Iconic Coach Believes Kelvin Sampson Can Defy the Trends and Win a National Championship With Freshmen Kingston Flemings & Chris Cenac Jr.

Watching Kingston Flemings take off, throw down and pick apart his beloved zone defenses, veteran Oakland coach Greg Kampe cannot help but be a little fascinated. Not by Flemings’ talent, that’s obvious. By what Kelvin Sampson is trying to pull off with this University of Houston team.

“It’s hard to win a national championship in this day and age with freshmen,” Kampe tells PaperCity. “Especially multiple freshmen. If anybody can do it, it’s Kelvin.

“Because he’s not going to allow anything. There’s going to be no deterioration of his culture and what they do. And those kids are going to learn to play at the level they played tonight.”

It is shaping up as the most compelling and most important story of this entire college basketball season in many ways. Can Kelvin Sampson make another run at the national championship, after getting as close as you possibly can without winning it, with two true freshmen in his starting lineup and three in this prime rotation in Flemings, Chris Cenac Jr. and Isiah Harwell? In a transfer portal and NIL world where experienced, older rosters — like the roster UH deployed last season — seem more important than ever, Sampson is gunning to make it back to Monday night with one of the youngest teams he’s ever had at Houston.

Count Kampe, the longest tenured coach in Division I college basketball in his 42nd season at Oakland, among those who are beyond interested to see what happens. The Basketball Coaching Lifer and the Young Phenoms.

Kampe for one is betting on the old guy. In Kelvin Sampson’s will winning out.

“I don’t think they defended the first couple of games like they did (against us),” Kampe tells PaperCity. “And if you asked Kelvin that, he’d probably tell you that. Tonight they really defended. And if that kid, if those freshmen, continue night in and night out to do that, they’re going to get there a lot sooner than they think.”

“It’s hard to win a national championship in this day and age with freshmen. Especially multiple freshmen. If anybody can do it, it’s Kelvin.” — Oakland coach Greg Kampe

In its third game of the season, its first game since vaulting over Purdue into the No. 1 ranking in the land, Sampson’s young team puts on its most commanding performance to date. It dismantles an Oakland team that pushed No. 2 Purdue before eventually losing by 10. Both defensively and offensively. The final is 78-45 with the Golden Grizzles looking downright geriatric while putting up only 17 points in the first half.

After hoisting up 26 threes against both Michigan and Purdue, two other Top 10 teams, Oakland can only manage to take 13 triples against Sampson’s Houston team. The Cougars don’t just stop Greg Kampe’s team from making shots. They stop them from even getting shots.

Kampe’s program has used threes from its ball movement to collect 14 wins over power conference teams over the years, including that unforgettable toppling of No. 3 seed Kentucky in the 2024 NCAA Tournament that set up John Calipari’s departure from the Wildcat Kingdom. But Oakland can only get up five 3-point shots total in the first half against Sampson’s Houston defense.

A force field put up around the 3-point line wouldn’t have been any more effective than what Emanuel Sharp, Milos Uzan, Kingston Flemings and Co. pull off.

“It was the attempts,” Kelvin Sampson says. “. . . We did a good job of multi-tasking. We got up and took the three away and then we got back to the hand we wanted to guard.”

“They did an unbelievable job of taking the three away,” Kampe says. “And we’re a good shooting team.”

You cannot make ’em if you cannot even find room to take ’em. There are detainees in Supermax prisons who have more freedom of movement than the Golden Grizzlies enjoyed in that first half.

Kingston Flemings brought the wows, from that one-handed dunk where he completely faked out 6-foot-8 Oakland forward Issac Garrett behind the corner 3-point line and exploded towards the rim, needing only two dribbles before rising high for the flush to the second half pinpoint passing show that saw him post a 19 point, nine assists (to no turnovers), five rebounds, one steal and one block line. It’s to the point with Flemings already (three games in) where some histrionic UH fans are now all but comparing him to the second coming of Magic Johnson. (No, Flemings is now not automatically going to be better than Jamal Shead, who put up one of the greatest point guard seasons in college basketball history his last year at Houston.)

“They’re great players and they’re going to be completely different players come January than they are right now. They’re going to get better. This isn’t it.” — Emanuel Sharp On UH’s Freshmen

Emanuel Sharp and The Kids

The Flemings show is not why Kampe, who plays one of the tougher non-conference schedules in America almost every season and upped it this season with Purdue and Houston back-to-back as No. 1s , thinks Sampson could win it all with two freshmen starters though. No, to this fellow coaching lifer it’s about how Sampson will push Flemings, Cenac and Harwell through the inevitable lows and highs, how Houston’s coach will not let them ever get satisfied. It’s about how senior guard Emanuel Sharp can make top offensive players disappear with his defense.

Sharp almost quietly found his shooting stroke in the Oakland romp, knocking down 5 of 9 threes after shooting 3 for 11 from distance in Houston’s first two games. That puts Sharp right on schedule with UH’s first major test of the season here — the Battleground 2k25 2 pm Sunday matchup with No. 22 Auburn in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Tigers will have the majority of the fans.

LJ Cryer averaged 11 points per game in Houston’s first four games of last season before exploding for 30 against Top 10 Alabama. Jamal Shead did not even take more than seven shots in any of the Cougars’ first four games of his last season as a college player.

There is an established history of UH’s new go-to-players setting the unselfish tone Kelvin Sampson’s teams have thrived on early before exerting themselves when needed. One Sharp is well aware of.

“I’m in a new role,” Sharp tells PaperCity. “And what come with that is knowing which shots to take. Just because I’m playing a bigger role doesn’t mean I get to take any shot I want. I’ve still got to take what the best shot for that team is and that possession is. I just can’t be jacking up shots.

“. . . Coach has been on me about that, you know I’ve taken a bad one here and there. You know my shot selection. But I’m getting better at it.”

Sharp does not need his confidence built up the way a freshman might, at least an ordinary freshman. In the second half against Oakland, Sharp gives up a possible layup to get the ball to Kingston Flemings for an even easier layup. A few trips later, Flemings turns down a possible rim run to drop it to Sharp for an even easier layup.  No one is enjoying this early Kingston Flemings Show and the Chris Cenac Jr. work more than Emanuel Sharp.

“Just seeing them improve every day, game by game, practice by practice, is really promising,” Sharp says, standing in the hallway outside the UH locker room. “. . .. Coach is on them hard every single day. And they take it the right way. And that’s all you can ask.

“They’re great players and they’re going to be completely different players come January than they are right now. They’re going to get better. This isn’t it.”

Sampson never worries about Kingston Flemings’ confidence or how he will adjust to the next challenge.

“Kingston is doing about what I thought he’d do,” Sampson says. “. . .Kingston’s greatest strength isn’t his skillset. It’s his confidence. He has a lot of confidence. He’s a very confident young man.”

Greg Kampe still isn’t completely convinced that a team dependent on multiple freshmen in major roles can win a national championship in 2026. But in Kelvin Sampson, he trusts.

If anybody can do it, it’s Kelvin. 

No outlet covers University of Houston basketball throughout the entire calendar year with more consistency and focus than PaperCity Houston. For more of Chris Baldwin’s extensive, detailed and unique insider coverage of UH sports — stories you cannot read anywhere else, stay tuned. Follow Baldwin on the platform formerly known as Twitter here.