What Kelvin Sampson said after Houston’s title-game loss: ‘Incomprehensible'

To get to where Houston was on Monday, playing for a national title, it took talent, execution and a little bit of luck.

Monday night, however, the Cougars’ luck ran out. After building a 12-point lead in the second half of the NCAA Tournament championship game, they relinquished it and made some costly turnovers down the stretch as Florida roared back to stun the Cougars, 65-63.

Houston title dreams denied once again as Florida completes furious comeback

Following the game, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson offered his thoughts on a loss that ended the Cougars’ 18-game win streak. It also denied Houston and Sampson each its first-ever national title, as well as preventing Sampson from winning both his 800th career game and 300th as Houston’s coach.

Here is a sampling of what Sampson had to say:

On the gut-wrenching loss, two nights after Houston pulled off an improbable comeback to beat Duke

“I told our guys after the game to be disappointed you lost, but do not be disappointed in your effort. Defending Florida is difficult. They got a really, really good team; Coach (Todd) Golden runs great schemes over there.

“We guarded 'em. We held that team to 65 points. Thought if we held Duke to under 70, we'd have a good chance to win. I felt like if we held Florida under 70, we'd have a good chance to win.

“Saturday (when Houston rallied from 14 points down in the second half to beat Duke), we found a way to win. (Monday) maybe not so much. … We lost by two points. They made one more play than we did (Monday).”

DId missed goaltending call cost Houston a national title?

On Houston turning the ball over in its last two possessions

(With 26 seconds left, while going for a loose ball, it glanced off the knee of Houston guard Emanuel Sharp and went out of bounds. Then with time running out, Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. forced Sharp to travel as he was attempting to release a potential game-winning 3.)

“Yeah, I'm just going through those last two possessions more than anything else. Incomprehensible in that situation we couldn't get a shot, couldn't get a shot.

“We're down two, and obviously we didn't need a 3. But with Emanuel, we were struggling to score the entire second half. We got good looks. But Florida was doing a good job running us off the line and forcing us to score it. We just didn't do a very good job of finishing some shots.

“We had a good plan, we just didn't score it well enough to win. Scored it well enough to be in a position to win. At the end, you've got to get a shot. Got to do better than that.

“(On the last possession) we have a set where it's a staggered gate. We thought if we could get Emanuel to shot fake and get downhill - I have to look back at the film. I don't know if the ball slipped out of his hands.

“Probably should have shot faked that. … Clayton made a great play on that. That's why you got to shot fake and get in the paint. Two is fine.”

Houston lands frontcourt standout from nearby school in transfer portal

On Houston’s defense and keeping Clayton in check for the most part

(Clayton went into Monday’s game averaging nearly 25 points during the tournament, including 34 in Saturday’s semifinal win against Auburn. He was held scoreless in the first half Monday but had some huge shots to fuel Florida’s second-half comeback and finished with 11 points.)

“Our defense was so good the first half. Of course, a big part of our defense was Clayton, because he's elite. He really is.

“We missed an assignment when he came off. Our goal was to not give him a full-court layup. He gets that a lot, watching the SEC games. So we took that away.

“We didn't want him to get a shot going to his left. If he was going to shoot a 3, we wanted it going right. We did an awesome job on that except for one. He made a big one late.

“I'm proud of our guys for how they guarded (Monday). That was a tough ballgame. Two tough teams. Florida's tough.

“The way we looked (Monday), we've won a lot of games like that. Some nights we struggle offensively. But we usually find ways to win. (Monday) we didn’t.

“Again, we're disappointed we lost. We thought this was a game that if we played well, we could win. And we did play well. We just didn't play very good the last three minutes. That's been a strength of ours all year long, was winning close games. But (Monday) we didn’t."