Hugs and Elbow Grease — Hidden Stories Of Houston’s Milos and Mylik Miracle Win at Kansas and How Kelvin Sampson Made His Team Believe In Itself
The Type Of Win That Pays Off In March
BY Chris Baldwin // 01.27.25Mylik Wilson hit the 3-point shot that kept the University of Houston alive in its remarkable 92-86 win at Kansas.
LAWRENCE, Kansas — Lauren Sampson throws her arms straight up in the air because she is the first Sampson there and Kelvin Sampson goes rushing into the embrace, happiness breaking out all over his often stern face. Soon, both father and daughter will have tears in their eyes. A college basketballs season can be a grind, especially when you work as hard as everyone in this University of Houston basketball program does. But sometimes you get, or more accurately create, instances of pure joy, shining moments that remind everyone how special this all is.
On the first Saturday of the year without football games, with more general Houston sports fans’ attention on UH, Sampson’s bunch of battlers do just that in a no-way, all-fight 92-86 double overtime win at Kansas’ storied Allen Fieldhouse. If you’re missing this UH Sampson era, you’re missing out on one of the best stories in sports period, a remarkable run that needs to be appreciated.
There’s Milos Uzan and Mylik Wilson pulling each other into a hug/chest bump, the “new” point guard who so many doubted and the graduate senior guard who came back when so many outside the Houston program told him he should transfer somewhere smaller for a chance to star. It turns out Mylik Wilson wanted the BIG and there’s few things bigger than hitting a 3-pointer with two seconds left in overtime to tie the game, snatch victory from Kansas and send one of basketball’s true cathedrals into stunned shock.
“You’re a killer!” Uzan barks, pounding Wilson on the chest, right by the heart that most missed.
Later as Milos Uzan walks a now empty, still shining Kansas floor, UH assistant coach Hollis Price, who excelled in games like this as a lead guard for Sampson at Oklahoma, but never could beat Kansas at Kansas, turns into Uzan’s personal hype man. “Damn, seventeen, nine and nine,” Price intones, of Uzan’s stats (points, assists and rebounds) with a gusto Michael Buffer would appreciate. “Nine rebounds?! Oh, you trying to get a triple double. You messed around and almost got a triple double!”
Uzan grins. He transferred to Houston for heavyweight bouts like this, for moments like this. “I came here to win a national championship,” Uzan tells PaperCity. “I think this group can do it. We all believe in it.”
Winning at Kansas lets the rest of the college basketball world know too. No one can try and claim this now 16-3 (8-0 Big 12) Houston team hasn’t beaten any team of significance anymore. Those national doubts should be thrown out on the curb like yesterday’s trash. This bunch of soon-to-be-Top-5 Cougars more than belong with the rest of the few truly elite national championship contenders.
But this win isn’t really about that though. Not at its core. That’s not why Karen and Kelvin Sampson — married for 44 years, having started this odyssey as two kids themselves really who didn’t really know what they were doing, freezing their butts off in Butte, Montana with Kelvin a first time head coach at age 25 — held each so tight in their own sweet hug on that Allen Fieldhouse floor.
“I made sure I got to Kelvin on the court,” Karen Sampson tells PaperCity. “It was the first time (Sampson’s won at Kansas). I don’t want to over say it, but you think how many trips you had here, all the years at Oklahoma. . . Oh gosh. I don’t even have words for it.”
Kelvin Sampson does have a dance for it. He breaks out his moves in the cramped visitors locker room in this 70-year-old arena, shakes it in The Phog, something this basketball lifer of a coach only does for the biggest of victories. “It was emotional in that locker room,” Uzan says.
Outside of it too. Derrick Sharp pulls his son Emanuel Sharp into a hug, tells him how proud he is of the toughness he’s shown. Sharp fights to play on the ligament strain in his right foot, only to tweak it 45 seconds into the game. But he comes back to still play 26 minutes on that barking wheel. And still has enough left with 7.5 seconds remaining in the first overtime to hit the off-balance 3-pointer from 24 feet that pulls Houston within three to set up the Uzan inbounds steal and tap to Wilson for the game-tying three. Without Sharp hitting the type of crazy contested deep shot that he always seems to relish, there is no Mylik Miracle.
“We know how hard we work every day,” Emanuel Sharp tells PaperCity. “We come to compete every day. We practice hard. And you know, it shows at times like this. It might not show in the games we’re blowing people out. But on the road games, in Allen Fieldhouse with all these fans, adversity, injuries. . . it shows.”
So many outside the Houston program told Mylik Wilson he should transfer somewhere smaller for a chance to star. It turns out Wilson wanted the BIG.
Those Sampson Program Wins
As far as wins that define what Kelvin Sampson’s Houston program is all about, this game is Exhibit 1B to the Exhibit 1A of that 100-95 overtime win over Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament last March when four out of the five UH starters fouled out and 11th man Ryan Elvin and injury-battling-back Ramon Walker Jr. came in to save the day.
Only Sampson’s Houston team could pull off win like this, come back from six points down with 91 seconds left in regulation and six points down with eight seconds left in overtime, because of its in-bounds defense. Making Kansas turn the ball over twice on the inbounds (the simplest thing to do in basketball) when the Jayhawks are on the verge of icing the game is UH basketball in a nutshell.
Always prepared. Playing all out to the buzzer. Never giving up. Beating you on the little details too.

The first inbounds five-second call is forced by the 7-foot-6 and 1/2 wingspan of JoJo Tugler. Kansas star Zeke Mayo never tried to pass the ball in against a condor before. The second forced Kansas inbounds turnover is the stuff of Reggie Miller at The Garden, Because Mylik Wilson is ready and fearless when Uzan somehow uses his own long arms to tap the deflected basketball in Wilson’s direction.
“They not only made the effort to force turnovers, but they knew what to do when they got it,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, who called this instant classic, tells PaperCity. “It’s very easy to steal in that situation and drive it in and score two points (without thinking). Mylik knew he needed a three and he just patiently waited until he got through.
“There were a lot of high IQ plays made around the grittiness and toughness they always show.”
Mylik Wilson is one of the most beloved teammates in the Houston program, the guy who Emanuel Sharp says comes to practice with “the same great attitude” every day. You’d better believe Mylik Wilson was going to be ready for the big moment if given a chance.
“I’m just proud of how we stayed together,” Wilson says in the concourse of Allen Fieldhouse with small groups of UH families celebrating all around him. “And we kept fighting. Even if we would have lost, we just kept fighting. We never gave up.”
This is the kind of win that can pay off in March, when a loss ends everything. Power forward J’Wan Roberts is certainly already gearing up for even bigger moments to come. After putting up 24 points, nine rebounds and five assists in Kansas’ place, he grouses to anyone who will listen: “With all the free throws and easy shots I missed, I should have had 30.”
Only J’Wan Roberts could out produce and outfight All-American big man favorite Hunter Dickinson, hit two clutch free throws to tie the game and force overtime, and still be unsatisfied. Still be pushing for more from himself. Roberts is becoming more and more of Mini Kelvin Sampson every day.
The real one knows this is the type of win you can build on. “We kept getting better and we’re getting better and we’re getting better,” Kelvin Sampson says of the transformation from those three close losses in November. “And the trick is convincing your team that you’ll continue to get better. That’s always a thing about coaching that I’ve always enjoyed.”
“They not only made the effort to force turnovers, but they knew what to do when they got it.” — ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla

Watching from Kansas City as he finishes calling a golf tournament remotely and preparing for the AFC Championship Game, the UH proud Jim Nantz feels the thrills and chills. “I’m just so grateful to Kelvin Sampson for bringing Houston back,” Nantz tells PaperCity, talking about much more than just one game.
Sometimes the game’s so good that it’s almost hard to watch when y0u have family in it. “My nerves are shattered,” guard LJ Cryer’s mom Tamica says. “Completely. I could barely watch.”
Some couldn’t watch. While pacing in the hallway outside the visitors locker room, Karen Sampson makes a friend. This coach’s wife lifer couldn’t bear to agonize through the end of regulation and the overtimes in the arena, so she walked and talked to a yellow-jacketed arena security worker as she stole occasional glances at a hallway TV. “This is one game I’ll go back and watch later,” Karen Sampson laughs.
“I tried to get her to settle down and watch the game,” the gray-haired security guy says. “But she just couldn’t do it.”
This worker is a Kansas fan, but he’s suddenly interested in UH basketball too now. The lady in the hall will have him checking out future Houston games. This is what the Sampsons do. They draw more and more people into their special world.
Who’s missing this?