Early in the second half of Houston’s first-round game against Longwood, the No. 16 seed Lancers crisply rotated the ball around the perimeter and found guard D.A. Houston, who drained a 3-pointer from the wing, just barely over the outstretched arm of Houston defender Mylik Wilson.
As both teams raced to the other end of the floor, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson ripped into Wilson with full-throated rage.
“You gotta get out there, that’s an emergency!” Sampson growled from the sideline.
The Longwood bucket cut Houston’s lead to 29 points.
“I was like, damn, I thought he was out there,” chuckled Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich after the game, an easy 86-46 Houston victory. “The pace at which they play is really remarkable. You just don’t get an open shot. They’re not going to let anything be easy.”
The Cougars did to Longwood what a No. 1 seed is supposed to do, dominating the Big South tournament champions from the opening tip. But what stood out is what often does for Houston, which overwhelmed Longwood not by leaning on superior talent or shot-making ability, but rather a defensive physicality that flattened the Lancers into submission.
“I thought we broke,” Aldrich said. “We couldn’t get an easy look on the offensive end, then we’re turning it over. And then you dip with your defensive intensity, and then you’re a little sloppy on a switch, you’re late on a closeout. And bang, 10 (points) goes to 20 (points) pretty quickly.”
That is what Houston men’s basketball has become under Sampson, a team that defends relentlessly and bullies opponents, and is now on its way to a fifth straight Sweet 16 appearance after a dramatic second-round win over Texas A&M. The program might not get the same national shine as the traditional blue bloods, but by any relevant metric or statistic, it has emerged as one of the best in all of college hoops. Houston’s 125 wins over the past four seasons is the most of any Division I school, a level of consistency that has now carried over from the American Athletic Conference to the Big 12, where the Cougars won the regular season title their first year in the league.
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“We probably don’t get the respect we deserve,” senior forward J’Wan Roberts said. “But it shows our competitiveness, the grit and toughness we have.”
Sampson is the architect of that culture, his demanding, no-nonsense persona fueling a sense of self-fulfilling disrespect, even for a team that spent all season at the top of the rankings. At 68, on his fifth and most successful head coaching stop, he has fully crafted Houston in his own, hard-scrabble image, establishing an identity that is not to be trifled with.
“He coaches all 40 minutes of a 40-minute game,” senior point guard Jamal Shead said.” I think that’s what makes us good.”
On the first Monday in June, Houston players begin their summer workouts on the baseball field at 6 a.m., where they have to complete 18 100-yard sprints, all within an allotted time.
At daybreak on Tuesday they go to a parking garage, where the players run up ramps while carrying pipes and wearing weighted vests. Wednesday, they shoot. Thursday, they run. Friday, they get timed in the mile.
“It’s just by ourselves, and we’re working,” Sampson said. “When you go through stuff like that at 6 in the morning, you learn to respect the guy beside you.”
Houston’s on-court toughness has been well-documented, but it’s forged by these unseen hours. The Cougars’ ability to grind down opponents, to break them, is a product of Sampson putting his players through that same crucible daily.
Roberts, a third-team all-Big 12 selection averaging 9.4 points and 6.8 rebounds, has lived it for the past five seasons. He described Sampson running him through grueling offseason drills, then making him get on the line and run if he missed a box out or his effort wasn’t up to Sampson’s standard.
“So now I’m at this point I’m getting frustrated like, Why is he running me so much? Why is he doing this? But he’s just trying to put me in a mind space to see if I’m gonna buckle down and do it right or if I’m gonna quit,” said Roberts. “He’s definitely a coach that’s going to make you uncomfortable, as much as he can, just to see how you’re gonna react, just see how you’re gonna get over that hump.”
Playing against Houston is always a physical challenge. (Petre Thomas / USA Today)
L.J. Cryer, a Houston-area native, transferred into the program last offseason after three seasons at Baylor. The 6-foot-1 guard was part of Baylor’s national championship team as a freshman and averaged 15 points a game as a junior for the Bears, starting all 31 games and being named third-team all-Big 12.
But this season, Cryer said that he’s “more of a savage” at Houston, whether that’s diving for loose balls or improving his on-ball defense, all the little things required to win. He echoed Roberts’ experience of rigorous conditioning, then going straight to on-court workouts where Sampson would require him to get three straight stops defending teammates one-on-one before he could leave the drill.
“I feel like I was pushed to my limit. Coach put me in situations that would make me p— off, honestly, and I feel like that’s helped me,” said Cryer, who made second-team all-Big 12 this season. “That was all part of buying into the culture here.”
Sampson seeks out the hard road. His father was a high-school teacher and basketball coach who cobbled together odd jobs during the summer, working the tobacco market in North Carolina and selling World Book Encyclopedias; his mother was a nurse, working 12-hour shifts. From first through 12th grade, Sampson never missed a day of school, a fitting precursor to the iron-willed grandpa who stalks the sideline in untucked Jordan polos and joggers, summoning absolute effort.
These days, there has to be a purpose to that brand of intensity. The tired archetype of an old-school tyrannical coach doesn’t pass muster anymore, and for good reason, even beyond the realities of the transfer portal. Sampson seems to have struck a balance. His coaching style isn’t for everyone, but he’s managed to identify those it does resonate with, on and off the court.
“At some point in your life you’re gonna face adversity, no matter if it’s basketball or not, and Coach prepares us for that,” Roberts said. “Even beyond basketball, he looks at us as his sons, and I trust him. He’s the most consistent person I’ve ever met in my life.”
It’s a balance on the basketball front as well. Superior conditioning and mental toughness are critical to the Houston ethos, but so is executing defensive traps and rotations, and a well-spaced offensive attack that was influenced by Sampson’s years as an NBA assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets.
Threading those various needles has been key to the Cougars’ sustained success, this season in particular. The Final Four team in 2021 featured Quentin Grimes, a former five-star prospect and first-round NBA Draft pick. Last year’s Sweet 16 run included a pair of first-round picks in Jarace Walker and Marcus Sasser. This roster features Shead, a first-team All-American and Big 12 Player of the Year, and another pair of all-conference performers in Cryer and Roberts, but it lacks the depth and top-end talent of those previous squads.
Terrance Arceneaux and Joseph Tugler suffered season-ending injuries. Ramon Walker Jr. missed a month with a knee injury. Roberts has battled multiple ailments the past few weeks. The team hasn’t been healthy enough to practice five-on-five for a month. In Sunday’s overtime win against A&M, Sampson had to put walk-on Ryan Elvin in the game in the closing seconds with four of his five starters fouled out. (Naturally, Elvin made one of two free throws to help ice the victory.)
Yet none of those headwinds have caused the Cougars to lose altitude.
“Our culture allows us to be good because we practice the same way regardless of the conference, regardless of the opponent,” Shead said. “Coach Sampson prepares us the right way. He’s the best motivator and best coach in America.”
Sampson would argue he has the best motivator and point guard in America. The 6-1 Shead has blossomed from scout-team freshman to first-team all-everything in his four seasons at Houston, embodying the dogma of toughness and leadership Sampson preaches.
“I don’t fool around with that position. I’ll take a chance on a big, but I don’t take chances on point guards,” said Sampson, a former point guard himself. “That’s how you get on the unemployment line real quick.”
There’s a responsibility that comes with that, a level of trust Shead had to earn. Everyone in the program will tell you that Sampson is hardest on Shead — Sampson and Shead included — but the results are unassailable.
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It was on full display Sunday against Texas A&M. Houston was largely in control through 38 minutes with Shead pulling the strings, tallying 21 points, 10 assists and five rebounds. It felt as if any time the Coogs needed a bucket, a good look, a rebound or a defensive stop to keep the Aggies at arm’s length, Shead made the play, the same player A&M head coach Buzz Williams said can “guard anybody in the United States, no matter how old they are, no matter how much money they’re getting paid through NIL or through the National Basketball Association.”
Houston needed every ounce of it against Texas A&M. Unlike Longwood and so many opposing teams this season, the Aggies didn’t break, battling back from a 10-point deficit with less than 90 seconds in regulation to force overtime.
The result, however, and the hard truth for A&M, is that the Cougars didn’t break either. Despite being on the wrong end of an epic comeback, crippling foul trouble and disorienting momentum swing in an instant classic of an NCAA Tournament game, Houston managed to overcome all of it, setting up a Sweet 16 showdown against No. 4 seed Duke on Friday in Dallas.
“I thought it was a heavyweight fight, and there were times where we may have won the round, and there were for sure times they won the round,” said Williams. “But a large portion of their success is because of the physicality, the toughness, the intensity that they play with.”
Houston has shown in years past how far that mentality can go, with perhaps a little more talent and a little more depth. The question now is how far it can take this group. The Big 12 championship game was a humbling example of what can happen when a really good team hits the wall against a worthy opponent, losing by 28 points to Iowa State in the third game in as many days.
The NCAA Tournament isn’t quite that compressed, though it does demand six wins over three weekends, against stiff competition and the highest of stakes. The Cougars have come close, both under Sampson and stretching back to the Phi Slama Jama days, yet have never reached the pinnacle.
“Since I’ve been here we’ve been to the Final Four, Elite Eight, Sweet 16,” said Roberts. “There’s just one more thing that we’re missing.”
The task is daunting. But so is Houston.
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(Top photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
