UH coach Kelvin Sampson isn’t getting ahead of himself despite Cougars’ 7-0 start to season.
Sampson uses early season to get team ready for bigger games later in the year
When it comes to early season college basketball games, Kelvin Sampson may as well be a backup singer for Shania Twain. “That Don’t Impress Me Much.”
This time of year, the University of Houston coach does not measure the state of his team by wins and losses.
“Early December non-conference games tell you about where your team is and where you need to go,” Sampson said. “I don’t get carried away with winning non-conference games, and I don’t get carried away with losing any of them, either.
“You have 30-something games. You’re not going to win them all. I don’t think anybody has been undefeated in college basketball since 1976, so there is a good chance we are going to lose some games this year. But I just want to see us compete. I just want to see us get better.”
So, in that case, what to make of the Cougars’ 7-0 start?
It matches the third-best start to a season in school history. UH is on the fringe of cracking both major national polls. UH is one of 11 remaining unbeaten teams. The home winning streak is at 21 games, the second-longest in the country.
Again … “That Don’t Impress Me Much.” For every win over then-No. 18 Oregon, there are games like a narrow five-point win over the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and Tuesday night’s 79-56 win over Lamar that remind Sampson that the team currently on the floor won’t necessarily be the same one come January and February.
“The thing about developing your team is to just have patience,” Sampson said.
Patience that guard Corey Davis Jr., the team’s leading scorer, will shake his recent 3-point shooting woes.
Patience that forward Fabian White Jr. will continue to increase his minutes as he comes back from offseason foot surgery that sidelined him the first five games.
Patience that DeJon Jarreau will return to the team soon — most likely this weekend at Oklahoma State — after being suspended the past month for an undisclosed team rules violation.
Patience that the Cougars will continue to develop the “toughness factor” that went missing at times in the second half against Lamar.
Typical of a Sampson-coached team, the Cougars are No. 10 nationally in scoring defense (58.4 points per game), No. 32 in field-goal defense (38.2) and No. 18 in fewest turnovers (10.4 per game).
Guard Armoni Brooks has settled into his role in the starting lineup (15.6 points per game) after being the American Athletic Conference’s Sixth Man of the Year. After taking so many shots in the offseason that his fingers were bleeding, point guard Galen Robinson Jr. has been rewarded for the hard work; a defensive specialist and floor leader, he matched his careerhigh with 20 points against Lamar to give the Cougars another scoring option.
Nate Hinton, UH’s 6-4 freshman guard, has provided early glimpses of his potential to be “a very, very special player,” Sampson said. Brison Gresham, a 6-7 transfer from UMass, provides another rim-protector.
A year ago, Sampson said it took a while for UH to figure things out. When they did, the Cougars challenged for the AAC title and snapped a nearly decade-long NCAA tournament drought, coming within a buzzer beater against Memphis of advancing to the Sweet Sixteen.
“I think it will take time for this team, too,” Sampson said.
There was an adjustment period following the graduation two years ago of Damyean Dotson, who was drafted by the New York Knights. Then came the loss of Rob Gray Jr., who graduated as the all-time leading scorer in AAC history. Rather depend on one player as the primary scorer, Sampson entered the season with a handful of players that were expected to pick up the slack.
With league play around the corner, Sampson should begin to find out more about his squad in the next few weeks. The Cougars are in midst of a schedule that Sampson calls the toughest since he’s been at UH, with games against Oregon, Oklahoma State, LSU, Saint Louis and Utah State.
And while some wins would be nice, Sampson has other measurables to determine which direction the Cougars are headed.
“A staple of our program is our consistency,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of highs and lows. We’re pretty solid. Over the years, I always thought that was the mark of a really good program.”
And the type of thing that would impress Sampson.