Shortly after falling in the Final Four to Baylor, last year’s national champion, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson had his eye on making it back to the big dance. It was in Indianapolis, in isolation due to COVID-19 protocols, where he found out Texas Tech guard Kyler Edwards would be transferring in. So would UConn big man Josh Carlton.
He didn’t know when the two would announce their decisions. He didn’t know when exactly they’d join the team. But Sampson knew his Cougars were reloading yet again.
That’s how it’s been the past few years at Houston, one of the most consistent yet fluid programs in the country. The Cougars have won 140 of 161 games since the 2017-18 season. Houston is one of only 12 schools to reach four straight NCAA tournaments; Gonzaga is the only other non-power conference team to do that. Houston reached the second round in 2018, the Sweet 16 in 2019 and the Final Four last year.
This year, the Cougars are contenders to make a deep run yet again. Houston, the No. 5 seed in the South Region, faces No. 12 UAB in the first round at approximately 9:20 p.m. on Friday at PPG Paints Arena. But one could argue — and the stats would, too — that the American Athletic Conference champions are better than a No. 5 seed.
Houston’s having this success despite major changes in personnel. Quentin Grimes, the team’s leading scorer last year, was selected in the first round of the NBA draft. DeJon Jarreau, the 2020-21 AAC defensive player of the year, is in the G-League. Marcus Sasser, who scored 20 points against Baylor, averaged 17.7 points per game this year before suffering a season-ending injury in December.
And yet, here the Cougars are. They went 29-5. They’re ranked fourth in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, behind only No. 1 seeds Gonzaga, Baylor and Arizona. They’re one of the best teams in the country, and they’re doing it with a collection of players who were either on the bench last year or at different schools.
Edwards, the team’s top scorer without Sasser, remembers meeting his new teammates in the summer and bonding over a common goal: replacing those who left and continuing Houston’s growing tradition.
“It was our goal from July,” said Edwards, who averages 13.6 points per game. “Jelling with these guys throughout the year and then seeing it come to fruition, it’s just great.”
“We’re all older players. We’re experienced,” added Carlton, a fifth-year senior who averages 12 points and 6.4 rebounds per game. “We’ve all won at some level. Knowing that we’re all unselfish players, our ultimate goal is to win games.”
While the core of Houston’s Final Four team isn’t intact, these Cougars have adopted that mentality and elevated their game.
Fabian White Jr., a role player during Houston’s run last year, is now averaging 13.2 points and 5.7 rebounds per game. Senior guard Taze Moore, a transfer from Cal State Bakersfield, has stepped up as a dynamic playmaker, providing 10.3 points per game. Jamal Shead, who checked in for the final two minutes of Houston’s 19-point defeat to Baylor, has more than 200 assists this year.
White and Shead know what it takes to reach a Final Four. So does Edwards, who contributed to Texas Tech’s national title appearance in 2018-19.
And while Sampson thinks March Madness experience can sometimes be “overrated,” he acknowledged that Houston’s past in the tournament — going all the way back to 2017-18, when the Cougars lost to national runners-up Michigan at the buzzer in the second round — gives the next set of players “permission” to build off that.
“I don’t think we played a team all year that that team didn’t feel like they could win. They thought they were better than Michigan,” Sampson said of his 2017-18 team, the first group of Cougars he led to the NCAA tournament. “Then the next year we went 33-4 and lost to Kentucky. ... That was a tough loss. Then the next year was COVID, then the next year was the Final Four, and here we are this year.
“I think the common denominator with all those teams, I think every team lost four starters from the year before. But the team the year before showed the other team how to do it. They had a blueprint.”
This year’s Houston team also had a blueprint. And now it has a path — beginning with UAB on Friday night.
Johnny McGonigal: jmcgonigal@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jmcgonigal9
First Published: March 17, 2022, 10:31 p.m.