AMES, Iowa — Many University of Houston fans are outraged over the phantom kick ball that JoJo Tugler clearly actually touched with his hand, an unreviewable play that helped kick start an Iowa State run. Others are crying over Emanuel Sharp’s foul trouble, with the fourth foul that banished him to the bench for an extended period questionable. A sequence that had Sharp throwing up his hands in disbelief and agony.

The only ones in No. 2 UH’s orbit seemingly not exchanging in the post loss excuse and rationalization game are the Cougar coaches and players themselves. Walking up a long tunnel to the bus, with the clock racing towards 11 pm after a bitter Big Monday, Houston assistant coach Kellen Sampson rejects the premise completely.

“The reason we do all the stuff we do in the summer and fall is we should be tough and resilient enough to handle adversity,” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity. “It’s a Final Four (officiating) crew. You can’t ask for a better crew.

“We had more than enough opportunities to come out of here with a win.”

Kelvin Sampson takes the same approach in his full-fledged press conference after his team’s 70-67 loss to Iowa State. He starts to answer a question about Sharp’s foul trouble, but then quickly shifts on a Kingston Flemings worthy dime. “Those are two really good teams,” Sampson says.

“I’m not going to sit up here and start making excuses. That’s not what we do at Houston. We had our opportunities.”

If you’re one of those college basketball Blue Blood traditionalists still wondering why Sampson’s Houston program is the winningest program in the sport since 2018 (and almost any time period you can pick since then) you could do worse than start with this supreme accountability factor. Excuses in this Houston program are treated like most people regard bed bugs or lice. Something ugly, something to be avoided at all costs.

So there will be no missed calls cited, no rationalizations made for losing one of the most thrilling games of the entire college basketball season. No damn excuses period. Kelvin Sampson dislikes when he hears coaches not give another team enough credit. It goes against his core in some ways, what his own pioneering, give-no-quarter high school coach dad taught him. No whining. You give the other guys credit and move onto the next game. Which happens to be No. 4 Arizona at Fertitta Center on Saturday in this case.

Some might call that old fashioned. But the Sampsons’ program track record screams it still very much works in 2026.

It is something Kelvin Sampson’s Houston players pick up on, often with him not having to actually talk about it. Instead they see him live it. And adopt it as their own way too.

When I ask Emanuel Sharp about the fourth foul call, about the frustration of having to sit and watch (with his warm shooting arm growing colder) for so long, he instead talks about all the other things Houston could have done to secure a win. Even true freshman point guard Kingston Flemings is already living it. Flemings turned down a national interview with Jeff Goodman the day before the Iowa State game with the reasoning that he had not been playing good enough lately to deserve to talk. Flemings decides not to talk to any other reporters either before the game too. Self imposing his own brief media pause to allow his teammates to get more attention.

That is a 19-year-0ld displaying his own sense of accountability, holding himself to the highest of standards. Much like one Kelvin Sampson. Whichever NBA franchise drafts Kingston Flemings in the Top 6 on June 25 is going to be fortunate to have him.

“The reason we do all the stuff we do in the summer and fall is we should be tough and resilient enough to handle adversity. It’s a Final Four (officiating) crew. You can’t ask for a better crew. We had more than enough opportunities to come out of here with a win.” — UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson

Kingston Flemings and Chris Cenac Embrace the Fight

Flemings rises to the moment in another monster matchup against Iowa State, nearly terrorizing the Cyclones in Hilton Coliseum as much as he terrorized Texas Tech in Lubbock with his ability to weave through defenders, figure out traps on the fly and still get into the paint. If Flemings does not slip on a wet spot on the Hilton Coliseum floor on the play Sampson calls out of a timeout with 20 seconds left, with the Cougars trailing 69-67, this Big Monday classic is liable to have gone into overtime.

And Flemings isn’t the only one who responds with force. Houston’s veteran guard duo of Emanuel Sharp and Milos Uzan makes sure UH shakes off Iowa State’s 15-5 opening punch. Freshman power forward Chris Cenac Jr. absolutely takes over the boards in the first 10 minutes of the second half after Kelvin Sampson’s loud, fiery challenge to his team to start rebounding at halftime.

“Shoot, we weren’t getting any rebounds,” Milos Uzan says of Sampson’s halftime challenge. “We needed guys in the fight. And that’s pretty much what he said. We should have been up at halftime and it was 43-40 them. With two offensive rebounds (for UH in the first half) — that’s not us.”

Cenac brought Houston basketball back, showing the grit he’s added to his super talents.

“It speaks to A.) His Character,” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity of Cenac on top of that tunnel. “And B). what’s going to make him a really good basketball player for a long time. He’s got a lot of ways to impact winning. In the first half, he just wasn’t part of the flow a lot. And then he went and inserted himself, got himself into a rhythm.

“Which is what high-level players do.”

This is a Final Four worthy matchup in one of college basketball’s loudest environments. That it brings out the best in Houston’s two supernova freshmen (with freshman sixth man Isiah Harwell and sophomore Mercy Miller having their moments off the bench too) means something. Something that will be more important than the final score in this game as the calendar races towards March.

“These teams are ridiculously good,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla tells PaperCity after calling one of the best regular season games of the entire college basketball season. “You throw Texas Tech, Arizona in there and maybe Kansas. That’s why the top of the league, I call it the Western Conference Playoffs right now. The NBA. This is like the Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder.”

You’re going to lose a game now and then under a gauntlet like that. Even in Sampson’s Houston program that only seemingly loses four or five games a year season after season after season. Sometimes it’s a game that you feel like you had control of, only to see it slip away. With a boxout blundered. Or the missed front end of a one-and-one. Or a phantom kick ball.

But just because you lose a game doesn’t mean you need to lose your way. Or what your program stands for above all. You can still show class. Recognize the giant corner threes that Iowa State reserves Jamarion Batemon and Nate Heise made in the final 2:10 of the game.  The 25 bench points the Cyclones got overall in a three-point game.

No whining. No excuses. Not in Kelvin Sampson’s Houston program.

If you’re a Cougar, you’re supposed to be able to handle adversity — and still find a way. That’s what those relentless summer workouts are for, what everything in Kelvin Sampson’s program is geared to create. You can be mad at yourself and still show respect to the other guys.

“That’s life in the Big 12,” Kellen Sampson says.

Cougars don’t cry. Not on Kelvin Sampson’s watch.