This Houston restoration job ranks among Kelvin Sampson’s greatest accomplishments

Houston coach Kelvin Sampson has been around college basketball long enough to understand how NCAA Tournament expectations work in places that aren’t at the sport’s highest level, like they are at the Cougars’ Midwest Regional semifinal opponent on Friday — Kentucky.

“You’re almost better off going three, four years without making it,” Sampson said. “Then, when you make it, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s a great job rebuilding.’”

That’s been the process for Sampson at Houston, his fifth stop as a college head coach in 30 seasons. That’s four jobs in Division I, ranging in reputation from have-nots to bluebloods, with a fifth one rumored as Sampson’s name has been associated with the opening at Arkansas.

Sampson’s answer Thursday to that possibility: “What school was it? Arizona, Arkansas, Alaska, been a lot of those schools over the years. I don’t really have a response to it. There’s nothing to respond to.”

At the moment, no. We’ll see when the Cougars’ season is completed. The more immediate task is continuing what’s been one of the greatest seasons in Sampson’s long, successful and sometimes bumpy career.

The restoration of Houston, a proud program with five Final Fours, stands as one of Sampson’s greatest accomplishments. Until last year, Sampson’s fourth at Houston, the Cougars had missed the NCAA Tournament in 24 of the past 25 years.

In his previous job, at Memphis, Kentucky coach John Calipari made regular trips to Houston. He sees the difference.

“I’m just amazed,” Calipari said. “Ten, 12, 13 years ago we were going to Houston to play, and to see where it is now, it’s just incredible what they’ve done.”

Sampson, 63, has read from this script before. His first Division I job, at Washington State, ended with the program’s first NCAA trip in 11 years.

The next stop was his longest in one setting, Oklahoma. Sampson replaced Billy Tubbs and won from the outset, appearing in nine straight NCAA Tournaments and 11 in 12 years, reaching a Final Four and winning three consecutive Big 12 tournament titles.

He left Oklahoma for Indiana under the cloud of an investigation for recruiting violations that included more than 500 impermissible telephone calls by Sampson and his assistants.

His Indiana tenure lasted less than two seasons. The NCAA alleged that Sampson knowingly violated recruiting restrictions imposed on him. He resigned before the end of the season and the NCAA handed down a five-year show-cause order, effectively banning Sampson from serving as a college coach.

Most of the rules Sampson broke are no longer NCAA violations, and the six years that Sampson spent in the NBA, from San Antonio to Milwaukee to Houston, wasn’t idle time. He took notes and learned the game at its highest level.

“I loved the NBA, I really did,” Sampson said.

But when his penalty time was served and the college game called again, Sampson answered, saying upon his hire that this was the level where he belonged.

The improvement was immediate. After a 13-19 first season, Houston hasn’t won fewer than 21 games. And the record 33 triumphs the program takes into Friday’s showdown against Calipari’s Wildcats are one more than the Akeem Olajuwon-led Phi Slamma Jamma team accumulated in playing for the national championship in 1984.

The Cougars are served well by an underdog mentality that Calipari recognizes.

“They’re not afraid,” Calipari said. “They have a swagger about them, and they play with unbelievable energy. They defend like crazy.”

That’s a message to Kentucky fans that the Wildcats shouldn’t take this team from the American Athletic Conference lightly — that a regional championship game against either North Carolina or Auburn is not a given.

Houston is that good, having defeated earlier this season two teams that are left in the tournament: Oregon and LSU.

“We have to play with a chip on our shoulder,” said senior guard Corey Davis Jr., who averages a team-leading 17.1 points. “We have to play like our lives depend on it.”

Like a Sampson-coached team.

This story was originally published March 28, 2019 at 5:17 PM.