Sampson eager to keep building up Cougars

PHILADELPHIA — Kelvin Sampson admits he still doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

But considering the way things were when he arrived on the University of Houston’s campus in 2014 to replace James Dickey as men’s basketball coach, he’s thrilled how it’s turned out so far.

“It’s easy to sit back and look to see what we’ve done on paper,” Sampson said at the American Athletic Conference media day bright and early Monday morning, just a few miles from where host school Temple handed his then 15-0 Cougars their first loss last season. “But had you been there the first month, you’d have seen just how far we had to go.

“It was not just facilities. It was attitude. It was apathy. Now, we’ve sold out all our season’s tickets for the first time since 1998. I know that because I just did a thank you event with the season ticket holders.

“I still don’t know what I don’t know. But what I didn’t know was how difficult it would be. I don’t think I knew that. Also that you take great pride in what we’ve been able to do.”

What Sampson’s Cougars have done in those five years, capped by a school-record 33 wins and a trip to the Sweet Sixteen last season, has obviously registered among his AAC brethren. They voted Houston, along with Penny Hardaway’s Memphis Tigers as co-favorites to win the conference.

Considering four starters — Corey Davis Jr., Armoni Brooks, Galen Robinson Jr. and Breaon Brady — are gone from that 33-4 team, Sampson’s a bit shocked. Davis, Brooks and Robinson were three of the team’s top four scorers.

“We’ve lost a lot, obviously, so it’s a little confusing how we’re picked for first place when you lose four starters,” said Sampson, who was the AAC coach of the year after guiding Houston to the regular-season championship, before falling to Cincinnati in the conference tournament title game. “The three players we brought here (guards DeJon Jarreau and Nate Hinton and center Chris Harris Jr. attended media day), none of them started. But they played a lot of minutes in big games on big stages.

“It’ll be interesting to see how we play because we lost Armoni and Corey who gave us 230 threes (actually 233). You lose 230 threes, you don’t replace that.

“So we have to play different, because we don’t have the shooting we had last year.”

But that doesn’t mean you should play any violins in sympathy for him. While all those big guns have left the Cougars, Sampson’s still got plenty left in his arsenal.

“We have a lot of players who came back from that team,” said Hinton, a 6-5 sophomore who averaged 7.2 points and 4.4 rebounds as a freshman. “We lost four players, but every year there are new players. We had great recruits. A lot of guys came into the program, and the returning guys played a lot.

“That’s just the culture of the program.”

It’s a culture Sampson has carefully cultivated over the past five years, which hasn’t gone unappreciated.

“Coach Sampson is a great coach,” said Jarreau, the 6-5 redshirt junior from New Orleans who averaged 8.7 points — third best on the team behind Davis and Brooks — and 3.3 assists. “He’s succeeded everywhere he’s gone.

“We expected to do well last year, but didn’t expect to go 33-4 and be one of the last undefeated teams. So hats off to all the work we put in and a shout out to Coach Sampson.”

Sampson says the summer trip his club took to Italy proved invaluable, not only for the cultural experience and team bonding but also for sheer hoops value. “The four games are nice, but the big advantage of those foreign trips are 10 practices,” said the just turned 64-year-old Sampson. “We tried to stretch them out.

“Senior leadership had a lot to do with our success. So it’s not just replacing numbers. It’s replacing a multitude of things.”

With the Nov. 9 exhibition game against Angelo State, followed by the Nov. 13 season’s opener vs. Alabama State still nearly a month away, there’s still plenty of time for Sampson to get the Cougars ready. He’ll put together a rotation between holdovers Jarreau, Hinton, Harris, lone returning starter Fabian White Jr., Cedrick Alley Jr. and Brison Gresham along with newcomers Quentin Grimes and Marcus Sasser and have them ready to roll by then.

It’s all a part of what he considers almost a civic duty. “Our basketball program belongs to a lot of people,” Sampson explained. “We’re the participants.

“It says ‘Houston’ across our chests. That’s for the city of Houston … The University of Houston … alumni. A lot of people take pride in our program, so we’re here to service others. You don’t lose sight of that and don’t let your ego get too big.

“There will come a day when somebody else will take over and that guy’s responsibility will be to continue to build on that. But while we’re here that’s what we’ll focus on.”

We’ll have to see what it all means for a Houston team that seems to have an impossible act to follow. But the Cougars would be wise listening to their coach.

Because for a guy who insists he still doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, it seems like Sampson certainly knows the score.