Kelvin Sampson Shows His Giant Heart — Houston’s Program Validating Romp to the Sweet 16 Proves Plenty, Wild Celebration and All

PITTSBURGH — Kelvin Sampson holds Fabian White Jr. in an extra long hug, but the University of Houston coach is only started getting dancing on this sweetest of NCAA Tournament days. Soon Sampson is ripping off his red polo shirt in the locker room as his giddy players spray ice and and water at him in a mosh pit of pure joy. Thrusting his arms into the air again and again, this 66-year-old basketball lifer looks like a kid once more.

March can do that for you. A major tournament win can do that for you. Getting to open the eyes of all the stubborn doubters that somehow remain — of all the national basketball voices that somehow still don’t seem to realize that this is no mirage, that UH is one of the very best college basketball programs in the entire country (now and into the future) can do that for you.

There are no qualifiers with this Houston run under Kelvin Sampson. Just an elite program playing elite basketball. Big game after big game.

So when Sampson’s Cougars out clutch, out work and out talent another Big Ten power team, yes this emotional coach is going to rip his shirt off. Damn right. It’s time to party. This Houston team more than worked and earned this moment in the Steel City.

“I think that’s what makes him so great,” UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity about his dad’s impromptu postgame celebration. “There’s nothing corporate. There’s not one bit of fake about him. He’s in the moment with every single team as if this is his first team — and this is his sixth Sweet 16.

“He’s lead a crazy amount of March Madness and that he can be so in the moment that it seems like his first, I think that’s his gift.”

Houston 68, Illinois 53 certainly qualifies as special. Twice as Sweet. More than earned.

This is how you followup a Final Four season. You lose your two most talented players to injury in late December, essentially completely remake the team and still get to the Sweet 16 for the third straight NCAA Tournament. And make no mistake, with talented players like Taze Moore and Jamal Shead having raised their games in March, this now 31-5 Houston team still hasn’t reached its ceiling.

“I want to win a Natty,” Moore says. “I know that’s the first thing Fabe told us when we got here: ‘We’re trying to win a Natty.’ ”

The quest will go on in San Antonio in something of a home cooking South Regional that will have Houston playing No. 1 seed Arizona on Thursday night. But that’s an obstacle for another day. This  day is about Houston continuing to establish that it very much belongs right up there with Gonzaga, North Carolina, Villanova, Michigan State and the other rare programs that consistently win in March. Season after season after season,

Year after year after year. That’s who these Cougars are under Kelvin Sampson. Whether the college basketball establishment likes it or not.

“I think a lot of validation,” Kellen Sampson, who will get to build on what he and his dad (and one of college basketball’s best and most complete staffs) have already built at Houston someday, says when I ask what this win means. “There’s some people last year who pointed to ‘Hey, it’s a pandemic. Hey, you didn’t beat whoever.’ But we never felt that way. We felt like we earned it every step of the way.

“But to back door a Sweet 16 — go to a Final Four and then you’re able to go to another Sweet 16  the next year — I think it’s just validation. We’re not renting. We’re not first timers. We’re not a flavor of the month. This is a legitimate program we’ve established.”

Twice as sweet. More than earned.

“I think that’s what makes him so great. There’s nothing corporate. There’s not one bit of fake about him. He’s in the moment with every single team as if this is his first team and this is his sixth Sweet 16.” — UH assistant Kellen Sampson on his dad

Conquering Kofi With Cougar Know How

Beating an Illinois team with arguably the most physically imposing big man in America (Kofi Cockburn) by 15 points is more Houston doing what Houston does. These oft dismissed, oft discounted Cougars have now won 26 games by double digits this season. Including their first two NCAA Tournament games.

Anyone who still has questions about this Houston team has completely missed the test.

“It’s our heart,” Shead says. “We don’t want to lose. We want to win for each other. We love each other so much. These guys are like my brothers, you know. It goes way beyond basketball.

“We don’t want to lose for each other. I don’t get this year back with Taze, with Josh, with Kyler, with Fab. We want to keep it going as long as we possibly can.”

With Taze Moore playing the best basketball of his entire life, with Jamal Shead proving to be a beyond quick March point guard study, with Kyler Edwards embracing every big shot, with Fabian White Jr. diving across the floor on a hurting back, even a No. 1 seed would be wise to fear these Cougars now.

“Because they’re great kids and they’re high-character kids, they buy in,” Kelvin Sampson says at his postgame interview session, his shirt safely back on. “It’s never about them. Our program is always about we and us. And that’s what happens when you have great kids.”

While the Big Ten’s regular season co-champs looked lost at times with Kofi limited to 11 shots from the field, Kelvin Sampson’s depth challenged Houston team always seemed to have another answer. A lot of them revolve around Moore, the 6-foot-5 bundle of energy who is one of the school’s most athletically gifted players since Clyde Drexler. The only Houston starter who didn’t earn all-conference honors during the regular season, Moore puts up a season high 21 points when his team absolutely needs it most.

With Edwards’ shot off early and Fabian White struggling with his hurting back and jumper, Moore leads UH in scoring for only the third time all season. There’s rising to the moment — and then there’s becoming the type of unexpected March hero that every team that makes a deep NCAA Tournament run needs.

“No. 1, he’s so talented,” Kellen Sampson says of the transfer from little Cal State Bakersfield. “He’s got some gifts. But I always think it speaks to what complete trust looks like. He really, really truly surrendered himself to the culture. And this is what can happen.”

With Illinois concentrating its defense on Kyler Edwards and center Josh Carlton, the UH coaching staff counters by running plays for Moore, making him what Kellen Sampson calls “the tip of the spear.”

Twice as sweet. More than earned.

Then there’s Jamal Shead, the 19-year-old wonder point guard, taking over late, stepping on Illinois’ throat like a cold blooded basketball killer. Shead scores 13 of his 18 points in the last 11 minutes of the game. He gets into the lane whenever he wants to, turns Illinois coach Brad Underwood’s defense into a quivering mess.

“Their guards were certainly the story,” Underwood says.

Kelvin Sampson and Houston Leave No Doubt

This is how you take apart a four seed. (And yes, these double conference champion Cougars always should have been higher seeded than Illinois.) With a fearless nerve and plenty of togetherness.

How total is UH’s control of this game? The Fighting Illini don’t come close to breaking 30 points in either half and shoot 34 percent from the field, 24 percent from 3-point range (6 of 25). Jamal Shead and Company’s total time spent trailing in this high stakes game? One minute and 50 seconds.

When Fabian White chases a loose ball down, all the way across center court, hurting back and all — and somehow keeps the balls inbounds to tip it up ahead to Taze Moore for an easy fast break layup — with less than four minutes remaining, Illinois is essentially finished. Kelvin Sampson will call it a culture play, just one more moment for a team that knows how to grab every chance in March.

Twice as sweet. More than earned.

“It’s our heart. We don’t want to lose. We want to win for each other. We love each other so much. These guys are like my brothers, you know. It goes way beyond basketball.” — UH point guard Jamal Shead

This UH team has been building to this type of win for a long time coming.

“When your program gets to this point, you aren’t afraid to speak on it,” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity. “”We spoke about advancing in March back in June… When you’re in the dog days of training camp, you can’t be afraid to tell your guys what the ultimate goal is. We talk about it.”

And when a big road block is cleared in the journey, this beyond bonded team celebrates. Kellen Sampson conducts a postgame interview with his energetic 4-year-0ld daughter Maisy on his shoulders. She’ll run to hug grandpa when he’s done talking too.

It turns out that Maisy Sampson’s grandfather sometimes just can’t contain his heart. The guy known for screaming at his team, always urging them to play harder with the occasional burst of colorful language, will rip off his shirt and dance with his players.

Every bit as in the moment as all those young twentysomethings and teenagers.

“It was a good feeling seeing Coach take his shirt off and dance,” UH forward Reggie Chaney says with a grin. Chaney, a starter on last year’s Final Four team, came off the bench in this one to impact another monster March game with his defensive help on Kofi and six rebounds.

When these Cougars win, everyone feels like a part of the party. Kelvin Sampson makes sure of that.

“Most definitely got to let those emotions out, especially the way we work and the way we prepare for moments like this,” Moore says when I ask about the half nude locker room celebration.

To these UH players, there is nothing like seeing their should be Hall of Fame coach, their Yoda, dancing. No matter where the shirt goes.

“He’s an emotional coach, you know,” Shead says. “When we win and we’re happy, he shows it sometimes too. I’m so happy to play for him. It’s a joy to play for him.

“We love each other so much.”

This how a program that expects to win these big tournament games, but still treasures every moment, parties.

Twice as sweet. More than earned.