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The list of experiences makes for quite the “One Shining Moment” montage. Outside of UConn’s back-to-back national championships, few men’s college basketball programs have had as much success as the Houston Cougars over the past three seasons — and 12-year-old Jace Abarca basked in much of it.

There was March 2023, when Houston clinched the AAC regular season championship, head coach Kelvin Sampson draping the celebratory, cut-down net around Abarca’s neck. There were trips with his family to watch the Cougars in the Sweet 16 in each of the past two NCAA Tournaments. There were countless practices and games, Abarca in the center of a towering huddle of players or dancing on the sideline during timeouts at the Fertitta Center.

There was also October 2022, when then-10-year-old Abarca was the focal point of a signing day ceremony, putting pen to paper to become the Coogs’ “lead ball boy” in front of the players, staff, cheerleaders and local media. It was the perfect antidote to lift a struggling kid’s spirits.

“Today, Jace (Abarca) is officially a University of Houston Cougar,” Sampson said that day in 2022. “Great teams are made of great teammates. That was the thing about Jace that jumped out at us right away.”

But if you ask Abarca about his favorite memory as an honorary member of Houston basketball, he’ll quickly tell you it was the post-practice games of Uno against that towering huddle of players. Emanuel Sharp. J’Wan Roberts. Jamal Shead. LJ Cryer. Ja’Vier Francis. All larger-than-life heroes to Abarca. And losers.

“I dominated in Uno,” he said. “It was a lot of fun.”

This week, Sampson and the Cougars head to Wichita, Kan. for the opening round of the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 seed in the Midwest region. The team is hoping, at the very least, for a sixth straight trip to the Sweet 16, and a repeat of 2021’s run to the Final Four, hosted this year just a few hours from campus in San Antonio. Abarca is hoping for it too, back home in Houston and feeling healthy. Finally.

In 2022, Abarca was diagnosed with lupus and nephrotic syndrome, a serious kidney and autoimmune disease. The prognosis came after months of hospital visits and unanswered questions, a sprightly kid left lethargic and suffering “9 out of 10” on a pain scale. He had to miss the start of his fifth grade year and take steroids that made him bloated, his puffy face almost unrecognizable to himself in the mirror. He couldn’t play sports.

“He was just drained, and it was tough seeing that as a dad,” his father James said.

Between countless hospital visits, Abarca’s mom, Yaneth, got connected with Team IMPACT, a non-profit organization that matches children dealing with significant illnesses and disabilities with college sports programs across the country.

Houston men’s basketball was a natural fit for a family of Cougar fans — James has “been Phi Slamma Jamma since 1984,” he said. Lauren Sampson, Kelvin’s daughter and the team’s director of basketball operations, arranged practice visits and game tickets for Jace and the family, including his three siblings, and organized the signing day ceremony.

“I remember looking over that day and seeing Jace’s mother, and she had these big crocodile tears in her eyes,” Kelvin Sampson told The Athletic. “It just makes you feel good to know you’ve done something to help a kid and family that faced so many tough days. But for that moment, they got to celebrate.”

The signing day event went above and beyond, but that sentiment — creating fun, happy memories during tough times — is the point of these partnerships.

“Just trying to make his day better,” said Sharp, a junior guard on this year’s team who developed a bond with Jace over those games of Uno and their special slow-motion handshake. “Doing stuff like that puts a smile on his face. It meant a lot seeing him happy, his family happy.”

But the ultimate goal digs a bit deeper. For a lot of these kids, the universities are often near where they have to go for hospital visits. Turning those trips into something exciting and enjoyable helps alleviate some of that anxiety. And for Abarca, a previously active kid who was struggling with self-esteem due to the treatment and its impact on his body, being embraced by the local standout college hoops team provided a welcome, lasting confidence boost.

“I never thought something like this sickness would happen to me, but they made me forget all about it,” Abarca said. “They brought energy back to my life.”

That energy flows both ways. The influence it had on Abarca was obvious, but he’s left a mark on the program as well. Sharp described how seeing what Abarca and his family have gone through put a bad game or a tough week of practice in perspective, and reminded him how even small gestures of kindness — “Taking extra time to be positive and uplifting to other people,” Sharp said — can have an outsized impact.

“Part of our job as coaches, in an era when there is a lot of entitlement, is that at some point, you have to teach your kids to be givers. You have to be willing to do something to help other people,” Sampson said. “Jace created a great learning opportunity for our entire program. Guys who are selfish have a hard time relating to someone who is going through the challenges that Jace faced. But our kids were effusive in their efforts to make Jace feel good. That told me a lot about them.”

These matches are designed to lift up kids and their families when they need it most. Yet more often than not, those small sacrifices manifest into something more meaningful.

“Jace helped our program by allowing us to help him,” said Sampson.

It’s why so many of the Team IMPACT relationships extend beyond the organization’s two-year partnership. Why 11-year-old Rylan Ellingwood became the best man at UConn assistant coach Mamadou Diarra’s wedding. And why the entire Kansas basketball team showed up to JP Bemberger’s funeral in January.

Abarca’s two-year match with Houston officially ended after last season. He’s stayed connected to the program since then, though he hasn’t been around quite as much this season — for good reason. Jace is in remission, back to feeling and looking like his old self, his nights and weekends brimming with the various activities of an active, outgoing 12-year-old. There’s no cure for nephrotic syndrome, which is why Abarca still makes regular hospital visits to monitor the disease. It’s something he will have to manage for the rest of his life. But now it comes with an extended support system.

“What a beautiful kid,” said Sampson. “He’s part of the team, the family is part of the team.”

The Abarcas will be rooting like it, cheering on the Coogs this week and ideally beyond. Abarca’s prior trips to the Sweet 16 ended in tough defeats, but this year, he’s got an eye toward San Antonio.

“I’m really hoping,” he said. “That would be amazing.”

(Top photo courtesy of Team IMPACT)