No. 1 Point Guard Kingston Flemings Is Recruiting Other Five Stars to Houston, Spreading the Gospel of Kelvin Sampson — The Remarkable Story of a Natural Leader

Kingston Flemings is signed, sealed and committed to Kelvin Sampson’s University of Houston basketball program, but he’s not done with high school recruiting. The No. 1 rated high school point guard in America (by ON3) is still doing some of his own, trying to bring even more five stars with him in what’s already a historic 2025 recruiting class for UH basketball.

Flemings breaks into a smile when asked about those efforts.

“I’m still recruiting some guys,” Kingston tells PaperCity. “I’m not going to like out them right now. But I’m trying to get some more top guys to come here. Get the team even better however I can.”

Anyone who closely follows UH basketball or elite level high school recruiting knows who some of those guys are. That’d be 6-foot-10 power forward/center Chris Cenac Jr., the No. 7 ranked overall player in the country out of New Orleans who models his game after Lakers star Anthony Davis. And Koa Peat, the No. 6 ranked high school basketball player in the country, a 6-foot-8 versatile marvel from Arizona. With five star shooting guard Isiah Harwell and underrated three star guard Bryce Jackson joining Flemings in already signing with UH, this is already the highest ranked recruiting class in the storied history of Cougar basketball. And Kelvin Sampson and his coaching staff aren’t done yet.

For that matter, neither is Kingston Flemings.

“Point guard baby — leader,” Landon Goesling, the former University of Houston basketball player turned NIL guru and marketing agent, says when I ask him about Flemings. “It’s like a star quarterback. When he goes somewhere, all of a sudden he’s getting the receivers to come with him.”

Flemings just wants to play with as many talented teammates as possible. That is one of the reasons he chose UH over Texas Tech in his final two. He’s equally excited about the chance to play with the current Houston players who return next season. He’s already been imagining that too.

“I’d love to play with a guard as talented as ESharp if he comes back,” Flemings says of junior guard Emanuel Sharp. “Milos (Uzan). It’d be awesome to be able to throw a lob to JoJo (Tugler). Mercy (Miller). So many guys.”

Kingston Flemings wants to win above all else. He’s more than a little fanatical about it. Has been for most of his life.

“More than just loving to win, Kingston hates to lose,” his mom Shayla Flemings says. “Kingston’s going to put everything out there, whether it’s anything he does. . . Losing is not in his nature. He does not like it.”

This maniacal competitive mindset is part of what drew Kelvin Sampson and his staff to this point guard long before he became a five star. Yes, the 6-foot-3 Kingston Flemings’ explosiveness and the kind of natural athletic ability that saw him place at Junior Olympics in three different categories as a third grader tends to immediately capture attention. But University of Houston assistant coach Kellen Sampson, who served as the lead recruiter on Flemings, found himself comparing the young point guard to another crazy competitor he knows extremely well early on.

“Kingston’s best quality is his competitiveness,” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity. “And I mean this in the best of ways, he is such an awesome, wonderful asshole. And I thought it was such a great pairing with him and Chief (Kelvin Sampson). In that they are both so competitive.

“The thing that both those individuals want more than anything is just fighters. It’s so less about even the skill. It’s ‘Hey look, do you have a fighter spirit?’ When you’re identifying a point guard who has a fighter spirit with a coach who has a fighter spirit, a fighter’s DNA, you potentially have a match made in heaven.”

Kingston’s Command

Kingston Flemings shows his relentless fighter spirit in the McDonald’s Texas Invitational in Pasadena, little more than 11 miles from the UH campus, this weekend. Flemings leads his team to the Division I Gold bracket championship, taking over in the second half of the title game on Saturday night with his Brennan High School team locked in a tight game. Chief watches from the stands.

Winning with his guys means something to Kingston Flemings. He’s been playing with many of the guys on his high school team since they were all in elementary school. When Flemings started blowing up in the recruiting rankings, he could have easily jumped to a more prominent, all-star type team. Instead, he stayed to play with his guys and the coach (Koty Cowgill) he’s known since first grade and trusts.

“It was such a fun recruitment in a lot of ways because the fluff didn’t matter to him,” Kellen Sampson says. “Present the basketball piece. The basketball piece. The basketball piece. That dude is absolutely in love and infatuated with basketball. And he loves to be challenged with different ideas and concepts.

“So sending him videos and clips and things of that nature. It was so challenging finding new ways to challenge him.”

Kingston Flemings is like a student asking a teacher for a harder and harder test, pushing one of the best young coaching minds in the college game to try and find new ways to attempt to stump him. That’s not how high school recruiting usually goes.

But Kingston Flemings has never followed a usual path. He got ran over by a car as 3-year-old — and the long recovery at such a young age changed Kingston his older brother Shaydon believes. “After the accident, he became the most competitive person I’ve ever met,” Shaydon tells PaperCity. “He wants to win at everything. We’re playing 2K, we’re playing Madden, Need for Speed, he’s like ‘I’ve got to win. We’re not stopping until I win.’ ”

Shaydon is six years older than Kingston, but he admits his little brother’s will usually won out as they got older. It is a remarkable story really, a toddler who goes through a frighteningly horrific ordeal grows up into one of the best point guards in the country. One marked by his stronger than stronger will. And loyalty.

“Kingston’s best quality is his competitiveness. And I mean this in the best of ways, he is such an awesome, wonderful asshole. And I thought it was such a great pairing with him and Chief (Kelvin Sampson). In that they are both so competitive.” —UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson on Kingston Flemings

Kingston Flemings, The Teammate

Camden Cowgill’s known Kingston since they were both in the first grade. They found themselves matched up against each other in a youth game and soon their dads were talking and starting an AAU program together in San Antonio. Cowgill is still playing with Flemings in high school today and their easy bond is apparent in Pasadena.

“Let’s stop getting techs so I can pass you the ball more,” Kingston Flemings cracks as he passes Camden Cowgill in the hallway after their second game of the tournament, a somewhat raggedly officiated affair.

“Stop provoking the refs so I don’t get a tech,” Camden shoots back with a grin.

Just a few basketball junkies going at it. “Houston is so lucky to have him,” Camden Cowgill says when his teammate disappears down the hall and around the corner. “He’s a great teammate.”

Kingston Flemings sees Houston as a place where he can win big — national championship big. And also as a pure basketball laboratory where good guards get better and better and five star guards get. . .

“Someone like Jamal Shead is maybe a three star out of high school,” Kingston Flemings tells PaperCity. “And to go from that to someone who is playing significant minutes for the (Toronto) Raptors, that means a lot. So if I can go there and they develop me the same way, hopefully I can get to the league.”

From Quentin Grimes to Marcus Sasser to Jamal Shead, University of Houston has quickly built a reputation as something of an NBA guard factory and Flemings is all in on embracing its developmental ways. He’s watched several UH practices and the no nonsense fire Kelvin Sampson brings is not completely foreign to him. In fact, Kellen Sampson says the dynamic that Dee Flemings has in his large family reminds him of his own dad’s role in their family.

“I think in the regards that we care,” Dee Flemings says when I ask if he can see the comparison. “And we believe in tough parenting. I don’t sugarcoat. I’m very direct. I’m going to tell you when you’re doing some dumb shit. And I’m going to tell you when you do a good job.

“And I think that’s Chief too. He’s a straight shooter.”

Kingston Flemings is taking his own shot as a player recruiter too these days. It’s another way to push his chances of winning it all with Kelvin Sampson up even higher. Of adding even more to the pure basketball laboratory in Houston’s Third Ward that he’s fallen in love with.

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