Coach Kelvin Sampson has turned Houston into a legitimate powerhouse
1 min read
Houston beat Temple 84-46 on Thursday night to improve to 26-4 overall and 15-2 in the American Athletic Conference. The byproduct of the victory is that the Cougars are now outright AAC champions for the second time — and at least co-champions for the third time — in a four-year span.
“These guys have worked hard,” said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson. “They’ve listened. They’ve followed instructions. They believe in the culture of our program. They’ve embraced it.”
The only season in which Houston didn’t win at least a share of the AAC title over the past four years was last season. Houston was still clearly the best team in the league, but finished second in the conference standings to a Wichita State team that benefitted from an unbalanced (and much easier) schedule caused by COVID-19 cancellations. Put another way, the only time Houston didn’t win at least a share of the AAC title in the past four years was a season in which the Cougars still won three more AAC games than anybody else and advanced to the Final Four.
It’s incredible stuff from Sampson.
Before he won his first AAC title in 2019, Houston had gone 26 straight seasons without winning a conference championship. Now the Cougars are the best team in their conference every season. Before Sampson took over at Houston, the program had finished outside of the top 130 at KenPom in four consecutive seasons. Now the Cougars are on track to finish inside of the top 20 at KenPom for the fifth consecutive season — and perhaps inside of the top 10 for the second straight year.
Again, incredible stuff.
Houston is No. 16 in Friday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. The Cougars will put their five-game winning streak on the line when they play at Memphis on Sunday on CBS.
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