Houston is going to be thinking about what happened on Monday night for a long, long time.
It seemed for all the world like these cardiac Cougars were finally going to get the program to the top of the mountain, opening up a 12-point lead over No. 1 seed Florida early in the second half of the national championship game. And then everything fell apart: A quick Gators flurry brought the game back within one possession, and some disastrous offensive execution down the stretch turned what would've been a legacy-defining win for Kelvin Sampson into an improbable 65-63 Florida triumph.
There's no shortage of what-ifs for Cougar fans to haunt themselves with. What if any of those final three possessions had gone differently? What if the officiating had been slightly less erratic? But the team itself doesn't have time for any of that — they've got another season to prepare for, and the reality of NIL and the transfer portal means that the work begins earlier than ever.
The good news is that the cupboard is hardly bare. If Sampson can hang on to key players like guards Milos Uzan and Emanuel Sharp and big man JoJo Tugler to go with an incoming class that includes three top-30 freshmen, the Coogs figure to be among the nation's best once again in 2025-26. But no matter how the offseason goes, there are still going to be big shoes to fill, as some of the most critical pieces from this Final Four run say goodbye.
4. G Mylik Wilson
Wilson was buried a bit behind the backcourt trio of Uzan, Sharp and LJ Cryer, but he was a sturdy contributor off the bench this season, averaging 5.6 points and 4.0 rebounds in 17.5 minutes per game while knocking down a healthy 36 percent of his 3s. If both Uzan and Sharp return, that would mitigate this loss somewhat, but knockdown shooters who can play defense and handle the ball a bit should never be taken for granted.
3. F Ja'Vier Francis
Francis found himself in foul trouble on Monday night, but when he was on the floor he was among Houston's best players, with eight points and six rebounds to go with a couple of blocks in just 21 minutes of action. His ability to play bigger than his 6-foot-8 frame helped unlock the Coogs' particular brand of small-ball this season, and while incoming five-star big Chris Cenac Jr. will help mitigate that loss somewhat, it's still a big blow to what was a pretty thin frontcourt — especially in tandem with the next player on our list.
2. F J'Wan Roberts
Speaking of guys who played bigger than their listed height: Calling Roberts 6-foot-8 is probably generous, but he was still a menace in the paint for Houston, with one of the highest offensive-rebound rates in the country and a preternatural ability to use his leverage to carve out space near the rim. He was integral to this team on both ends, allowing Sampson to switch nearly one through five on defense while setting a tone of tenacity and grit that suffused everything the Coogs did on the court. He was the quintessential college star, in other words, and his contributions can't be encapsulated by a box score or replaced overnight.
1. G LJ Cryer
It's safe to say Sampson got everything he could've hoped for and more when he poached Cryer away from Baylor in the portal a couple of years ago. The diminutive guard struggled with his shot down the stretch of the Florida loss, but his torching of Duke (26 points on 14 shots while playing all 40 minutes) is the reason the Cougars were playing for the national title in the first place.
Again, if Uzan and Sharp are back, Houston will be starting from a very good place in its backcourt. But this was a guard-centric team all season, and Cryer was a major part of that equation. Now he's out of eligibility, and it'll be up to Sampson to find another source of perimeter playmaking (or shift his team's offensive identity dramatically). Either way, Cryer was a big shot maker and taker in March, and that's always a tough thing to replace.