Houston’s finally at full strength in the NCAA Tournament. Is this the Cougars’ best chance at a title?

WICHITA, Kan. – Kelvin Sampson had a boss in the early days of his coaching career who looked for innovative plays in a magazine and installed them immediately, convinced they could work for his team.

“It ain’t the plays, hoss,” Sampson used to tell him. “You need to execute better.”

Sampson, the coach of top-seeded Houston, prefers the simple. Double the post. Try to rebound every miss. And offensively …

“Spacing allows you to make a play,” he said. “Offense is spacing, but spacing is offense, and if you got some Jimmys and Joes that can operate in space, you can score.”

Sampson has the players. And there might not be a better coach in college basketball at finding advantages for his players and running simple sets on a loop until you prove you can stop them.

Put those two together, and you get what happened Saturday in Wichita, an 81-76 win over Gonzaga, when a Houston program known for its defense won a different way to reach the Sweet 16 for the sixth consecutive tournament while ending Gonzaga’s (26-8) run at making it to the second weekend at nine.

It could be a sign of what’s to come in the next two weeks. Blessed with his full arsenal of talent in March for the first time since 2021, Sampson might have his best chance yet to win a national title.

The Cougars (32-4) are once again the best defensive team in the country, but this is also the most efficient offensive team Sampson has ever coached. The Cougars lead the nation in 3-point field goal percentage (up from 133rd last year) and are one of the best offensive rebounding teams left in the tourney.

Most important, they’re healthy as they head to Indianapolis to play fourth-seeded Purdue on Friday in the Sweet 16.

A year ago, Houston’s season ended similarly to the two before it, an injury (or injuries) getting in the way. The 2024 Cougars lost in the Sweet 16 when star Jamal Shead injured his ankle against Duke in a game Houston was leading and controlling.

“Last year’s team knew how to win the game until you took Jamal away,” Sampson said. “But I felt that team could get to the Final Four.”

Notice he didn’t say “win the national championship.” Last year’s group, a No. 1 seed, was a tick below both national champion Connecticut and runner-up Purdue, especially once Joseph Tugler, one of the best defensive bigs in the country, was lost for the season along with wing Terrance Arceneaux.

Sampson hasn’t declared this team the title favorite, but there’s a confidence around the program that gives the impression they believe it can happen.

One reason for it: roster continuity, a foreign concept in this transfer portal era of the sport. The Cougars returned eight of the nine rotation players who could return, all motivated by that Duke loss.

“I felt like we had so much left in the tank,” LJ Cryer said. “With the heart and soul of our team going down, not being able to finish that game for him stung. We wanted to take care of business until he got back. That’s why we came back. It left us with a sour taste.”

Sampson went out in the transfer portal last spring and grabbed exactly what the returners needed, a point guard who could score and facilitate in Milos Uzan. He also empowered Cryer to be this team’s star and played through J’Wan Roberts more than he ever had – Roberts evolving from an energy guy to a go-to scorer in the post.

The Cougars started slow this year, losing three of their first seven games, but they’ve now won 28 of 29 games with the one loss coming by one to Texas Tech in overtime.

On Saturday, Sampson wanted to feel out Gonzaga early, seeing if it would try to copy Arizona in its ball screen coverage. The Wildcats gave the Houston guards some issues in the Big 12 tournament final by hedging ball screens, and Sampson figured Gonzaga, where Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd was a longtime assistant, would mimic the plan.

The solution was running middle ball screens and hitting Roberts on the short roll. Roberts struggled to make those shots early, so Sampson zigged by running Cryer off a bunch of screens and getting him rolling. Cryer scored 16 of his career-high-matching 30 points in the first half.

“When LJ’s got it going, there’s a little Barry Sanders to him,” assistant coach (and Kelvin’s son) Kellen Sampson said, “in that he starts, stops, accelerates, slows down, and he’s so good at setting up screens and actions and finding that separation that we couldn’t put him in space enough with a screen and then just let him figure it out.”

At halftime, Kelvin Sampson made an adjustment to get Roberts to his left hand more, with a few words of encouragement to push home the point.

“They’re pushing you right, but that’s what they want you to do,” Sampson said he told Roberts. “At some point you got to say, you know what, I’m left-handed. I’m gonna get to my left hand.”

With Cryer and Emanuel Sharp giving Roberts the space, he continuously got the ball on the short rolls and followed coach’s orders, dropping in his soft left-handed hook on repeat. Roberts scored 12 of his 18 points after halftime, and Sharp also had a mini-run himself, finishing with 12 points. Even Tugler, the team’s defensive star, is starting to gain confidence in his jump hook and Sampson ran an after-timeout play to get him that shot, which he made on his way to 10 points.

“It speaks to their maturity that we don’t run plays, we execute them,” Kellen Sampson said. “And this team, maybe more so than any other team, digests a game plan as well as any other team and they understand that why we’re running certain actions in particular moments to get to something specific.

“I think that’s what they’re awesome at. Yes, they can put the X in the O, but the Jimmys and the Joes know why we’re doing it, and they know how to go make it work.”

On great teams, no one cares who scores, and that’s the case for the Cougars. Case in point: It was the first time since March 1 that Uzan, who finished with seven points, hadn’t scored in double figures; he instead played facilitator in those middle ball screens and finished with eight assists.

Gonzaga, which was under-seeded as a No. 8 seed despite its No. 9 overall ranking at KenPom, appeared to be a formidable opponent after blowing out Georgia in the first round. The Bulldogs had the 12th-best defense in college basketball over the last two months, per Bart Torvik.

Gonzaga struggled to handle Houston’s physicality early – starting 1 of 6 from the field with three turnovers – but eventually scored more at its normal pace. In fact, Gonzaga scored the most points against Houston’s defense since that Feb. 1 loss to Texas Tech. Gonzaga even made it uncomfortably close with a late 16-5 run, sparked on by a 1-3-1 trapping defense. It was the only thing all night that slowed down the Cougars.

But, in typical Houston fashion, when Cryer missed what felt like a key 3 in the final minute, backup guard Mylik Wilson was there to grab the offense rebound – one of 13 for the Cougars – and his ensuing free throw pushed the lead back to five.

Gonzaga did have a shot to tie on its final possession, but Khalif Battle fumbled a handoff and had his desperation 3-pointer blocked by Ja’Vier Francis.

Next up is Purdue, a team that has struggled to defend inside the arc this year. Sampson will surely have a plan to exploit that, as the Cougars, at full strength, continue to work their way toward San Antonio.

“That’s what makes us feel so good,” Sharp said. “Everybody’s here. Everybody’s feeling great, playing great.”

The execution piece, Sharp said, has been there on all of his teams at Houston, but there is one differentiator this time around.

“We make more shots this year,” Sharp said. “Our shot making has been great this year.”

Sharp then knocked on wood.

Four more games to stay healthy and keep making those shots.