The Power of Turnover Thursdays and Creating Milos Uzan, Houston’s Big Game Point Guard — Kelvin Sampson Doesn’t Believe In Accidents

TUSCON, Arizona — It all starts with Turnover Thursdays, the offseason sessions when University of Houston coach Kelvin Sampson tracks every miscue and he makes any player start running off their third turnover. And then start running more and more for every turnover after that. Get careless with the basketball and those sprints start multiplying like the most predatory compounding interest.

“What I remember is you don’t want to be the one turning the ball over for sure,” UH guard Terrance Arceneaux says with a laugh. “. . .It’s like it’s on the back of (Sampson’s) mind as soon as he walk in there. As soon as somebody turns it over, Oh yeah, get on the line.

“I think Milos had a bad day with that, He had a bunch of turnovers that day. He didn’t live it down for a while.”

This is how you become a Kelvin Sampson approved point guard, how you become a national championship worthy point guard. It’s how you’re ready when Arizona’s McKale Center is raining down the noise (with several regular Wildcat observers declaring it the best crowd of the season — who says retirees and snowbirds can’t get loud?). When Caleb Love is barking, when the pressure is mounting and it’s difficult to think straight.

You’re already conditioned for it. Built for it. Hard Sampson step by hard Sampson step. Milos Uzan isn’t just ready for his moment in Houston’s 62-58 win at Arizona. He’s eager for it. He reaches for it. He grabs it This the next step in the big game player evolution. It’s how you put up 19 points, five assists, two steals and zero turnovers in as high stakes a regular season game as you’ll find in college basketball. Uzan’s combined line in UH’s two biggest wins of the season — at Kansas and at Arizona — is 36 points, 14 assists, 11 rebounds, three steals and not a single turnover. With a combined 14 for 23 shooting from the field.

He’s arguably the best player on the floor in both games — and there’s not much of a counter argument.

“You can just look in his face and see that there’s a confidence that he has in himself,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla tells PaperCity of Uzan after calling Houston-Arizona. “And it’s the confidence that the coaching staff and his other teammates have in him, He’s going to go back on that plane feeling like all the stuff that I put up with Coach Sampson being really tough on me was worth it.

“Because he came to Houston exactly to play in games like this. And he came knowing he was going to be coached harder than he ever was in his life. And I’m sure Milos had some sleepless nights early on with Kelvin, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. But look now.”

Just look at him now. Built for it. Hard Sampson step by hard Sampson step.

Uzan gives his teammates time to catch up offensively against Arizona. For LJ Cryer to start draining threes in succession. For Terrance Arceneaux to make a strong move to the hoop. For J’Wan Roberts to finally break free of the hulking 7-footer stuck on him to make his life difficult. This is how you get 4-year-old Kylen Sampson running into his grandfather’s arms as soon as grandpa finishes his press conference.

Houston has one of those point guards capable of producing moments of joy. A Kelvin Sampson blessed point guard.

It all starts with those Turnover Thursdays, in the heat of the Houston summer when a cool gym feels like anything but a reprieve. When Kelvin Sampson is at his teaching best, as merciless as an IRS auditor whose Starbucks order got screwed up earlier that morning. These four on four games are something the girls of Yellowjackets would appreciate, survival of the fittest distilled down to its most ruthless core. For Milos Uzan’s more Sampson experienced teammates never certainly thought of taking it easy on the new point guard, the guy who had to follow Jamal Shead and one of the greatest individual seasons in University of Houston’s long storied basketball history.

“Especially how aggressive we are defensively,” UH guard LJ Cryer says. “And in practice and in the summer, we don’t call fouls and stuff like that. So if you try and do too much, then we’re going to get you.

“If you take one extra dribble, it’s a guaranteed turnover. My first year (at Houston) last year I figured that out quickly. (New guys) might go in and a couple of times think, ‘Oh, they got lucky they got the steal this time. But it’s not luck.”

You make your own luck in Kelvin Sampson’s Houston program. Or make you own misery.

“Los is becoming the player we thought he could be when we recruited him,” UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity as he tries to keep up with his rushing son Kylen in the back hallways of the McKale Center, a place where Kelvin Sampson notes that Kellen once “splashed a three” in an NCAA Tournament game.

“He came to Houston exactly to play in games like this. And he came knowing he was going to be coached harder than he ever was in his life. And I’m sure Milos had some sleepless nights early on with Kelvin, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. But look now.” — Fran Fraschilla on UH point guard Milos Uzan

The Milos Uzan Transformation

No, 7 can be the best player on the floor for No. 6 Houston, one of the lead dogs on a national title contender. He’s been broken down and Kelvin Sampson built back up.

“Milos is more skilled than any guard we’ve had coming in,” Kelvin Sampson says. “What Milos didn’t have was a natural competitive nature. And I think that’s why the good Lord led him to me. He needed somebody that wasn’t afraid to coach him, to coach him hard.

“I got on him (the night before the Arizona game). Got on him hard.”

UH backup point guard Mylik Wilson swiped the ball from Uzan five times that Friday night practice before Arizona. And redshirt freshman guard Kordel Jefferson turned Uzan over some over too.

“I think we did a good job of getting him ready for that game and Arizona’s defense,” Wilson tells PaperCity.

Uzan is ready when Sampson and the Coogs need to lean on him the next day. When the brights lights are on. He doesn’t turn the ball over once. He orchestrates a UH offense that shoots 50 percent from the field in the second half, with Sampson turning to Uzan in a two man game to counter a rather ingenious defensive game plan from Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd that has 7-fo0t center Henri Veesaar draped all over the 6-foot-8 Roberts, using his long arms to make even those patented hook shots difficult for the passing forward UH regularly runs its offense through.

“Quite honestly, Arizona had an incredible game plan — take away Roberts, take away (Emanuel) Sharp (zero points on 0 for 6 shooting from three) and Cryer,” Fraschilla tells PaperCity. “And Uzan had to do more scoring than he probably thought he would need to.

“But it was there for him and he took advantage.”

Especially when Houston needed it the most. With Arizona leading 48-41 with 8:32 remaining, Milos Uzan and LJ Cryer would combine to score all the points in a 12-0 run that completely swings the game. Built for it. Hard Sampson step by hard Sampson step.

Most college basketball observers focus on the breaking down with Kelvin Sampson. The screaming. The biting zingers that are often both hilarious and cutting, the Jud Heathcote in him. That is only at best half the story though. For this 69-year-old basketball lifer of coach is especially good at building his guys back up, in infusing his players with more crazy confidence than those Roxbury Guys hitting the club in Saturday Night Live.

For after Kelvin Sampson tells and proves to a player how much they need to work on, he starts slowly pumping them back up. Kellen Sampson points out that most forget that Uzan broke his nose and had to miss three crucial weeks in the preseason, which set the new point guard transfer from Oklahoma back in November when UH lost three close games like the mammoth at Kansas and at Arizona games they later won.

There was no real way for Uzan to have this confidence then. But he sure does now. And it’s only growing.

“When he stood back there and hit that three, he looked at me and pointed at me,” Kelvin Sampson says. “That’s when I said ‘There you go.’ That’s that swagger man. That’s that swagger.”

Uzan will tell you that swagger comes in no small part from that belief Sampson and his teammates are showing in him. In how they’re urging him to grab games.

“J’wan tells me all the time,” Uzan says. “J’Wan’s a really good leader. He tells me all the time ‘Put it on the rim. Go be aggressive. Go score.’ Just hearing those guys, and my coaching staff as well, it just makes it a lot easier for me.”

Built for it. Hard Sampson step by hard Sampson step.