Kelvin Sampson after Jamal Shead injury: 'It doesn't feel like a fair fight'

The Houston Cougars, one of the nation’s top teams this season, went home after losing to the Duke Blue Devils in the Sweet 16 round. However, arguably, head coach Kelvin Sampson’s pain after the loss stems from the possibility of what could have been if not for an untimely injury.

Houston started their Sweet 16 matchup with Duke strong, but things took a turn for the South Region’s no. 1 seed after an ankle injury to star guard Jamal Shead. The Cougars offense struggled to score after the injury, leading to their 54-51 loss to the Blue Devils. After the game, Sampson addressed Shead’s injury and its impact on the outcome of the game.

“Well, it doesn’t feel like a fair fight. You would have to take maybe two of theirs to equal one of Jamal. That’s how good he was,” said Sampson. “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.

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“I thought our kids battled. Think about it. We had the ball a couple of times to take the lead late in the game. So it’s not like we lost Jamal. Okay, the game was lost. No, we still battled, but that’s our identity. That’s our culture. That’s who we are. 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.”

Shead turned his ankle late in the first half with just over six minutes to go in the contest. At that time, Houston held a 16-10 lead. But once their American point guard general left the game, the tides of the game turned in favor of Duke, who was able to withstand the Cougars’ demonstrative defense long enough to pick up the three-point win.

Sampson confirmed in the postgame press conference that his guard suffered an ankle sprain. However, the severity of the injury caught some off guard. According to Sampson, Shead suffered a grade four ankle sprain.

With the season over, Houston will look at treatment options for Shead. It’s expected to be over a month of recovery.

Not to mention it really hurt the Cougars after halftime, who fell just short to the Blue Devils.

“Grade four sprain,” Sampson said of Shead postgame. “He is probably going to be out four to six weeks. That was a really tough locker room at halftime.

On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this story