Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Team Is Proving It’s Still a Legit National Championship Contender — Once Dismissed and More Doggedly Determined Than Ever

Kelvin Sampson notices everything. University of Houston’s coach would have made a great detective in another life. Or a groundbreaking historian shifting through all the details, picking up things conventionally overlooked. So Sampson certainly noticed how his team started to get almost dismissed nationally after it lost three games in November, shoved aside as something that didn’t need to be considered anymore. A sudden afterthought in the national championship picture. After UH’s first loss in Las Vegas, one national writer noted how he didn’t think he’d need to make a trip to Houston this season. Several more continue to leave the Cougars out of their Top 25 rankings completely. Thanks for playing. See ya next season?

Sampson didn’t say anything about it publicly. But he brought it up to his team, made sure his players felt it too.

“Coach would speak about it all the time,” Houston guard Terrance Arceneaux tells PaperCity. “Like ‘Hey they kind of forgetting about us. That’s OK.’ You can’t forget about everybody. We just got to make them start talking about us again. But we knew we had to come in and work.

“. . . They can forget about us now, but they’ve got to hear about us later.”

Sampson’s Houston team is already starting to make itself heard. Win by win. You don’t keep one of the truly elite programs in America, one of the proudest programs in all the land, muted for long. UH is now off to a 3-0 start in the unforgiving Big 12 after beating BYU and TCU by a combined 50 points in a span of three days, having won seven straight overall to move to 11-3. In other words, Kelvin Sampson’s Houston team is back to doing Houston things, continuing one of the more remarkable runs in this city’s entire big-time sports history.

“I think they’re one of the Top 5 teams in the country,” ESPN Big Monday analyst Fran Fraschilla tells PaperCity. “Still.”

It will take many others a much longer time to catch on. But Fraschilla, the former St. John’s coach turned one of the most astute voices in college basketball, knows what he’s watching court side Monday night when he sees Houston adapt in game to pick apart a well-coached TCU team 65-46 little more than 52 hours after blowing away a talent-packed BYU squad 86-55. Fraschilla sees a Top 5 level team with plenty of room for improvement.

If that’s not a scary thought for the rest of college basketball, nothing is.

“I think they’re still a work in progress,” Fraschilla says of Houston moments after getting off the air. “Both sides of the ball are getting better. I think the thing that really stands out to me is how deep they are. We watched a team that was really, really good last year midway through the season get decimated by injuries.

“If they stay healthy, their depth is impressive. And the depth also of scoring. Because there’s five or six guys now that can get you buckets. Even (backup point guard) Mylik Wilson. Emanuel’s become one of the best scorers in the country.”

That would be Emanuel Sharp, the junior guard who’s been playing through a nagging right ankle injury for several weeks that has him wearing a black brace in games and a walking boot much of the time when he’s off the court. But Sharp’s still draining shots as difficult as the LSAT, going a combined 8 for 15 from 3-point range in the wins over BYU and TCU.

“He’s tough,” Terrance Arceneaux says of Sharp. “Everyone in this program’s tough. But he’s tough. He’s a leader of this team. . . He’s a dog. He’s fighting. He’s been dealing with an injury, but he’s still pushing through. Still practicing. Still playing good. But eventually that ankle’s going to be 100 percent and he’s going to be back scoring and producing even more.”

Shooting nearly 50 percent from three 14 games deep into the season and just getting started? To Fraschilla, Emanuel Sharp is another case study in the power of Houston’s developmental-driven program. “He’s just become one of the best players in the Big 12,” Fraschilla says of Sharp. “And he’s got room for improvement.”

“I think they’re one of the Top 5 teams in the country. Still.” — ESPN college basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla

There is no time for standing still, Not if you want to be heard. JoJo Tugler is certainly leaving his large footprints on games. TCU coach Jamie Dixon extolls his team not to challenge Tugler, Houston’s 6-foot-8 power forward/center with a condor’s wingspan. . . and then watches Tugler completely shift Big Monday back UH’s way with two blocks out of nowhere in the crucial second half run anyway. Those twin swats trigger Houston’s increasingly dangerous fast break, leading directly to a wide open Emanuel Sharp wing three (courtesy of a nice LJ Cryer transition find) and a Mylik Wilson 12-footer.

Game planning for JoJo Tugler is like showing up to watch The Brutalist thinking it’s a regular movie and realizing you’re only at the intermission two hours in. Or reading a baby book and becoming convinced you’re prepared for everything only to face the reality of trying to soothe a crying little human at 3 am. All the preparation in the world can’t get you ready for the reality of this shot-swallowing unicorn.

“The thing that makes JoJo unique is that he can block shots with both hands,” Kelvin Sampson tells PaperCity. “So he can play on either side. . . Right-handed players that are left-handed shot blockers are always the best.”

Sampson begins to demonstrate Tugler’s dual-handed abilities in the hallway of the Fertitta Center, moving his arms, with Houston’s 69-year-old basketball lifer of a coach showing plenty of agility. Looking like he could still maybe block a shot himself. Certainly one of a clumsy sports writer. Sampson tries to give his players all the credit (he gushes over Mylik Wilson’s improvement and all the hard work Wilson put in to make it happen after this Big Monday win) and UH’s coach is equally quick to heap praise on opposing coaches. But the truth is Kelvin Sampson’s often underrated in-game adjustments are powering this Houston resurgence too.

All the preparation in the world can’t get you ready for the reality of this shot-swallowing unicorn.

Kelvin Sampson, The Tactician

In the Cougars’ Big 12 opening road win at Oklahoma State, Sampson completely switches up how UH is guarding the weak side 10 minutes into the game, helping trigger a 17-1 run to end the first half. Against TCU on Monday after seeing his team commit an uncharacteristic seven turnovers in the first half against the Horned Frogs’ double teams, Sampson draws up a new plan at halftime, having his guys get the ball to sweet passing power forward J’Wan Roberts in the middle of the floor rather than on the block where it’s easier to send doubles.

The result? Houston commits only three turnovers, shoots 56 percent from the field and outscores TCU 36-24 in the second half. This is one of the best tacticians in basketball, even if Kelvin Sampson would completely dismiss any such talk as silly himself.

“You know Jamie’s a really good coach,” Sampson says of TCU’s longtime head man. “And after the game got going first half, he made a nice adjustment and we got to halftime and said ‘Here’s what they’re doing and here’s what we’re going to change.’ ”

Much has changed already for this University of Houston team since those three close losses in November, including ones to No. 2 Auburn and No. 5 Alabama. One thing that never changed is the expectations inside Kelvin Sampson’s program. Sampson gets on JoJo Tugler at halftime of this Big Monday affair for not being impactful enough in the first half. Then Tugler goes swat city.

Many of the national pundits may have stopped talking about Houston after those November losses. But this group never stopped believing, never stopped pushing for more.

“I think the silver lining of the three November losses is that people have sort of slept on Houston,” Fraschilla says. “They’re 12th in the country in the AP Poll, which means nothing. The analytics are more accurate.” Sampson’s Houston team is currently fourth in the data based NET rankings, behind only Auburn, Duke and Tennessee.

Fraschilla pauses before heading into another basketball night, another flight waiting.

“I think Houston’s going to keep getting better and better,” one of the game’s best basketball minds says. “They’re one of eight teams that can win it all.”

Kelvin Sampson’s University of Houston team is still very much in the fight. No matter what you’ve heard.