Kelvin Sampson settles into a chair in his office and offers a succinct review of his Cougars’ 17-point victory against Wichita State the night before. “We played like s—,” he says. There is a scowl on his face, but it’s quickly replaced by a small smile and a brief chuckle.
“We play like s— a lot,” he adds.
The laughter reveals multiple truths: Sampson’s 31–3 team has reached such a stature that winning by 17 can be considered flush-worthy. Sampson doesn’t care if his team plays like poop as long as his team wins—he relishes it, actually, since it meshes with the team ethos; no program in college basketball wins more games in this manner than Sampson’s over the past six seasons.
Houston is 174–33 in that span, an .841 winning percentage that is topped by only Gonzaga’s .891. While Mark Few’s program is renowned for playing pretty basketball, Sampson’s is the foremost practitioner of winning ugly.
The Cougars have been to three Sweet 16s, two Elite Eights and one Final Four in the past three NCAA tournaments. Now the 67-year-old Sampson has his best Houston team—probably his best team, period, in 34 years as a college head coach—despite its propensity for toilet ball.
The program that excels at playing like No. 2 is a No. 1 seed for the first time in 40 years and is taking aim at a serendipitous Final Four in its hometown, with more than half a century of unfinished business to atone for. The history of men’s college basketball cannot be written without the Cougars, who have been involved in some watershed moments throughout NCAA tournament history—yet they’re nowhere to be found on the roll call of national champions.
“For the City” is the motto the urban program branded five years ago, picking up a sentiment expressed on social media by guard and Houston native Galen Robinson Jr. as the Cougars were beginning their ascent to national prominence. But this season is also for Big E and Guy V and Phi Slama Jama—for all those great Houston teams whose path to a national championship was always blocked at the final step?
The time to take that step is now. Perhaps now or never.
