Emanuel Sharp Is Finally Feeling Healthy, Lifting NCAA Tournament No. 1 Seed Houston’s Special March Potential Even Higher

KANSAS CITY — As Emanuel Sharp slices towards the hoop, twisting between two defenders to somehow lay the ball in, Justine Ellison Sharp is already out of her seat and in the aisle, contorting her own body with every move from her son. Sharp, the University of Houston shooting guard who plays basketball like its extreme bumper cars, is dipping into his full bag of tricks and everyone around him can feel it.

“Just playing his game,” Derrick Sharp, Emanuel’s father and high school coach, says. “A lot of people don’t even know that’s pretty much how he’s been playing his whole life.”

Emanuel Sharp is playing like his true self because he’s feeling healthy again. The painful right foot and ankle strain that’s been bothering him most of the season is feeling the best it has in months. “Just starting to get healthier,” Sharp tells PaperCity. “My ankle is starting to feel like it’s regular self.”

Just in time for the Madness. The early Sharp results are the single most encouraging thing of UH’s emphatic run to the Big 12 Tournament championship that follows their 19-1 rip through the Big 12’s regular season gauntlet of a schedule. Signs of an elite team “finding its swagger.” as assistant coach Kellen Sampson puts it, abound. But nothing may mean more in the NCAA Tournament than a healthy Emanuel Sharp who is feeling it.

Sharp’s Big 12 Tournament run? Try 19, 26 and 17 points while shooting a combined 12 from 23 from 3-point range and getting to the free throw line 15 times in three games. That’s why he’s the Big 12 Tournament Most Outstanding Player. He’s hitting from deep, sometimes while getting fouled. He’s draining shots on the catch, pulling up with no hesitation. Showing all the conscience of a successful stockbroker. Maybe, even more importantly, he’s getting to the hoop, driving into traffic, scoring at the rim.

For that’s when you know Emanuel Sharp is in his bag.

“Eman’s got game!” UH point guard Milos Uzan tells PaperCity after showing plenty of his own (a career-high 25 points, four assists, four rebounds and not a single turnover) in the 72-64 battle royale of a conference title game win over Arizona. “When he’s like that, watch out.

“He’s one of the best shooters in the game. He’s one of the best two guards in the game all around. I’m not surprised.”

This is what a healthier Emanuel Sharp looks like. The fact that his troublesome foot is still feeling good after three games in three days is the best sign of all for this 30-4 Houston team. Especially with super sixth man Terrance Arceneaux limited by pain in his surgically-repaired Achilles, which required an x-ray as PaperCity first reported.

An Eman In Full makes these sure No. 1 seed Cougars (who are virtually assured of beginning their NCAA Tournament run with a first round game at Wichita, Kansas on Thursday) even more dangerous. Kelvin Sampson’s team completely dominated one of the best leagues in the country, winning the Big 12 regular season by four games and following that up by winning three games in three days in Kansas City with J’Wan Roberts, the team’s heart and soul, sitting out the last two games to rest his sprained ankle.

And now Sharp is feeling it.

“He’s our TNT, our dynamite,” UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity. “Emanuel plays with a fearlessness that’s unique and individual to Eman that this team has to have. Our hope for him all year is that he’d evolve into being a scorer and not just a shooter. I thought he was certainly showing the DNA of that before the foot injury.

“And now as he’s getting healthier he’s starting to become the scorer we always thought he could be.”

People forget that Sharp has been around for four straight Houston Marches because he enrolled early to better rehab the leg he broke in high school. UH’s No. 21 knows March. In some ways he’s built for it.

“He’s all about winning,” Derrick Sharp tells PaperCity. “. . . That’s a testament to him understanding and wanting to be a winner. And Sampson.”

“Just starting to get healthier. My ankle is starting to feel like it’s regular self.” — UH guard Emanuel Sharp

Emanuel Sharp Embraces The National Championship Stakes

Both of Emanuel Sharp’s parents played professional basketball in Israel. Mom just happens to be the more demonstrative game watcher. He’s grown up on the game. He can sense the moment that is here. Even as he raises the WWE-style championship belt awarded to the Big 12 MOP in the air, even as he cuts down his strand of the net at the T-Mobile Center, puts on his championship T-shirt and hat, he’s thinking of what’s right ahead. The push for the national championship that Kelvin Sampson’s been driving at for years.

“He’s our TNT, our dynamite. Emanuel plays with a fearlessness that’s unique and individual to Eman that this team has to have.” — UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson

It’s finally here. The games you play all season, the moments the Cougars think of when they start conditioning way back in June.

“It’s not really more about making a statement,” Sharp tells PaperCity of the Big 12 double titles. “This program wants to win. We want to get to the national championship.”

“This is just what we have to do along the way.”

Emanuel Sharp is the deep ball master who’s shooting 43 percent from three and 89 percent from the free-throw line. He’s the rugged defender who can help harass Arizona star Caleb Love into one for six shooting in the second half as the primary defender on the March legendary Duke killer when he’s in the game. But he’s also the creative driver who can get to the hoop and finish in traffic.

When healthy. And Sharp’s feeling pretty, pretty good these days. This already elite, deep and sometimes completely dominant Houston team is suddenly even more dangerous.

How’s that for a good March tiding?