Four Each Other — What Kelvin Sampson and Houston’s Players Think About On Making The Final Four Says Everything

INDIANAPOLIS — At the end of a long wonderful day, at least the sunlight hours of it, University of Houston coach Kelvin Sampson heads down the seemingly endless wide corridor of the Indianapolis Colts’ football stadium, the official NCAA game ball cradled in his right arm, his young grandkids Maisy Jade and Kylen walking right in front of him, with the man his son calls Chief keeping one eye on them, Maisy in her sparkling silver skirt, Kylen carrying a blue Powerade water bottle, looking like a hooper already.

“Final Four,” Sampson says as he passes, flashing four fingers. “Final Four baby.”

Sampson’s son and assistant coach Kellen is walking about 10 feet ahead, talking to the guy nice enough to carry the giant board that displays Houston’s section of the NCAA Tournament bracket, the grueling road that this mission driven UH team took to get to the Alamodome laid out in supersized form, to the Cougars bus. A whole lot of people Kelvin Sampson loves are already on that bus and this 69-year-old basketball lifer of a coach knows he’ll get to spend another week with them on this journey. This quest to get to play on Monday night in that national championship game. It’s not about that in this moment though.

What someone thinks about in their greatest moments of success says a lot about them.

It turns out these Cougars think about everyone but themselves after roaring into this San Antonio Final Four with a 69-50 throttling of a very good Tennessee team.

Kelvin Sampson finds himself thinking of Gregg Popovich, the San Antonio Spurs coach who threw Sampson a lifeline when the NCAA overlords tried to end his career over some phone calls. About his assistant coaches and staffers who energize and inspire his Hall of Fame coaching mind every day, often in the morning staff meetings where ideas fly and get challenged. About all his former Houston players whose blood, sweat and tears (and sometimes bad Big Dance luck) helped pave the way to this San Antonio Final Four, the ones in the building (Jarace Walker and Breaon Brady) and all the ones not, with so many of those flooding his text messages with more love.

“This program to me is all about the players,” Sampson says, talking in the locker room after the second Final Four berth of his beyond remarkable UH run. “It’s a players-led program, which is part of our success. It’s a player-owned program too. Our players own this program and I’m proud of them.”

Tossing red and white confetti in the air, at each other and everywhere, taking turns snapping trophy pics, Kelvin Sampson’s current players take the place they earned, the place they fought like gladiators to grab with crowd after crowd against them, back on college basketball’s biggest stage. What these Forever Together Coogs think about in their Final Four moment means more than all the celebratory scenes though.

They think about others.

All-American guard LJ Cryer thinks about Milos Uzan, the transfer point guard who battled through a UH hell week to become the fearless player Cryer, J’Wan Roberts, Emanuel Sharp, Ja’Vier Francis, Mylik Wilson and all the Run It Back Cougars needed to get to where injuries stopped them from reaching last March.

Mylik Wilson thinks of his mom, who urged him to stay at Houston with these coaches and players who care about him when he put his name in the transfer portal. “When he was in the transfer portal, I told him to stay where you are,” Sharon Wilson tells PaperCity. “All this looking around, you’re not going to find anywhere as special as this.” Wilson stayed and shook off one of the hardest falls you’ll ever see on a basketball court on Friday night to come back and give Sampson seven rebounds, four assists, a block, a steal and the night-night three in 24 minutes off the bench against Tennessee. No one will beat Comeback Wilson’s plus 20 plus-minus rating with the Final Four on the line.

J’Wan Roberts thinks about Kelvin Sampson, about the coach who he considers to be a second father being on the stage where Roberts knows Sampson belongs, getting talked about the way Roberts feels his coach should always be talked about on the national level.

“It feels great,” Roberts says. “All the dedication he puts into us. To be able to do something big for him. . .

“We all know what the main goal is. We’re down to four teams now. So shit, why not win it?”

Final Four. Again, And not done yet.

“Who I am is an incredibly appreciative husband and super proud father to Kellen and (UH do-everything director of operations) Lauren,” — UH Coach Kelvin Sampson

Houston’s Run It Back Path

To win it all, Kelvin Sampson’s Houston team will have to complete the hardest NCAA Tournament championship path ever. These now 34-4 Cougars have already played the best possible seed they could play in all four rounds of the tournament so far (getting an under-seeded Gonzaga as the 8th seed in the second round, No, 4 seed Purdue in the Sweet 16 and No. 2 seed Tennessee in this Elite Eight Sunday, both of those last ones virtual road games). Now only fellow No. 1 seeds await in one of the most power packed Final Fours ever, with Houston playing Duke and No. 1 overall NBA Draft pick to be Cooper Flagg in the second semifinal Saturday night (7:49 pm Central time tip on CBS). Capture the Flagg and Roberts and Co. will have to play a second No. 1 seed — either recent nemesis Auburn or supercharged Florida in the Monday night national championship game.

UH’s path brings back memories of the gauntlet the Houston Astros needed to conquer to win their first championship in 2017 — beating the storied Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers in succession. This Houston team’s road isn’t for the faint of heart.

Then again, heart is much of what Kelvin Sampson’s program is all about. And a will that never sleeps.

“I wasn’t coming back for anything other than this honestly,” Cryer says, “I like to win. I’m glad we made it to this point. If we didn’t make it to this point, I definitely would have been upset with our season.

“. . . I’m going to stop partying as soon as I get to the locker room. I know we’ve got a big game (Saturday). They’re really talented.”

Final Four. Again, And not done yet.

“To see the nation putting eyes on everything we do, it’s a good feeling,” proud University of Houston product Jim Nantz tells PaperCity after driving 291 miles at six in the morning to be in Indianapolis for this one. “We are a proud basketball school. . . Look where we are. We’re the last Big 12 team standing. We’ve come in two years, we’ve run away with the conference two times. The record is mind boggling, what we’ve done thanks to Kelvin.”

“We all know what the main goal is. We’re down to four teams now. So shit, why not win it?” — UH power forward J’Wan Roberts

Kelvin Sampson will tell you it’s about the players, guys like Emanuel Sharp who is a basketball version of The Wolf from Pulp Fiction, a cold-blooded fixer who drains the two threes that end Tennessee’s hopes when UH wobbles for a few moments. Guys like Terrance Arceneaux, who scores eight points in a three minute stretch in the first half that helps balloon Houston’s lead to the 19 points it eventually wins by.

Sampson knows that many will try to make the UH story of this Final Four be about him, his quest to win his first national championship after 36 seasons of college coaching. Houston’s coach already seems to be trying to push that narrative away, to make the net wider, to bring so many more in.

“Who I am is an incredibly appreciative husband and super proud father to Kellen and (UH do-everything director of operations) Lauren,” Sampson says. “And they were a big part of why we took this job. I knew it was going to be a major reclamation project. It was just way worse than I even imagined once we got in there.

“I did it with my daughter and I did it with my son. I did it with my wife listening to me every night talking about what we don’t have. To the point where she said, ‘Why don’t you quit talking about what you don’t have and focus on what you do have?’

“I said, ‘We don’t have nothing.’ ”

Kelvin Sampson breaks into one of the biggest grins he’s shown all season at that, waits for the laughter.

Final Four. Again, And just warming up.

Soon Kelvin Sampson will be making that final long hallway walk in Lucas Oil Stadium. This old coach — Sampson mentions being in “his twilight,” several times after this Final Four clinching win — doesn’t keep many souvenirs. That’s more Karen Sampson’s thing. And Karen will tell Ryan Elvin, the unlikely NCAA Tournament hero from last March turned first-year graduate assistant who finds himself thinking of last year’s Big 12 Player of the Year Jamal Shead in this one, that she wants all the NCAA Tournament and March Madness signage in the locker room.

But Kelvin wants that basketball. Rain’s pelting down outside and there are tornado warnings seemingly surrounding Indianapolis, but it’s only sunny moments for Sampson’s University of Houston program. What do you think about in moments of great success? These Forever Together Cougars think of each other.