and all week. Again, congrats on the run to the title game.