Kelvin Sampson must have referenced the culture and family atmosphere in Houston’s program a half dozen or more times in his postgame remarks Sunday after his Cougars beat Illinois 68-53 in an NCAA tournament second-round game at PPG Paints Arena.
The three players who shared the podium with him — Jamal Shead, Taze Moore and Reggie Chaney — each referenced those things multiple times, as well. All of them talked about their toughness, competitiveness, willingness to sacrifice for each other and how much they are willing to fight for each other.
“Our kids are tough kids,” Sampson said. “This is a tough program. That’s how we’ve achieved to be at this point. All of our players buy in, stand on the shoulders of the kids that came before them.”
First off, Houston has some really good players, so let’s not get that twisted here and make this out to be some Cinderella story. But a lot of teams have really good players and don’t play the beautiful brand of basketball that the Cougars play. There is something special about their approach to the game, and it obviously starts with Sampson and the expectations he has for every player who wants to wear the Houston jersey.
I’ve often been accused of being a crotchety old “get off my lawn” curmudgeon, and that’s OK because, well, I probably am getting to that age where I am. And it is true that sometimes us old guys tend to wax poetic about a time long and far ago when everything was better and life seemed so much easier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.
I say all that, though, because the one thing it does establish is just how much I can appreciate Houston and the old-school values the program is built on. The Cougars are definitely a throwback to the good old days when hard work, unselfishness, team before me, and busting it on the defensive end of the floor as hard as you do on the offensive end of the floor were valued more than branding, social media clicks and “getting mine.”
It was fun to watch the Cougars play the game of basketball the way it was meant to be played. They play so hard on defense and they have so few breakdowns that they give up very few easy baskets. They rebound the ball well and they seem to find a way to get every loose ball. And on offense, they make the extra pass, take good shots and work as a team as opposed to five individuals who happen to wear the same uniform.
Illinois really never had a chance in this game. As hard as the Illini played and as physical as they were, they couldn’t match Houston’s intensity for 40 minutes, possession after possession. The Illini turned the ball over 17 times, and some of that had to be just mental fatigue from the Cougars’ relentless defensive pressure.
Sampson said the Cougars get after it on defense because they get after it every single day at practice. He said their competitiveness is a part of the program’s culture, but you have to have to right kinds of players to pull off the kind of basketball they play.
“Our defense was so good,” Sampson said. “The one play, technical foul, had nothing to do with how many stops we were getting and the loose balls we were getting. The way our kids play, some of you probably haven’t seen us play this year, but that’s the way these kids practice.”
Sampson said the culture that has been built at Houston starts with recruiting high character kids and is perfected in how they go about their business every day in the classroom in practice. He said it is what enabled the Cougars not to flinch or make excuses in December when they lost two of their best players, Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark, to injuries.
It would have been an easy excuse to make, but instead the Cougars are headed to the Sweet 16. It is pretty clear that the players in this program don’t make excuses; they just dig in and find a way to overcome adversity together.
“It’s our heart,” Shead said. “We don’t want to lose. We want to win for each other. We love each other so much. These guys are like my brothers. It goes way beyond basketball. We don’t want to lose for each other. I don’t get this year back with Taze, with Josh, with Kyler, with Fab.
“We want to keep it going as long as we possibly can.”
Often we don’t give young people enough credit for being able to appreciate old-school values. Clearly Sampson is an old-school coach and I’m quite sure his practices are intense, and he asks more of them than many want to give some days.
That’s a testament to the respect he has earned among his players and the fact that he believes in them as much as they do in him. That mutual respect and love for him and for each other was on display in the locker room after the game when they doused him with water, he took off his shirt and was dancing and celebrating with them on camera. It was one of those moments that let you see a glimpse of why Sampson can get a buy in and that family is indeed what the program is built on.
“He’s an emotional coach, you know,” Shead said. “When we win and we’re happy, he shows it sometimes, too. I’m so happy to play for him. It’s a joy to play for him. We love each other so much that when those emotions are high, we’ve got to let ’em out.”
Paul Zeise: pzeise@post-gazette.com or Twitter: @paulzeise
First Published: March 20, 2022, 8:27 p.m.