Though currently residing nearly 1,000 miles from Houston, Emanuel Sharp already considers the Bayou City his home.
Sharp, a 6-foot-4-inch shooting guard rated the No. 64 prospect and No. 8 shooting guard in the class of 2022 by 247Sports, announced his commitment to UH Thursday evening, marking yet another highly ranked recruit that UH has picked up during the Kelvin Sampson era.
While the four-star Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High School guard received offers from big-time basketball schools across the country including Florida, Lousiville and Texas Tech, something about the UH program stood out to him from the moment he first starting talking to Sampson and the Cougars’ coaching staff.
“I’ve known Coach Sampson for a while,” Sharp told The Cougar. “(Sampson) first started talking to me when I was first getting recruited by schools. From there on out, I just got to know Houston more. I got to know the coaching staff and the type of school that (UH) is. UH has really just come to be a home for me.”
Although Sharp still has another year left in high school and was not under any rush to make his commitment, he realized that UH was the full package, offering everything he was looking for in a program.
Sharp saw no reason to delay his commitment any longer.
“Over the past few Zooms (with UH), I’ve gotten to know their strength and conditioning coach (Alan Bishop) and the rest of their coaching staff,” Sharp said. “And just seeing more of the school, I realized that I didn’t need anything else from a different school. That’s when I chose that Houston was the spot for me.”
Sharp’s friends and family could not be more excited about his decision to play collegiately at UH, with Derrick Sharp, Emanuel’s father, coach and biggest supporter, leading the charge.
Derrick, who played collegiately at South Florida before spending 18 years playing in the Israeli Basketball Premier League, helped his son through the entire recruitment process by providing Emanuel with valuable advice.
“You got to go to a coach that cares about you, shows that he cares, has a plan for you as a player, has a good resume of developing players and student-athletes and just somebody that’s ultimately a good person and you get a good vibe from,” Derrick Sharp said. “And (Kelvin Sampson) had that.”
Derrick’s biggest goal for Emanuel when helping him through the recruiting process was that he wanted his son to be in a position where he could develop and ultimately exceed what Derrick himself had accomplished during his career on the hardwood.
From UH’s rich tradition going back to the Phi Slama Jama days to the Cougars’ sustained success under Sampson, Derrick could not have imagined a better place for Emanuel to develop and take the next step as a basketball player.
While Cougars fans will have to wait until 2022 to see Sharp take the floor wearing the red and white, UH’s newest commit wants the fans to know exactly the type of player they’re getting.
“They’re getting a great player that knows how to put the ball in the basket and I’m going to come in and make a difference,” Sharp said.