Why Kelvin Sampson Knew Kingston Flemings Was The Right Fit at Houston

Evaluation is extremely important. Especially to Houston Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson on bringing in the right players to his program, which has been one of the biggest collegiate basketball brands in recent years.

Certain criteria need to be met, which he feels is in the best interest of his basketball program and the Houston Cougars, a needle in the haystack with freshman 6-foot-4 guard Kingston Flemings from San Antonio, Texas.

“We make a choice on the ones that we think would best fit us,” Sampson said.

Flemings checked all those boxes.

Evaluation

For 12 seasons as the head basketball coach at Houston, Sampson has used a similar process to assess several athletes and determine which are the best to earn a roster spot.

“We don’t sit here and evaluate kids on how many stars they are or what all-star games they played in,” Sampson said. “That’s for people who aren’t coaches to get excited about that.”

How the veteran of 20 NCAA tournaments does it is that he keeps certain boxes in the back of his mind when he watches games and interviews, so he knows whether that player is built for his system.

“He checked the boxes,” Sampson said. “The intangible boxes that I value. His talent. His vision. His athleticism. His burst. Ball handling. I thought we could help him in certain areas.”

When the former Houston Rockets coach began showing more interest in Flemings, he noticed one thing he really values in a player, as the landscape of collegiate athletics changed with athletes constantly hitting the transfer portal.

It was loyalty.

“Evaluating Kingston, things that jumped out to me was his loyalty,” Sampson said. “He went to the same high school from the ninth grade through the senior year. He didn’t change high schools. He played on one AAU team. San Antonio Futures. That’s the only AAU team he played on.”

That attracted Sampson more to Fleming's skill set on a day-to-day basis. One of the vital things that won the coach over was going against the highly rated players, who brought out Fleming's capabilities in big moments.

“When we started evaluating him — I like to go watch him play against guys I know is going to get their attention. Every big game that he plays, I thought he wanted to match up, no matter who it was. He played against all the best ones.”

Regardless of how many stars an athlete had, Sampson avoided what the experts and reporters said about a player. Instead, he formulated his own opinions based on what he saw from Flemings.

“We don’t sit here and evaluate kids on how many stars they are or what all-star games they played in,” Sampson said. “Coaches don’t even care about that stuff. The good thing was neither did Kingston or his mom or dad or his family.”

Luckily, Sampson stayed on the down low about his interest and convinced Flemings to join the Cougars.

“Kingston’s talent was there,” Sampson said. “Good thing is most people never saw him, but that’s okay. We did.”