Oklahoma State Coach Swears UH is an NCAA Tournament Team, But Sampson’s Utter Disappointment Paints a Starker Truth

Oklahoma State basketball coach Mike Boynton is sure the University of Houston is an NCAA Tournament team. But the Cougars better start showing the urgency to prove it.

A 61-55 home loss to an Oklahoma State team arguably playing without its best player leaves Kelvin Sampson’s team with one impressive non-conference win (that blowout of SEC solid South Carolina on the Gamecocks’ home floor) with the holidays approaching. There is plenty of season left, but the program that became the story of the Houston sports world last March needs to start collecting wins that matter.

“They’re a really good basketball team,,” Boynton says of now 6-3 UH. “That’s a Top 25, 30ish team. That’s an NCAA Tournament team. That’s a team that can win some games in the NCAA Tournament. This is a big win for us.”

And a beyond deflating loss for Houston. It’s not just that Sampson’s team is outscored 11-5 down the stretch after tying the game at 50. It’s that UH needed a frantic rally to come back from 18 points down to tie the game in the first place.

“Today, we disrespected our program,” Sampson says. “We disrespected a lot of the kids that have come through here over the years. That’s disappointing.”

Sampson looks drained by the end of this Sunday afternoon. He’ll recover — you don’t win 622 games without having experienced let downs like this before. Still, it’s apparent that Houston’s coach never expected this kind of response or lackadaisical early effort from his team.

“The game started at 2’o’clock,” Sampson says. “We played like the game started at 3.”

This following history UH team is not good enough to take off a half against a major program like Oklahoma State with three senior starters. On the same day the Houston Texans cemented their postseason future in Nashville, the Cougars let a crack show in their own.

Oklahoma State (8-2 and NCAA Tournament destined) completely dictates the pace in the first half, keeping things at a crawl and refusing to let UH’s athleticism become a factor.

“They had a really good gameplan,” Kellen Sampson, Houston’s lead assistant and head coach of the future, tells PaperCity. “They wanted to slow the game down and take the air out the ball. We’ve got to get out and run and get some easy baskets earlier in the clock.”

If not for the heroics of redshirt freshman guard Caleb Mills, who scores 23 points and is forced to create things one-on-one at times to keep the Cougars offense off life support, Houston might have been completely embarrassed.

Mills and true freshman guard Marcus Sasser, who gives UH a little early life with a few threes, are everything the Cougars could have hoped for.

“It doesn’t take long to watch Caleb Mills to know he’s got it,” Kellen Sampson says. “He’s just a shot maker, just a scorer. He can attack you. When he does the other stuff besides scoring better, he’s going to be even more important for us.

“He’s a natural scorer.”

Goose Eggs and Funny Tees

UH’s more experienced players could not step up to help Mills on this lost afternoon. Quentin Grimes, the ultra talented Kansas transfer, goes scoreless in 33 minutes, missing all seven of the shots he takes. This is surely one of the only times in his entire life that Quentin Grimes has played a basketball game without scoring a single point. He only did it once at Kansas and he played just 19 minutes in that game.

“I don’t have an explanation for that,” Kelvin Sampson says when asked about Grimes’ surprising goose egg in the boxscore. “It’s a very fair question. I just don’t have an explanation. He got a lot of clean looks. Almost all his looks were clean.”

Junior point guard DeJon Jarreau also fades from view, going scoreless in 18 minutes. This is how a festive day turns into a downer.

“That’s a Top 25, 30ish team. That’s an NCAA Tournament team. That’s a team that can win some games in the NCAA Tournament.” — Mike Boynton on UH.

Light blue T-shirts with a red tie printed on them are handed out to fans, a nod at the ensemble Kelvin Sampson wears every game. A new Tradition of Excellence Wall is unveiled near Section 117, showing off UH’s five Final Four trophies (the last coming in 1984), highlighting the Game of the Century and honoring Athletics Hall of Honor members.

The new Judge Roy Hofheinz statue in front of the arena is also officially dedicated.

But if it feels like one big Coogs party, Oklahoma State quickly changes the mood. UH is held scoreless for more than nine minutes in one maddening stretch. Boynton swears he knew a Cougars comeback was coming, though. He tells his team during timeouts, even as Oklahoma State’s lead swells, to expect the Houston run.

“We’re always honest about things with our guys,” Boynton says. “… Their coach, you don’t win 600 something games by accident. Kelvin Sampson is going to figure something out that gets them back in the game.”

Sampson himself wants none of that praise.

“We started trying,” he simply replies when asked what leads to the turnaround.

It’s much too early to be worrying about having a trying time on Selection Sunday. Yet, resumes are already being built — and UH’s players would be wise to take theirs seriously.