Houston And Coach Kelvin Sampson Are One Win From First National Title

Forbes

07-04-2025

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - APRIL 05: Head coach Kelvin Sampson of the Houston Cougars celebrates a win in ... More the Final Four Game of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Alamodome on April 05, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
On a Friday night in March 2015, the University of Houston's season ended with a 59-51 loss to Tulsa in the American Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament quarterfinals in Hartford, Conn. During the postgame news conference, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson received one question. Someone then asked guard Devonta Pollard a question. That was it. No one was paying much attention to the Cougars. They finished 13-19 (4-14 in the AAC) and 214th in analyst Ken Pomeroy's net rating, making them among the bottom 60% of Division 1 teams.
On Monday night, Houston is vying to become the nation's best team when it faces Florida in the NCAA men's basketball tournament championship in San Antonio. The Cougars, a decade after being irrelevant even in their own city, are now one victory away from winning their first national title in a stadium 200 miles from their campus.
They are in this position thanks to an improbable comeback in Saturday night's Final Four when they went on a 9-0 run over the final 33 seconds to pull off a 70-67 victory over Duke. More than that, they are here because of Sampson, who could become the oldest coach to win a national title. Sampson will turn 70 in October.
Houston was once a premier program. From 1965 through 1973, the Cougars made the NCAA tournament eight times in nine seasons, including a Final Four appearance when they had center Elvin Hayes, the Associated Press Player of the Year. And from 1982 through 1984, they advanced to the Final Four in three consecutive seasons, including losing in the championship game in 1983 and 1984. Those teams, famously nicknamed Phi Slama Jama by Houston Post columnist Tommy Bonk, featured two future Hall of Famers in guard Clyde Drexler and center Hakeem Olajuwon.
By the time Sampson arrived in April 2014, those days were long gone. During the previous 30 seasons after Drexler and Olajuwon departed, Houston made the NCAA tournament four times (1987, 1990, 1992 and 2010), losing in the first round on each occasion. They were ranked in the AP top 25 for just two weeks: one week in January 1993 and one week in December 2005, checking in at No. 25 both times.
Still, Sampson was in no position to be too picky. In February, he resigned under pressure for making impermissible phone calls to recruits as Indiana University's coach. The NCAA deemed it a major violation and stuck Sampson with a five year show-cause penalty, making it nearly impossible for any college to hire him. The NCAA a few years later overturned the outdated rule about contacting recruits, but Sampson was still stuck. He ended up in the NBA, including spending three seasons as the Houston Rockets top assistant before staying in the city and taking over the college program.
After hiring Sampson, Houston athletics director Mack Rhoades told the Houston Chronicle he spoke with NCAA officials and Sampson's colleagues and noted the 'reviews were extremely encouraging.' Later that year, Sampson recalled to Sports Illustrated that his father encouraged him to get back into college coaching even though Sampson preferred getting an NBA head coaching job. Sampson's father, Ned, died less than a day later.
'I think my Dad also felt like I would go back to college,' Sampson told SI. 'He had unbelievable common sense. He was gifted to know what to say and when to say it. That's a gift.'
Sampson wasn't an immediate success at Houston. The Cougars missed the NCAA tournament in his first three seasons. But in the past eight seasons, they have made seven NCAA appearances, the only exception being in 2020 when there was no tournament due to COVID-19. They dominated in the AAC, finishing second in the regular season in 2018 and 2021 and winning it in 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023. When Houston entered the Big 12 last season, it faced much more difficult conference opponents, but the Cougars haven't missed a beat. They won the Big 12 regular season title last season (15-3) and repeated this season with a 19-1 league mark.
Entering Monday night's national title game, Houston (35-4) has won 18 consecutive games and 31 of its past 32 games. Three of the Cougars' four losses have come in overtime, while the other was a 74-69 defeat to Auburn in the second game of the season. They seemed destined for another loss on Saturday before turning things around.
With 1:14 remaining, Duke had possession after freshman Kon Knueppel made a free throw to give the Blue Devils a 67-61 lead. Duke never scored again, while Houston had nine points in the final 33 seconds to secure the unlikely victory and give Sampson his third Final Four appearance following trips in 2002 with Indiana and 2021 with Houston.
Both previous times, Sampson's teams lost in the national semifinals. But this time, the Cougars won, thanks to a defense that held Duke to one field goal on nine attempts in the final 10:31 and an offense that came through in the end. Houston, which ranks 360th out of 364 Division 1 programs in analyst Ken Pomeroy's adjusted tempo metric, dictated the game with a methodical pace and held Duke to its second-lowest point total of the season.
During a news conference in San Antonio Sunday, Sampson said he received 'so many' text messages following the Duke victory, but he didn't have a chance to reply. He also mentioned he ran into old friends such as former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith (73 years old), San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich (76), Michigan State coach Tom Izzo (70) and Tennessee coach Rick Barnes (70).
'They all kind of had similar messages to me,' Sampson said. 'Win one for the old guys, something like that.'
If Houston wins its first national title Monday, Sampson will be the oldest coach to win a men's basketball title, surpassing Connecticut's Jim Calhoun, who was 68 years and 329 days old when the Huskies defeated Butler in the 2011 final. Sampson didn't seem to care too much about that, though. He's getting ready for Florida (35-4), Houston's next opponent and a team on an 11-game winning streak that includes victories over eight teams in the AP top 25.
'My mother always used to tell me that I had to learn to smell the roses,' Sampson said Sunday. 'My mother passed away in 2014. I never did learn.'