Kelvin Sampson’s Close Player Relationships Shine Through in Blowout Night — Welcoming the Program Builders Back

This is not the ACC/Big Ten Challenge — or anything close to it. It is not a game where the University of Houston’s basketball team has the slightest chance of being seriously challenged. The eyes of the college basketball world are definitely not on The Third Ward on this night. But it’s a game, which makes it ultra important for Kelvin Sampson, who uses as much care in purposefully crafting his team’s schedule as a mother hen does in deciding who’s ready to leave the nest.

And Galen Robinson Jr. and Corey Davis Jr. — two of Sampson’s UH program builders — are sitting in the first row on the baseline. Which makes Houston’s coach even more excited than he always is on a game night. “Corey!” Sampson shouts as he bounces over shortly after the final buzzer and jumps to meet a man 40 years his junior in a semi flying (definitely non Taze Moore version) shoulder bump that dissolves into a big hug.

It’s doubtful whether Davis every received such an utterly gleeful greeting from Kelvin Sampson when he played for UH. Maybe by the time he was senior and the scoring leader for the 33-4 team that really announced Sampson’s remarkable Houston rebuild to the rest of college basketball. Maybe. On an especially good day.

But things are different when a player moves on from Sampson’s program and he does not have to coach that guy hard to get the best out of him everyday anymore. Then, just the love remains.

This display after an otherwise unremarkable 99-58 dismantling of a Northwestern State team that already lost by 47 points to SMU earlier this season shows how much that love — and forever bond — really means. Once you’re a Kelvin Sampson guy, you’re always a Kelvin Sampson guy.

So Corey Davis Jr. gets the flying greeting and the monster hug. And moments later, Bilal Batley — the UH basketball program’s director of program strategy and player relations — is coming over to make sure Davis gets to the locker room where Galen Robinson already is. Because Kelvin Sampson wants his guys — all his guys, whether they’re former players or not (especially if they’re former players) — to be in there to enjoy a moment and get recognized.

Sampson does not forget.

“Galen chose to come to Houston when maybe there wasn’t a lot of cachet behind it,” Sampson says. “When it wasn’t necessarily cool. We were still playing at Hofheinz. We didn’t have a practice facility then. It was still mid Conference USA Houston. And everything in here reflected that.

“. . . What Galen did is give all the Houston kids permission to come. OK, it’s cool to come to the University of Houston. Without a Galen there may not be a Tramon Mark. There may not be a Marcus Sasser. There’s a lot people that’s drinking from this well.

“But I don’t ever forget the people that dug it.”

If you’re looking for another reason why Kelvin Sampson has turned UH basketball into a national power, how he’s managed to win big in more than one supposed impossible situation, how he’s only had one losing season (his very first year at Houston) in his last 23 seasons as a head coach, reread that statement. There is a real appreciation — and love — for former players that carries down from Sampson to everyone in his program. Lauren Sampson, UH’s do-everything director of operations who any Fortune 500 company would be thrilled to have helping run things, is over there, wrapping Davis and Robinson into warm embraces too.

Former players like Corey Davis and Galen Robinson are treated like royalty, because to Kelvin Sampson they are.

“He doesn’t treat you any different,” Davis tells PaperCity moments after the Sampson hug attack. “It’s a family thing from front to end. And that goes beyond us graduating to having kids to getting married. Coach Sampson is always going to be like a father figure to me. Coach Sampson is always looking out for you.

“Anything you need.”

Current players and recruits notice that kind of thing. It’s not unique to only Sampson or his programs. I spent a few years around a Michigan State program where Tom Izzo would go from sometimes wanting to fight Draymond Green when he coached him to becoming Green’s most trusted life counselor after the dynamic force moved on to the Golden State Warriors and their late night calls became routine. Most of the very best programs in America embrace their former players with a fervor.

But you can’t fake it. Players see right through any disingenuousness. And Kelvin Sampson has the holiday texts to prove his bonafides.

“The toughest days of the year for me are holidays because of the astronomical amount of texts I get (from former players),” Sampson says. “It’s not just Houston. Montana Tech. Washington State. Oklahoma. Indiana. Spurs. Bucks. Rockets. Cougars.

“I don’t know how to explain. . .. I just put my phone on silent. It gets annoying. Just the constant beeping. I would say on my birthdays, I don’t know, 200 to 300 (texts). Somewhere in there. Give or take. . . Thanksgiving. Christmas. When these guys leave they’ll be texting old coach.”

Sampson turns and gestures at Sasser and Mark, sitting on either side of him. “They do now,” Sampson says. “I think I got a text from Marcus and Tramon on Thanksgiving this year. But that’s the kind of program we have. We’ve always valued family. We didn’t start the family here. It’s always been a family.”

This is the other side of Kelvin Sampson, the one you don’t usually see on TV. The coach most often shown screaming at, cajoling or urgently instructing his players during games is not always that guy.

Kelvin Sampson, The Connector

Yes, many still may not realize how good UH’s 65-year-old basketball lifer of a coach is on texts. And after the NCAA essentially admitted its old texting limits rules made little sense by scraping them (without ever actually publicly saying that), Kelvin Sampson is free to be himself. This coach is a connector. Of course, it never was about just texting recruits for Sampson. It’s always been about keeping former players close too.

Corey Davis Jr. just signed a new contract with a professional basketball team in Italy. How do you think he and Sampson will be keeping in contact over the coming months?

“I still talk to Coach Sampson, Coach Q(uannas White), Coach Kellen (Sampson) as much as I possibly can,” Davis tells PaperCity. “Even when I’m overseas, I still hit them up on text, whatever, a lot.”

Sampson’s Houston program reloads and recalibrates— upping its talent baseline to new levels almost every season these days — when players like Davis and Robinson move on or graduate out. But it still treasures those former players.

“There’s a lot people that’s drinking from this well. But I don’t ever forget the people that dug it.” — UH coach Kelvin Sampson 

Yes, this Tuesday night game against Northwestern State is about super talent Tramon Mark continuing to work his way back from a shoulder injury that cut off what had been an excellent offseason buildup for him and robbed him of three games. And Mark shows flashes of his game changing potential in a 12 point, four assist, four rebound, 19 minute night.

Particularly on a push up court, drive into the lane where he finds J’Wan Roberts for an open dunk in the first half. It is the type of wider court vision play that only Mark may be able to make on this team.

“I think the biggest thing is just creating a road map for him to follow,” UH assistant Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity when asked about Mark. “When you kind of have an unfortunate injury or thing, the thing you’ve got to first and foremost do is create the path for them to get to where they want to go.

“And if you can create the path where they’re going, then you can start to celebrate the small victories together.”

Now, Mark is 0n the path and playing, getting more comfortable by the game. That’s something that matters from this blowout. So does that fact that Marcus Sasser can score 26 points and hit seven threes as easy as can be in just 25 minutes. And never feel the need to push for UH’s 3-pointers made in a game record.

Instead Sasser lets teammates like Jamal Shead (12 points, nine assists) and Human Highlight Film Taze Moore (17 points, several more no-way dunks) have their moments — and only takes three shots in the second half. That’s real leadership stuff from your lead guard.

But college basketball is about more than the final score and stats in a box. It’s about the guys who come back too. And if you think this game is just Houston 99, Northwestern 58 and the No. 15 team in the country moving to 6-1 on a night when No. 1 Duke goes down in the spotlight game of the night, you’re really not paying attention.

While there are plenty of unused seats in the Fertitta Center for this Tuesday night game against the definition of a non-marquee opponent, University of Houston president Renu Khator is sitting in the front row in a stylish tan dress and red jacket. Her husband Suresh, by her side as usual, wears a full suit and red tie.

More important, UH basketball pioneers Corey Davis Jr. and Galen Robinson Jr. also occupy a front row perch.

That makes an already big night for Kelvin Sampson — every game night is a big night to the coach, as Kellen Sampson noted to me there are only 31 of them total in this regular season — almost festive. At least once the final buzzer sounds. And Kelvin Sampson can run over to greet his guys.