What Kelvin Sampson said prior to Houston’s upcoming Big 12 showdown at Arizona
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Houston basketball coach Kelvin Sampson talked about his team’s huge Saturday showdown at Arizona in a media session on Thursday.
The Cougars go into the McKale Center for a 1 p.m. Central time tipoff holding a one-game lead on the Wildcats for first place in the Big 12. Houston is coming off a 76-65 win at home Monday against Baylor, while Arizona lost by three points at Kansas State the following night.
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It will be the first time Houston and Arizona has faced off as conference rivals since the Wildcats joined the Big 12 this past summer.
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But Sampson has a long history with Arizona, having coached against the Wildcats while he was at Washington State when both schools were in what was then the Pac-10.
Here’s a sampling of some of Sampson’s thoughts from Thursday’s media session:
On Arizona as a team
“I think their strengths are, offensively they’re really, really athletic in the backcourt and they have multiple, really good posts. Most teams in the league have good rotations of three like us with J’Wan (Roberts), JoJo (Joseph Tugler) and Ja’Vier (Francis), but they’re able to rotate four guys and stay at a high level.
“They’re extremely well-coached; their plan is suited for that team, their speed is a factor, their transition offense is a factor. And they get their hands on a lot of loose balls and deflections with their athleticism and their speed.”
On going up against Arizona guards Caleb Love and Jaden Bradley
(Bradley is a 6-3 junior and Love is a 6-4 fifth-year senior. The latter is the Wildcats’ top scorer and has shown a knack for making clutch plays.)
FROM BEYOND HALFCOURT TO SEND THE GAME TO OT 🤯
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) January 28, 2025
Caleb Love with the IMPOSSIBLE buzzer-beater on No. 3 Iowa State 🚨
(via @espn)pic.twitter.com/X8zcKl7jGa https://t.co/yqJxDgihSh
“They’ve got two alphas; Love and Bradley are both alphas, and they do a good job of playing off each other. Bradley’s the point guard, Love’s their leading scorer and he’s fearless; he’s not afraid of success or failure. And playing at Arizona, they do an awesome job of feeding off that crowd.”
On Sampson’s history coaching against Arizona
(Sampson was at Washington State when the Wildcats were not only arguably the most dominant team in the Pac-10, but were also one of the nation’s elite programs under then-coach Lute Olson.)
“I thought about that a year ago when they came into the league. … I go way back with Arizona. We took over at Washington State and that was about the time when coach Lute Olson was getting the basketball program going at Arizona, and he created a monster. It saddens me that there’s a generation of kids that will never know what Arizona basketball was with Lute. … They were the program, they set the bar.
“UCLA had the name, but Arizona had the program. They were the preeminent program on the West Coast, they were the best program in the West. I didn’t dare strive to be like them, I just wanted to get to where we could compete with them; they were so far ahead of (Washington State). There weren’t many programs that could touch Arizona for a long, long time.”
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On what else defined Arizona during its great era of basketball
“They had great players, they had a great coach, but what I think separated them and made them so different than any other West Coast school was their fans. It was like being at a Big Ten school fan-wise where most of the Pac-10 schools struggled to get fans to the game. Not Arizona, and they have so many traditions down there. A lot of the coaches in the (Big 12) may not know the history of Arizona, but I do.
“I’ve just always respected Arizona because they were THE program when I started out coaching. They were our Duke, they were our North Carolina, they were our Kentucky; that’s the level, and that’s the show that they were on.
“The other thing I remember is how nice Lute and (his late wife) Bobbi Olson were to Karen (Sampson’s wife) and I; we weren’t very good, most of the games with Arizona, we were never in it, we just weren’t good enough, but through it all, Lute was always nice. … He was just a nice man, and Bobbi Olson was a class, class, class lady. They showed Karen and I how to be professional.”
On Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd
(Lloyd was a former assistant at Gonzaga before being hired by the Wildcats. Sampson also has a longtime friendship with current Gonzaga coach Mark Few, dating back to when Sampson was at Washington State.)
“I knew Tommy a little bit when he was with Mark Few. … Mark and I were good friends when I was at Washington State and he was an assistant coach (at Gonzaga). When Tommy got the (Arizona) job, my first response was, ‘Wow, what a great hire, what a great hire.’ But the Arizona people that didn’t know him, I knew once they got to know him would be thrilled because I just think he’s high-level, and the job he’s done at Arizona, if it was done in the Eastern Time Zone or east of the Mississippi, I think he would get more credit.
“But in the coaching profession, you know who the real ones are, and Tommy’s a real one; he’s got a great staff. And having that structure and having that culture, but the most important thing is talent. Tommy’s always been a great recruiter, especially international kids, so all his teams will have a good balance of kids from different places, but he knows how to coach, knows how to build and kudos to Arizona for giving him an opportunity. He waited a long time for this and he got one of the best jobs in the country at Arizona.”
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On going up against Arizona guard Caleb Love
“He’s dynamic; that’s the best way to describe Caleb. I would say two words, dynamic and fearless. What makes him tough is his success as a player doesn’t alter anything he does; he plays the same way. And he plays the same way if he’s missing shots, too, and to me that just reeks of confidence and it also reeks of the freedom and confidence his coaching staff has in him.
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“He’s allowed to make shots and he’s allowed to miss shots, and coaches understand that’s all part of it, but they’ve got an inside game that allows them to get a lot of offensive rebounds. Your misses only kill you if you’re only depending on your first shot to win the game, but if you can get second and third shots, then that will balance itself out. But watching him at his best, he’s scary; he’s really, really good, and he plays so many minutes and he’s in great shape.
“I think where Tommy’s helped him a lot is playing in the pick and roll; he’s able to hit the roller whether it’s a short roll, medium roll, long roll, he’s learned to play out of these pick and rolls either behind it or in front of it, down the middle. He’s really become a really good basketball player. I think playing for Tommy and that staff has really raised his stock a lot.”
