Indianapolis – In the availability of the media on Saturday, before the Houston Cougars faced the volunteers of Tennessee for a place in the Final Four, a journalist asked the cougars coach, Kelvin Sampson, a question that started: “You have not been in a Final Four since 2021.”
Sampson cut: “Really? It’s so long?”
At any other moment in the history of Houston basketball since “Phi Slama Jama”, this sentence would have been difficult to understand. But in the past five years, Houston strikes more regularly at the door of a championship than any other school of sport. Included in this section: first five top-creq Kenpom, five trips in the second weekend, four conference titles, three heads of series n ° 1. They went to Big 12, at the time the most dreaded conference in sport, and quickly torn it up to 34 to 4 in two seasons. It is only in the world of Sampson, where the expectations of all, from star players to student managers are high, is the current standard that is not enough.
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And so Sunday’s performance, a vintage Houston dismantling of a Tennessee team which profiled as one of the few who could match the tenacity and discipline of cougars, had to be cathartic for Sampson & Co. for as many victories (131 to be exact) since the last last defeat, the few defects of March have been devastating. In 2022, Sampson resulted in each abandonment of a team that missed the Star goalkeeper Marcus Sasser for the last three months of the season, but a 1 of 20 shooting day of Deep held the cougars at only 44 points against the last team of Villanova de Jay Wright in an eight elite defeat. The following year was supposed to be THE Year, with Sasser Back Healthy, a choice of NBA recovery among the first 10 in Jarace Walker and the Final Four in his hometown. Instead, the usually stingy coogs were burnt down for 89 points by Miami’s Hurricanes in Sweet 16. And the loss of ’24 could have been the most eviscerated by all, with the star of the stars and the heart rate of the Jamal Shead program suffering from an ankle injury early in the Sweet 16 against the Duke Blue Devils. He had to look at the cougars offensive withered and with her, the hopes of the cougars to unravel.
“It didn’t feel like an equitable fight,” said Sampson after this defeat. “Perhaps it would take two of two to match one of Jamal. It is how good it was.”
The replacement of Shead has made Houston’s breakthrough of this season may be the most difficult to date. Shead was the embodiment on the field of Sampson, perhaps the best leader in sport and defender on ball in addition to being one of the generals on the top floor of the country. While Oklahoma Sooners transferred Milos Uzan adapting to the position, Houston went only 4 to 3 in November and only beat a classified team at the end of the end of January.
Everything they did from there? Go 30–1 in their next 31 games, dealing with the Big 12 opponents as the AAC teams that they regularly sent earlier in the mandate of Sampson. They are a late advance against the Tech Red Raiders Tech of an unthinkable victories of 31 games, which would have been the longest sequence of this type since the start of 31-0 of Gonzaga in 2020-2021. They have a school record for victories in a season locked at 34, a chance to continue two others, and the first national championship of the program just 200 miles from the campus in San Antonio.
“This is the 11th team I had in Houston,” said Sampson. “We have won more than 30 games five times, but this is the first time that we have earned 34 games. And I’m glad these guys have done it. The maturity of our older guys was great for our young guys.”
As for the last chapter of these dominant four months of cougar basketball, Houston has no doubt with his physical domination of a tensese team used physically.
The flights found the painting essentially extinct in the first 20 minutes, bringing together only six points of paint in the first half to worsen their brand 1 out of 15 beyond the arc. Meanwhile, Houston took him to Tennessee to the other end, striking nine offensive rebounds and generating almost as many second chance (11) points as the total of Tennessee in the first half (15).
“Their second -chance opportunities were tall and we felt like we had a few shots, but we did not shoot some of these first (and) we could not get something really inside,” said Tennessee coach Rick Barnes. “But, once again, the points of second chance early, when you shoot as badly as we were difficult. These second chance points are difficult to overcome.”
The flights got closer in the second half, going back to what was once a deficit of 22 points until 10 a.m. with 5:42 to go to the game. But then came a burst of Houston beyond the arc, a large part of the recipe all the season and a reason why This The cougars team could be the one to unravel and win everything. The n ° 1 shooting team with three points in sport has made four triples in less than three minutes to find the separation and ensure that the final score has never been in doubt. Three of them came from Emanuel Sharp, who finished with 16 points (including 14 after half-time). But that has not assumed the intensity of Sampson at all, locked up like never before, causing his guys at the level of the elite which he expects until the final buzzer. While thousands of fans dressed in orange flocked to the outings in the last minutes, Sharp ended too hard on the star of Tennessee Chaz Lanier and dirty on a three. Even if that wouldn’t mean anything for the possible result, Sampson was not too satisfied with his veteran guard.
“You hit him,” Aboya Sampson. “Yes. This is a fault. It is a stupid fault. A stupid fault.”
Even if the buzzer sounded on the regional final victory of the Midwest 69–50, the stoicism of Sampson was not broken. He shared a few hugs with his staff, then this gaze in Pierre was returned as he headed for the handshake line with Barnes, his longtime friend, on the other side. He was so concentrated, in fact, that he almost forgot to hug the member closest to his coach staff: the associated head coach (and Kelvin’s son) Kellen Sampson. After the initial rebuff, Kellen caught his father / boss on his shoulder to attract his attention. What followed is the hug of the day bear, a rare demonstration of emotion of the coach who always On the way to the following assignment.
“When I turned around and I saw my son and my daughter, my two grandchildren and my wife, I felt good for them too, because they sometimes have to support an old grumpy coach,” said Sampson. “It’s good to be able to share this with your family, and that’s what is most important to me.”
While the nets were cut and the confetti scattered on the ground, I showed Kellen Sampson a video of the interaction between the two brains of the most coherent elite program of university basketball. He smiled, then responded to the classic fashion for Sampson.
“I have to recruit. Everyone in America must see that. Family atmosphere! “
As a father, like his son.
