HOUSTON — Nearly two months have passed since the Houston Cougars’ season for the ages concluded, and two sentiments inescapably co-exist: Anguish lingers, yet optimism abounds.
If you think Kelvin Sampson and his team have been able to quickly put a pretty bow on last season and swiftly move on in the wake of the last-minute national title game heartbreak against Florida, consider this: When Hoops HQ opened a lengthy interview with Sampson by asking how much he has revisited the game’s ending in his mind, the coach responded with a 38-minute answer uninterrupted.
Yes, 38 minutes uninterrupted — a stream of consciousness avalanche capturing a dramatic 48-hour emotional swing in San Antonio and winding through all the pivotal moments of his Cougars’ March Madness run. The blunt message to his team at halftime of the Duke game: “If this is the way we’re going to go out, we should have canceled our season after the Tennessee (Elite Eight) game.” His calculus on the critical late-game dilemma against Duke — to foul or not foul down six points — and likening it to a blackjack hand: “You’ve got 16, the dealer’s showing a face card, you’ve gotta make a decision.” And, of course, every instant in the decisive final play against Florida.
On a May morning in his office, Sampson had zero interest in small talk about the NBA Playoffs, certainly not with the machinations of the college hoops calendar on overdrive: Houston’s point guard Milos Uzan declared for the draft; two transfers, including Creighton’s Pop Isaacs, will soon arrive; and the coach has been criss-crossing the country, including visiting Atlanta-area high school gem Caleb Holt, in a never-ending pursuit to continually upgrade the roster. Those arrivals have landed the Cougars at or near the top of most every way-too-early top 25 lists, as well as the No. 1 position in Bart Torvik’s 2025-26 preseason rankings.
The grind never stops.
“Not if you want to win, it don’t,” Sampson said as he sat on his office couch. Beside him were the net he cut down inside Lucas Oil Stadium to punctuate his second Final Four appearance with the Cougars and the encased American flag that flew over The Alamo the night Houston authored its epic 14-point comeback over Duke in the semifinals.
An hour after the confetti fell April 7, Houston’s locker room was awash in emotion. But the lone message on the locker room white board — 35-5, underlined — served as a reminder of a season never to be forgotten. And Sampson, for certain, wasn’t one to wallow in misery.
“It doesn’t say anywhere in your contract where you get to go sit in a room, close the blinds and sulk,” Sampson said.
He is a 69-year-old shaped by routine, whether it’s making his bed every day or eschewing the elevator for the stairs in Houston’s basketball facility. So back at the team hotel in the wee hours of the April 8 morning, Sampson talked with his staff, making sure they knew what time the bus was leaving Tuesday morning.
As the bus throttled eastward on I-10, Sampson’s bleary-eyed son and assistant Kellen Sampson had an eye-opening experience learning just how much the college basketball recruiting world had been humming while he had been sequestered in the bubble of March Madness. As sick as Kellen Sampson was about the loss, another ominous emotion immediately took hold: “A definitive feeling of how behind I was,” he said. He spent the bus ride organizing retention meetings, prioritizing getting players back next season, dealing with player agents.
“That was what I was least prepared for,” he said. “In an NIL world, how quickly you engage in negotiations.”
Several key faces are gone, notably J’Wan Roberts and LJ Cryer. The staff believes there still exists a long-shot scenario in which Uzan pulls out of the NBA Draft and returns, but not if he has an assurance to be a top-40 selection. Among the most prominent returnees is senior guard Emanuel Sharp, whom Kellen Sampson acknowledges was set to endure the most difficult, most challenging offseason of any player in the sport after his critical turnover in the final seconds against Florida. “Nobody had the weight on his shoulders quite like Emanuel starting April 8,” Kellen said, “but probably no one is more built to handle the brunt of that better than Emanuel.”
Sharp, whom the staff believes will be one of the nation’s top 15 players next season, needed some time to unplug after the Final Four. He has been the recipient of nasty and threatening messages from gamblers who lost wagers. The elder Sampson met with Sharp and his parents and reminded them that it’s really important not to let other people define who you are.
Next season, one of the most talented freshman classes in school history, which features three top-20 players — Kingston Flemings, Isiah Harwell and Chris Cenac Jr. — will figure heavily into the team’s fortunes. The challenge for the coaches: Can the squad become more tough than it is talented?
“They know what they signed up for: They signed up for hard,” Kellen Sampson said of the freshmen. “This isn’t a one-year oasis where you just kind of chill and hang out and then hear your name called. There is an investment of sweat, an investment of your entire being that you’ve got to commit to.”
Houston’s promising forecast doesn’t make processing the title game loss any easier. When Kellen Sampson was asked how long it took his father to feel rejuvenated for next season after the Florida game, he paused for several seconds. “He is not there yet,” Sampson said. “I mean, he gave you a 38-minute answer on a simple question, which means he’s still (raw), right? And that’s alright — he’s supposed to be.”
As for Kellen Sampson, he doesn’t revisit the game much in his mind, right?
“About every hour,” he dead-panned. “We got to this place where you mourned that it was over. This period of mourning where you’re so sad, kicking yourself, ‘I wish we had done this, wish we had done that. I’m mad at this, mad at that. I’m upset with myself.’ You go through emotions of any heartbreak. I don’t think it’s any different from any other walk of life, whether it’s about a loved one, a job you didn’t get, a breakup. Anytime your heart breaks, you owe it to yourself to allow yourself to mourn.”
The more names change, the more the program’s DNA remains cemented. The Sampsons treasure a jewel of advice Jay Wright provided them a few years ago, saying in essence that once you make a Final Four run it’s not necessarily as hard to remain at that level, which goes against conventional wisdom. For most billionaires, he told them, the first million they made was the hardest million. But once you build the machine, you know how to do it again. The process is repeatable.
Before the process begins, they’ll take a breath: The Sampson family this week heads to Baden Lake some 65 miles outside Charlotte to unwind and recharge. No one is cueing up April 7 game tape anytime soon.
“There will be a time I’m sure, in the summer or early fall, that maybe we’ll be ready to take the vitamins and the nutrients from that painful learning lesson and get better from it,” Kellen Sampson said. “It’s not [now], I can tell you that.”
While they fell narrowly short of their goal, Kelvin Sampson applauds his players for having the “courage” to embark on such a journey.
As the program looks to turn a painful page, the staff knows the best thing to happen for everyone will occur June 1. “We’re all on our own odysseys, so to speak,” Kellen Sampson said. “Come June one, we get to come together and start attacking, collectively, a new goal.”
