A user equipment (UE) includes a memory and a processor configured to perform directional listen before talk (LBT) to identify a set of narrow beam and sub-band combinations available for transmission; transmit, to a base station (gNB), at least one schedule request in a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) over the identified set of narrow beam and sub-band combinations; receive, from the gNB, an uplink grant for physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) data transmission over at least one narrow beam and sub-band combination selected by the gNB from the identified set of narrow beam and sub-band combinations; and acquire a channel occupancy time (COT) duration for the at least one narrow beam and sub-band combination selected by the gNB as part of the uplink grant.