Strength in adversity
Instead of folding when 2 stars went down, Cougars came together
SAN ANTONIO — Long after he’s retired, probably relaxing on the lake near his North Carolina retreat, Kelvin Sampson always will remember two specific dates from this season.
Dec. 22.
Dec. 23.
In the span of two days, the University of Houston’s season suffered the type of roster casualties that figured to derail any thoughts of a championship season or, in the Cougars’ case, any chance of a return trip to the Final Four.
The first date had long been expected, when guard Tramon Mark, a key member of UH’s deep NCAA Tournament run in 2021, underwent season-ending surgery for a labrum tear.
The next day, Sampson admittedly was caught off-guard when Marcus Sasser, the team’s leading scorer who was off to an All-America-worthy start, announced he would miss the rest of the season with a broken bone in his left foot.
About the same time, the Cougars were going through a COVID-19 pause and set to start American Athletic Conference play a week later.
Already without four starters from his Final Four squad who graduated or left early for the NBA, the Cougars now had to adjust to life without their top two guards.
“We knew it was going to be a challenge,” Sampson said. “We took it one day at a time.”
Even with the personnel losses, which left Sampson with an eightman rotation for the final three months of the season, the Cougars still were regarded as the AAC favorite and a virtual lock to make the NCAA Tournament.
Beyond that, there were doubters. The Cougars were possibly the toughest team to figure out in the 68team field. They had near-misses against Wisconsin and Alabama (before Sasser was hurt), and the metrics loved the Cougars with top-5 rankings in the NET, KenPom and ESPN’s BPI.
Yet there was still doubt. That’s why there is so much satisfaction in another trip to Elite Eight. And think about all the told-you-so moments the fifth-seeded Cougars (32-5) will share if they beat secondseeded Villanova (29-7) in the South Regional final Saturday at the AT&T Center.
“It feels good to shove it in (the doubters’) face, because everybody thought we wouldn’t even win the conference,” guard Kyler Edwards said after UH’s dominating 72-60 win over top-seeded Arizona in Friday’s Sweet 16. “Having that I-told-you-so, or ya’ll doubted us, is a good feeling.”
It’s a feeling that has been with the Cougars most of the season, the role of underdog, a team seeking respect. It fueled them to a sweep of the AAC regular-season and tournament championships and a fourth NCAA appearance under Sampson.
The Cougars answered with 12 straight wins after the injuries and, with exception of consecutive losses to SMU and Memphis in early February — the program’s first losing streak in more than five years — they’ve lost only three times since Dec. 11.
As March approached, the Cougars heard more doubt because of a résumé that lacked quadrant 1 wins, one of the metrics used by the NCAA selection committee. On Selection Sunday, the Cougars were given a No. 5 seed, a treacherous path known for first-round upsets against 12 seeds (the other three No. 5 seeds did not make it past the first weekend of the tournament). And it was a guarantee that, barring a topsy-turvy bracket, they would see top-4 seeds in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight if they advanced.
“I thought we were better than a 5 seed, but I was just happy to be in the tournament,” point guard Jamal Shead said. He added: “We just had to prove to ourselves we belong here and belong in this position.”
After beating UAB 82-68 in the first round, the Cougars turned up the physical, defensive intensity and beat Big Ten regular-season champion and No. 4 seed Illinois 68-53 in the second round and No. 1 seed Arizona, the Pac-12 champion, 72-60.
To date, Houston has trailed for only 1 minute, 51 seconds in three tournament games.
Even as the Cougars were projected as a possible 5-seed victim in the opener. Even as the Cougars supposedly had no answer to stop Illini AllAmerica center Kofi Cockburn. Surely, the storybook season would end at the hands of the more athletic and taller Wildcats, the tournament’s No. 2 overall seed that featured future NBA lottery pick Bennedict Mathurin.
“We do a good job of staying in our bubble,” Shead said. “We have each other, and that’s all that matters.”
The secret to UH’s success has been a “collective effort,” forward Fabian White Jr. said, one that does not rely on just one person to carry the load. Kyler Edwards had a teamhigh 25 points against UAB. Taze Moore followed with 21 against Illinois. Against Arizona, it was Shead, the sophomore point guard, with a career-high 21 points.
“We thought if we would’ve had (Sasser and Mark) we would have different results, nothing like we are now,” said Edwards, who played in the national championship game as a freshman at Texas Tech in 2019. “To be 40 minutes away (from another trip to the Final Four) is the ultimate feeling.”
Forty minutes. That’s all that stands in the way of a return trip to the Final Four. This time, the Cougars find themselves getting more attention. At least one website has UH with the best odds to win the school’s first basketball title.
“It doesn’t really matter to us,” Moore said. “We don’t really care what anybody says. We just care what coach says or any of the players say. Our inner circle is all that matters.”