March Madness 2026: Emanuel Sharp, Houston Cougars out for revenge this year

The Houston Cougars have a shot at revenge.

It was last season when they endured the most devastating type of heartbreak that a college basketball team possibly can. Seconds away from immortality, on the Final Four court in San Antonio, only for disaster to strike. The Florida Gators bathed in confetti. Houston had to work towards next year.

Next year is now and the Cougars are back with a vengeance. They are the No. 2 seed in the south region of this year’s NCAA Tournament, and if things go chalk they will have to go through those same Gators to get through the region.

Emanuel Sharp isn’t looking at things like that, though. In an exclusive conversation with SB Nation on Sunday evening, about an hour after the bracket was unveiled, he noted that the Cougars are simply taking things one game at a time. This is the type of tournament where the moment you look too far, well, we all know how that goes.

This is all easier said than done, by the way. Surviving March is not for the faint and Emanuel knows that. This is why he has teamed up with Phorm Energy, the game-changing energy drink line from Anheuser-Busch backed by 1st Phorm and Dana White.

Emanuel was throwing down a Screamin’ Freedom flavor of Phorm while we were chatting, one of Phorm’s robust flavors across their overall lineup: Grape Smash, Orange Fury, Blue Blitz, and the new Silver Lightning. I told him how Jason Terry used to sleep in the shorts of the team he was set to face the next day while in the NBA and suggested that Emanuel drink a Phorm that holds the school colors of his next opponent. He said he’d consider it.

Houston’s first matchup is against Idaho if Emanuel wants to look for the proper clothing, but it seems pretty obvious that whoever the Cougars are up against that they are going to draw a team looking to take care of business.

That will certainly be the case if Emanuel Sharp has anything to say about it.