Houston And Coach Kelvin Sampson Are One Win From First National Title

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - APRIL 05: Head coach Kelvin Sampson of the Houston Cougars celebrates a win in ... More the Final Four Game of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Alamodome on April 05, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
NCAA Photos via Getty Images
On a Friday night in March 2015, the University of Houston’s season ended with a 59-51 loss to Tulsa in the American Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament quarterfinals in Hartford, Conn. During the postgame news conference, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson received one question. Someone then asked guard Devonta Pollard a question. That was it. No one was paying much attention to the Cougars. They finished 13-19 (4-14 in the AAC) and 214th in analyst Ken Pomeroy’s net rating, making them among the bottom 60% of Division 1 teams.
On Monday night, Houston is vying to become the nation’s best team when it faces Florida in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament championship in San Antonio. The Cougars, a decade after being irrelevant even in their own city, are now one victory away from winning their first national title in a stadium 200 miles from their campus.
They are in this position thanks to an improbable comeback in Saturday night’s Final Four when they went on a 9-0 run over the final 33 seconds to pull off a 70-67 victory over Duke. More than that, they are here because of Sampson, who could become the oldest coach to win a national title. Sampson will turn 70 in October.
Houston was once a premier program. From 1965 through 1973, the Cougars made the NCAA tournament eight times in nine seasons, including a Final Four appearance when they had center Elvin Hayes, the Associated Press Player of the Year. And from 1982 through 1984, they advanced to the Final Four in three consecutive seasons, including losing in the championship game in 1983 and 1984. Those teams, famously nicknamed Phi Slama Jama by Houston Post columnist Tommy Bonk, featured two future Hall of Famers in guard Clyde Drexler and center Hakeem Olajuwon.
By the time Sampson arrived in April 2014, those days were long gone. During the previous 30 seasons after Drexler and Olajuwon departed, Houston made the NCAA tournament four times (1987, 1990, 1992 and 2010), losing in the first round on each occasion. They were ranked in the AP top 25 for just two weeks: one week in January 1993 and one week in December 2005, checking in at No. 25 both times.