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00:00That was hard to watch, man, that last few seconds. Really, the last few minutes of that game.
00:06And man, Cougs this morning, I feel for you, man. I felt for you last night. I woke up this morning
00:12and my feel for you factor has not dwindled one bit. That was a painful way to lose a basketball
00:18game, especially considering at one point in the second half, the lead was 12. That was rough.
00:23Welcome in, everybody, on a Tuesday morning. We're going to dissect it, break it all down.
00:26As kind as the gods were to us, Seth, over the weekend, one of the greatest weekends
00:30in the history of Houston sports across all the teams. They were evil last night, the gods.
00:37It was evil. That was, man, that was a rough, that moment there when Sharp was in the air
00:44and the ball was on the ground and then he couldn't touch the ball, obviously, because
00:51he dropped it himself. It just, time slowed down. That final two minutes was so excruciating.
00:57And Houston turns the ball over four times. Sharp has the last two turnovers. But that
01:02moment there where they, everything was somewhat working out the way they had planned at least
01:08and that they were going to run that double screen. But Florida beats the, at point, Sharp
01:14has a decision to make whether he has time to hit the three or whether he should drive.
01:18And he made the wrong decision.
01:20Yeah. And loses the ball and there's nothing you can do but stand there. And he boxed out.
01:25He did a good job boxing out.
01:27I need someone to come get this ball right now.
01:30I can't, honestly, I cannot imagine the feeling of desperation that he had in that moment.
01:37It's like when a running back fumbles the ball, but somebody's got him locked up and he can
01:41see the ball just fumbling.
01:43And there's nothing you can do to get to it.
01:45Yeah.
01:45Oh my God.
01:46Dude, I'm watching it again. They're showing it on the TV again.
01:49Oh, it's brutal.
01:49It's so, it's, it's so hard to watch. And I, man, to, to, to look like this thing,
01:55they, they had it under control. They really had it under control.
01:58They shut out Walter Clayton Jr. in the first half, they shut him out. And he ended up being
02:04the most outstanding player of the final four, uh, in 11 points in the second half. He's their
02:09best player, Florida. Uh, and they win their third championship in the Cougs, just excruciatingly
02:15close to a championship 41 years after the last time they were in the finals, 42 years after a game
02:24that ended in similarly excruciating fashion against North Carolina state and Jim Valvano.
02:30I know we don't, I don't know how many listeners we have that were able to fully experience both
02:34of those as Coug fans. And I don't want to, this is like comparing deaths of relatives at this point.
02:39So which one was more painful for you, but that last night, that's all I could think of Seth in
02:43that moment is like, not again, like 40 years later, not again, not to lose it this way.
02:48That was so tough. And Emmanuel Sharp has been so, so Boogs in this post season with big shot,
02:55his shot. If he doesn't hit that three pointer against Duke to cut that lead to three, they're
02:59not in this game. Like that was the most important shot of that Duke game. And he picked his worst
03:05time to have his worst offensive game. He was one of seven from the field of one of seven from three,
03:10three of 11 from the field. And just again, that, that play at the end, that excruciating turnover
03:16at the end, seals the deal for Florida. You had mentioned Clayton. I mean, he was,
03:20he was the major reason that Clayton was held to 11 points or however many it was, uh, for the credit
03:26to Florida. I mean, they, they played their asses off. That last two minutes was just brutal. It
03:30was, that was, I mean, I'm voting on both sides of the court. There was just brutal defense. The,
03:36the, I'm not blaming the officials whatsoever, but I was annoyed in the game that basically there
03:41were almost like two separate, complete, completely separate officiating strategies in the game
03:47where they weren't calling anything in the first half. Second half, the, the, the Florida
03:52throws a tantrum and then all of a sudden they're calling everything. Yeah. Yeah. Just like,
03:58let's have some consistency across the board here. They just completely pivoted on how they
04:03were calling the game. Jay Williams had a long tweet about that. He's like, you get used to playing
04:07as a player, you get used to playing a certain type of game. You go in at halftime to cool off
04:12and you come back out and all of a sudden everything in the first half, it's a rock fight.
04:16And then the second half it's ballet. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. Um, I don't know. I don't
04:20know. To be clear. I don't think the Cougs lost the game because of that. I think it's just to me,
04:23that was just a frustrating thing as a fan that we, we had a whole first half that way. And I turned
04:28to Amy and I said, I'd like the way the refs are calling this game. They're letting them play. And certainly
04:31that plays out. So yeah. Yeah. Kelvin doesn't call fouls in practice. He just, he wants them
04:38playing brutally physical. And I think Florida plays defense similarly with a similar level of
04:43dog. I think both teams were comfortable playing in that type of, in that type of game. Um, but why
04:48it, you know, why all of a sudden they started, I get it. Florida started arguing, but Florida was
04:53getting a bunch of chippy calls called on them that weren't getting called in the first half of that
04:56game. Both teams had like five fouls. Florida had four, Florida was at four, four fouls in the
05:01first half. Yeah. Well, they, but in the second half, Florida had five fouls at the 17 and a half
05:05minute mark left to go. They were like, Houston was almost in the bonus with 17 minutes to go in
05:11the first half. I think what ultimately really hurt the Cougs in this game, if you're just waking up
05:1565, 63, the final score, just a brutal ending to the game with the Emmanuel Sharp flub. I, and I,
05:24and I think what really costs the Cougs a game was part and parcel of what happened with
05:27Emmanuel Sharp in a game like that. They don't really have a floor general like Florida does.
05:33You know, Walter Clayton jr. Is a, is a true point. He's a point guard who can shoot the
05:38basketball. He had seven assists in the game. Houston had five assists as a team in the game.
05:43And that, that was what I was feeling as Florida was making their comeback and really throughout
05:46the game, even as Houston was building the lead, it was built largely on them doing what they do,
05:51which is being scrappy on the offensive glass and, and getting second shots. They had way more
05:56shots in the first half than Florida did. At one point, they had 10 more shots early in the second
06:01half of the whole game than Florida did. I really thought the lack of kind of a true floor general
06:06for the Cougs, Seth, was a big deal. They were not getting good looks in the half court at all.
06:13It played out that way. They had four turnovers in the first 36 minutes of the game. In the last
06:19three minutes and change, they had five turnovers. There was nobody they really had that was getting
06:24them organized out there. Yeah, that was, I mean, you end up with one guy. LJ. Cryer is the only guy
06:29that scores in the double digits. You know, it was, it was just that, that kind of night. Yeah. Um,
06:35man, I, uh, I, that, that, that, that last, that final two minutes where they had a one point lead
06:43for how much of the final two minutes, um, right up into the following. Florida, Florida led for a total
06:49of one minute and three seconds in this game. They, they, they had led for 17 seconds,
06:54the entire game till they took the lead with 46 seconds left, 64, 63. That's yeah. So that's
07:01just giving you some numbers to back up what you were about to say. Thanks a lot, Sean.
07:06I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I guess. No, no, no, no, no. That's all right. No,
07:09I'm just being miserable. Yeah. I mean, Emmanuel Sharp comes back and has a chance to,
07:14to, to rectify things next year. You're not going to have Juwan Roberts. You know,
07:18obviously you're not going to have LJ Cryer. Um, but you get to, you get to run it all back.
07:23It's just, man, this, this, this, this program, I, they, they now stack on top of their record
07:30number of final four appearances without a championship. Uh, it, it, it's, at some point
07:36here, it's, it's, it's got a tip over. It's got a, there's just got the, the fact that they were
07:42even in the championship game, man, that, that alone and the, the way that they had to win
07:48the semifinals was very, very unlikely. And I guess maybe that can be a bomb at some time
07:55in the coming months, but for Cougs, it's just going to, it's going to hurt.
07:59It's hard, man. It's, it's just, it shows you how hard it is to, to do it. They'll be back next
08:04year in the mix again. I mean, they, Sharp is coming back. Uh, Jojo Tugler after the games,
08:09you know, they, he was talking about how him and I forget who he meant of an arsenal that he said,
08:13the two of them were talking and we're going to come back and we're going to make this right.
08:17And they've got a, I mean, Kelvin Sampson has a major recruiting class coming in. So he's got a
08:22really good group of freshmen coming in. They're going to be a top five team again next year. It's
08:26just to come that close and dude, to watch Kelvin Sampson as that last play was unfolding, you know,
08:33he's very animated throughout the game. He's just standing there with his arms folded. Just,
08:37you know, you call a play and then you let your, you roll the ball out and see if they can execute it.
08:41I mean, to watch him, it was like, it was like watching somebody watch their family get into
08:45a car accident. It was, it was hard. And you brought it up earlier, but it's true. A hundred
08:49percent. The, the turnover battle with the way Houston plays ends up because they play like a
08:54football team. It ends up being kind of like a football game. And you would think if you win
08:58the turnover battle 13 to nine, that boy, that's a game you should win in a game like this, where
09:04you're scoring in the sixties. And yet you five of those turnovers, five of those nine turnovers came in
09:09the final three minutes, four of them in the final two minutes. Well, and Florida was stuck
09:13at Florida was at 13 turnovers. It felt like with about 10 minutes to go in the game, they played
09:18flawless down the street, not flawless, but they were certainly much more mistake-free than the
09:23Cougs were people texting and man, if you're a Coug way in today, seven, one, three, five,
09:28seven, two, four, six, 10, Jim Adler, the Texas hammer text line, Sean, what makes this a coach
09:34was the youngest coach to win since that's Todd golden since 1983, when Jim Valvano won it against
09:41the Cougs. Crazy irony that it was U of H allowing that again. So yeah, man. I'd love to be able to
09:48talk smack about Jim Valvano, but obviously I can't do that. No, he's not here to defend himself.
09:53Yeah. Credit to Jim Valvano. Yeah. Yes. Uh, yes. In, in crunch time, Florida could run a play on
10:01offense to get a good look. The Cougs were chaotic. That's exactly what I was saying.
10:04The Cougs looked like they needed a floor general out there that they didn't have on this team.
10:08Yeah, it was, it was, that was the part that was the biggest surprise, I suppose. But in,
10:12even in that final play where they, they didn't exit, they had options. You know, if LJ Cryer,
10:20if they, if, if Florida attacks LJ Cryer, then it's sharp and he gets a sharp, gets that screen set
10:26for him. Florida beats the screen. And then it's just up to sharp to make the right decision.
10:30And he just missed, he just misjudged how fast Florida was closing on him. He goes up and my
10:37God, and it's still, that's emblazoned in my memory. I, I'm just a stupid schmuck watching on
10:42television. And I'm reliving that moment where, where sharp just has to watch and wait for somebody
10:49else to come get the ball. I cannot imagine how little sleep sharp is going to get over the course
10:54of the next week that you just relive that over and over that moment. That's PTSD, man. And in the
10:59moment, it was five seconds that felt like 10 minutes watching the ball, just sit there.
11:04It was, yeah, that's, that's, I don't give sharp credit. I mean, he did the right. There was like
11:09a moment where he, he looked like frozen and in terror style. And, uh, well, the one thing that
11:16was pretty clear, I think on that final plate, they were going for the win. Like they were,
11:20they were, you know, they, they were down to, they were going to, I mean, they had the obby. He was,
11:24he was either going to hit the three or he's going to drive. You know, they, they set up the
11:28screen so he could hit the three. They trusted him to hit the three, but Florida, the Florida
11:33practices, the elevator screen there where you close in like the elevator doors and they beat
11:38it. So credit to them. But then the next option is you drive. And that's where he just,
11:43if the screen doesn't work, you better be damn sure that you've got time to hit the three
11:47because he had time to drive and he didn't.