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Houston’s NCAA tournament run ended with a Sweet 16 loss to Duke on Friday. The top-seeded Cougars fell 54-51 after losing Jamal Shead to an early injury.
Shead played 13 minutes before exiting with a sprained ankle. Houston played the second half without the Big 12 Player of the Year, who led the team in assists (6.3) and steals (2.2) per game this season.
During his post-game press conference, Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson called Shead the “heart and soul” of the team.
“We were in a position to win the game without Jamal,” Sampson said. “With Jamal, it’s a totally different story, but that’s neither here nor there, is it?”
When asked if ending the season without Shead felt “anti-climatic,” Sampson acknowledged that losing his senior guard sidelined made advancing far tougher.
“It doesn’t feel like a fair fight,” Sampson said. “You would have to take maybe two of theirs to equal one of Jamal. That’s how good he was. He’s a first-team All-American. You don’t have another one of those. You don’t have the best defensive player in the Big 12. You don’t have a guy that made all the big shots at the end.”
However, that doesn’t mean he thought the team stopped fighting.
“We still battled, but that’s our identity. That’s our culture. That’s who we are,” he continued. “We felt like we had a good enough team to get to Arizona. It was unfortunate that that team wasn’t able to stay together.”
Sampson declined to answer whether he thought Houston would have won with Shead on the court. Yet he said he “obviously” still thinks his team had a great year despite falling short of the Final Four.