What Kelvin Sampson said prior to Houston’s Big 12 home game against West Virginia

Houston basketball coach Kelvin Sampson held a media session on Monday in advance of Wednesday’s Big 12 Conference home game against West Virginia.

Tipoff time from the Fertitta Center is set for 7 p.m. Houston enters Wednesday’s game riding an eight-game win streak, and now stand at 12-3 overall and 4-0 in the Big 12 after an 87-57 win Saturday at Kansas State.

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West Virginia improved to 12-3 overall and 3-1 in the league after a 78-70 road win Sunday at Colorado.

Here’s a sampling of some of Sampson’s thoughts from Monday’s media session:

On the play of West Virginia senior guard Javon Small

(Small, a senior guard who transferred from Oklahoma State, is the Big 12’s leading scorer with 19.8 points per game. He had 26 points and made four 3-pointers in Sunday’s win at Colorado.)

“Talent. Talent. Talent. Talent. Swagger. Great ball-handler. Right-handed that can play right or left off the drive. Step-back 3’s.

“You know, their team has a great swagger to them, and I think they gain it from Javon. He’s just one of the best guards in the country, and he scores at all three levels; he’s a great finisher, but a good 3-point shooter and he gets into the paint. … Watching (Sunday’s game) and studying (West Virginia) more (Monday), that’s an extremely well-coached team and I just really love the way Javon plays.”

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On the impact of Houston graduate forward J’Wan Roberts

(Roberts set two milestones in Saturday’s 87-57 win at Kansas State. He became the 52nd player in program history to reach 1,000 points and he also set a new record for the most appearances in a Houston uniform with 150.)

“When he was a freshman, that summer I nicknamed him ‘The Wanderer.’ I worked a basketball camp and was doing a lecture for about 130 kids, and he comes wandering in right in the middle of my lecture asking me where a class was, what building it was in and what time it was, and that’s when I knew that his marbles were a little bit different.

“But he’s gone from that naive wanderer to an absolute pillar of this program. When you look back at this era of what we’re going through right now, you realize the imprint of what J’Wan has in just about every area, whether it’s defensively, rebounding, passing, scoring. And he’s developed all of that, that was not who he was.”

On Houston’s Joseph Tugler and his growth on the defensive end

(A sophomore forward, Tugler recorded his first career double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds in Saturday’s win at Kansas State.)

“Well, he’s going to have a lot more double-doubles if he stays out of foul trouble. Most of his production usually comes from his ability to stay on the floor. … He was so raw when he got here, but he had so much ability, but being able to corral that and tame it and break him from having some bad habits, it has just taken a lot of work, but Jo Jo deserves a lot of the credit for the progress he’s made and it’s still a process with him, but there is no progress without the process and part of the process is failure.

“I tell our guys, ‘Learn to fail, and then learn from failure.’ It’s such an important part of athletics and skill development and competition and winning is learning to do both, but your effort has to be high regardless. So Jo Jo’s one of those guys that comes in every day with great body language, great attitude, and that allows him to improve. He’s a tough kid that really, really wants to be good at this, and he’s getting better.”

On the improvement of the Cougars’ defense since November

(During the Cougars’ current eight-game win streak, they have allowed an average of 49.8 points. In their first seven wins of that streak, they set a Big 12 record of holding opponents to 55 points or less before Kansas State scored 57 points on Saturday.)

“Just cohesiveness. When you’re playing two games every 17 days, that’s tough to get the cohesiveness that you need. And then in November, we had a new guy in there (point guard Milos Uzan) that was replacing one of the best defenders I’ve ever coached (Jamal Shead). But like I always tell you guys, I don’t worry about replacing players; hopefully now, you understand why.

“You’re always going to have to replace players. … I’m sure in November, people thought we weren’t going to be very good because we lost Jamal, or our defense can’t be as good because we lost Jamal, or our offense can’t be as good because we lost Marcus (Sasser), but when you’ve got good players, they’re eventually going to leave. … That’s just the way it is, I don’t think coaches worry about that. I don’t. I just look at what we have and say, ‘OK, how do we make this team; this team doesn’t do it like last year’s team did.’ I fit our defense around last year’s strength and this year, I fit this team’s defense around this year’s versatility.

“Just like any team, we’re no different from anybody else. The more you play, the better you get.”