Former NBA All-Star Marvels at Kelvin Sampson’s Real Coaching Magic — Getting Houston to Play Harder Than Anyone Else Is a Relentless Commitment

Mo Williams played 13 years in the NBA, making an All-Star team and winning a championship with LeBron James in Cleveland. He played two seasons of big-time college ball at Alabama. All before becoming a college basketball head coach at age 37. That’s a lot of stops, a number of different coaches played for, but Williams will tell you he’s never seem another one quite like Kelvin Sampson.

“He’s an old school coach,” Williams says of the University of Houston’s program transformer. “I’m a new school coach. I’m more cool. But he don’t play. I told our kids, he don’t play no games. Be ready. He don’t play Nintendo. It’s like that.

“He’s just on them. He holds his players, his coaches, his managers accountable. That’s something that’s different from me and most coaches.”

Williams is hardly the only coach to marvel over how hard Sampson gets his UH players to play. Randy Bennett, the St. Mary’s coach who has been in coaching for 37 years and is old school as Mo Williams is new school, said much the same thing after a loss to Sampson and Houston last year.

“Kelvin takes no BS from his guys,” is how Bennett put it. “His guys are trying to be good. That’s the way it should be.”

It sounds like such a simple thing. Getting your players to play unbelievably hard. But Kelvin Sampson’s fellow coaches know how impossible that really is, how unforgiving and potentially mine filled that is, how much of a unicorn it makes him.

This relentless effort is what defines Kelvin Sampson’s Houston program, which is ranked in the nation’s Top 5 again and takes a 10-0 record into this Saturday’s Halal Guys Showcase game against Texas A&M at Toyota Center. Many probably take it for granted at this point, including perhaps too many in positions of power at UH. But coaches know better. Other coaches gush over the miracle Kelvin Sampson is pulling off season after season after season.

How he’s getting his guys to play harder than almost anyone else. Being so demanding comes fraught with potential pitfalls. Especially in today’s age of NIL and an easy transfer portal. Most other coaches worry about potentially upsetting their players. Many want to be their players’ friend. Mo Williams admits he’s often fallen into that mindset.

“I’m too loose,” Jackson State’s coach tells PaperCity. “So when I’m around him and I feel that from him and I see that from him, it makes me better. So I get to hold my guys more accountable at times. Because I see how successful he is with it.

“. . . I am lenient. He’s not.”

Yet Kelvin Sampson still builds relationships with his players that are beyond strong. His late night talks with super freshman Jarace Walker were a staple of last season’s run and those talks have continued now that Walker is with the Indiana Pacers, struggling to find his way into the rotation of a deep team as a top draft pick. The 20-year-old Walker still leans on the 68-year-old Sampson for advice and that enduring connection is hardly unique. Kelvin Sampson has it with many of his guys.

It turns out always telling players the real truth builds trust too. That’s much harder to do than just trying to be a player’s buddy first, though.

That relentless honesty is part of what drew LJ Cryer, the Baylor transfer who leads this UH team in scoring, to Kelvin Sampson’s program.

“I knew I’d hear what I needed to hear to get better here,” Cryer tells PaperCity. “I knew they’d be on me about my defense every day. And that’s what I need to be able to take the next step.”

That and a head coach who is never afraid to demand more.

“Coach can sniff out when I’m being lazy or don’t have the (right) attitude,” Cryer says. “He’ll make me get in line real fast. So I know I just better come to work every day.”

Cryer calls the UH practices much harder than the actual games. It turns out that the ultra intense Kelvin Sampson you see on the sidelines, often stomping his foot and throwing up his arms, during games is only a fraction of what his players get during practice.

Even Kelvin Sampson’s shootarounds require a nonstop intensity. Which is another huge difference from what Cryer previously experienced.

“Nah, you can’t pace yourself,” he says. “You’ve just got to attack it like it’s a practice. Because he can tell when you’re out there jogging around. And he’s going to put you on the line and run you. So you might as well just go hard from the jump.”

“He’s just on them. He holds his players, his coaches, his managers accountable. That’s something that’s different from me and most coaches.” — Jackson State coach Mo Williams on Kelvin Sampson

Being as demanding as Kelvin Sampson is requires that the coach always brings the energy. Even now, in what Sampson himself calls “the final lap” of his coaching career, UH’s driving force shows no signs of slowing down in this regard. Sampson seems as energized as ever by this group of players and the team’s potential.

“I think our guys are looking forward to getting into the Big 12,” Sampson says. “I think they are. I think they’re excited about playing a Big 12 schedule.

With a stacked backcourt of All-American point guard candidate Jamal Shead, Cryer, second year player Emanuel Sharp (a career-high 25 points in just 22 minutes against Jackson State), Temple transfer Damian Dunn and defensive specialist Mylik Wilson (who posts a plus 24 rating in 18 minutes against Mo Williams team); an emerging freshman future star in power forward JoJo Tugler; and a suddenly complete game focused four star talent in Terrance Arceneaux (19 rebounds in the last two games), there is plenty of reason to be excited.

After seeing No. 4 Houston hound his team into 24 turnovers in a 89-55 game with four different Cougars recording at least three steals with Swiper Wilson nabbing five himself, Mo Williams is certainly a believer.

“Every rotation they should be on, they’re there,” Williams says marveling over UH’s consistency on defense. “And when they’re not there, they’re going to hear about it right away. A lot of coaches do not do that. That’s what makes them so great defensively.

“Because they continue to harp on the right things.”

Kelvin Sampson and The Power of Teaching

Playing a talented Kelvin Sampson team is like trying to hold back the tide. No matter what you do, no matter how creative a game plan you employ, these Cougars are coming.

“They’ve got a great formula,” Williams says. “They play the same way each and every night. They don’t alter it. And guys that don’t get in line will not play. I love how their coach goes about it. And I look forward to watching them play in late March, competing for a championship.”

Mo Williams wears some blindingly silver shoes with his blue suit for Jackson State’s game against Houston. But he knows Kelvin Sampson is the one who has a program built for dancing when it matters most.

“Coach can sniff out when I’m being lazy or don’t have the (right) attitude. He’ll make me get in line real fast. So I know I just better come to work every day.” — Guard LJ Cryer on Kelvin Sampson

Sampson’s never-ending demanding has plenty to do with that. But so does the loyalty he builds with his unflinching honesty and commitment to making his players better. In an era when college players often jump to another program at the first sign of adversity, Kelvin Sampson’s University of Houston team has lost only two players in its 10 deep (Caleb Mills to Florida State and Tramon Mark to Arkansas) during this run.

“It was big that we got (center) Ja’Vier (Francis) back,” UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity of what set up this season. “It was big that we got Terrance back. It was back that we got Emanuel back. You’re always in a constant fight to win the numbers game.

“But you’ve got to bring more back than you lose. And if you bring more back than you lose, you’ve got a chance to have championship depth when it matters the most. Because when our guys stick around here, they get better.”

This 10-o UH team is getting better by the practice with this matchup with SEC Texas A&M — a 7-3 team that has lost to Virginia, Florida Atlantic and Memphis — looming as something of another statement game. Especially considering the setting.

Of course, there are a whole host of statement games awaiting in that first Big 12 schedule.

Kelvin Sampson knows what’s coming. And he’ll keep demanding more. Like he always has. And always will. No matter who tries and stand in his way. Sampson recalls how the UH administration tried to get him to play a game at Nebraska for a $90,000 guarantee early in this run in The Third Ward, the type of thing a Jackson State does. Sampson responded with a flat and unmoving “No.”

“Sometimes you have to put your foot down and teach people how to do things,” Sampson says. “. . . I’m not interested in the way you guys did things. The worst thing you can possibly hear from somebody from a failed organization is ‘This is the way we’ve done it.’

Houston’s coach shakes his head, throws up a hand.

“Wait a minute,” Sampson continues. “What’d you say? Well, we’re certainly not going to do it that way.”

Kelvin Sampson is still teaching, still pushing to make sure things are done right. Some may completely miss how hard that is, how thankless the relentless demanding can be. Other coaches know better, though. They marvel over it.

“There’s one Kelvin Sampson,” Mo Williams says.