Kelvin Sampson’s NCAA Tournament Message For Houston Is Clear — Fear No Tough Midwest Bracket, Just Prepare Like Cougars

After the NCAA Tournament Selection Show ends and the CBS cameras move on (for now), University of Houston coach Kelvin Sampson gathers his players up for an impromptu huddle in the fancy ballroom in UH billionaire believer Tilman Fertitta’s posh Post Oak Hotel. Sampson has a message to deliver, a tone to set before the No. 1 seed Cougars’ draw in the Midwest Region even has time to sink in.

“He just pulled us and said, ‘You know what time it is,’ ” UH guard Terrance Arceneaux tells PaperCity. “We were excited to win the Big 12 Tournament, but we know the main goal. That’s basically what we was saying to us. Now it’s time.

“We’ve got to lock in even more.”

This is why Kelvin Sampson won’t be complaining about this 30-4 Houston team, double Big 12 champions, being placed in what many college basketball observers consider one of the toughest regions, with either UH’s region or The West Region the most difficult of the four. If UH can beat 16th seed SIU Edwardsville at 1 pm Thursday (TBS), it will face the winner of No. 8 Gonzaga vs. No. 9 Georgia in a second round game on Saturday with the winning team moving on to Indianapolis for the Sweet 16.

Gonzaga happens to be the eighth ranked team in the entire country in NET (objective data base rankings that do an excellent job of determining a team’s real strengths). For comparison, Houston is third in the nation in NET, behind only Duke and Auburn. That would be a crazy second round game. And Georgia might arguably be even more dangerous than the Zags, which like Houston, is one of the clear programs of the last decade.

Then  if Houston makes its sixth straight Sweet 16 (a true streak of sustained elite excellence), No. 3 seed Kentucky, No. 4 Purdue and No. 6 Illinois are all looming as potential opponents in Indianapolis, and they all would almost assuredly have significant crowd advantages over the one seed Cougars in that Midwest city (unless UH fans make a surprise challenge). Then there’s No. 2 seed Tennessee and Kelvin Sampson’s longtime friend Rick Barnes in a potential defensive armageddon for a Final Four berth.

But this Houston program doesn’t complain. It prepares. Like crazy. One step at a time, knowing it will take six wins to cut down the nets in San Antonio. The bracket isn’t changing. There’s no purpose in whining over it. And this UH program doesn’t do anything without a purpose.

“For us, we just do what we’ve always done,” Sampson tells PaperCity. “I don’t really care much about the bracket. Not that I don’t care. It’s just that it’s not that important to me. Because I know we’re going to do what we always do.”

Prepare, prepare, prepare — and compete not just play hard. This is the Houston way. A path that’s led to three straight No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, the stuff that used to only be the domain of college basketball’s most storied blue bloods in their absolute prime. Now it’s a University of Houston thing.

“It’s big time to see what Coach Sampson’s done his whole time at UH,” former Cougars star turned 76ers regular Quentin Grimes says. “He’s done an unbelievable job. This is the year I hope he gets the job done.”

“For us, we just do what we’ve always done. I don’t really care much about the bracket. Not that I don’t care. It’s just that it’s not that important to me. Because I know we’re going to do what we always do.” — UH Coach Kelvin Sampson

Houston will have close to a fully healthy squad to attempt to do it with in Kelvin Sampson’s 20th NCAA Tournament overall. All Big 12 First Team power forward J’Wan Roberts will return for the first game of the NCAA Tournament (as PaperCity first reported back on Friday night) after sitting out the last two games of the Big 12 Tournament to rest his injured ankle. Uber talented guard Terrance Arceneaux is fighting pain in his surgically repaired Achilles that limits his minutes, but he is determined not to miss any tourney games either.

The real March is beginning.

“It means a lot we’re here right now to have this moment,” Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year JoJo Tugler says. “It means a lot to me personally.”

Both Tugler and Arceneaux had to miss Houston’s NCAA Tournament run last March due to season ending injuries, significantly lowering that team’s ceiling. This one has no such limitations in sight. Kelvin Sampson makes sure his players know the Selection Show is just that. A show. The prep and real work is what matters now.

“I mean we’ve played 34 games and we lost four tough ones,” Sampson says. “But we won 30 great ones. Our 35th game will be SIU Edwardsville.”

Kelvin Sampson is 14-6 in the NCAA Tournament at Houston, the kind of record those old school blue bloods like North Carolina, Kentucky and Indiana would kill for these days.

“I hope our fans don’t get so pompous and arrogant that they think it’s a given that we’re going to make the Tournament every year,” Sampson tells PaperCity. “It’s hard to make the Tournament. I was thinking about West Virginia the other day. Two weeks ago they were set to be a seven or 10 seed. Now what do you say to those kids? They didn’t make it.”

Kelvin Sampson’s Houston doesn’t just keep making the Big Dance. It keeps going in as a No. 1 seed, keeps advancing to at least the second regional weekend. It all starts with that immediate prep and not worrying about tough or “easy” brackets.