The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - UH Head Coach Kelvin Sampson Talks Early Season & This Week’s Matchup vs FSU

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

UH Head Coach Kelvin Sampson Talks Early Season & This Week’s Matchup vs FSU

Very pleased for the first time this year to spend 10 quality minutes with one of the finest human beings and basketball coaches you will find in this great country of ours. We say hello to Kelvin Sampson, head coach of our Houston Cougars. This Saturday, we're taking on Florida State inside Toyota Center. Coach, thank you for the time as always. And I got to get with the NBA because every time you guys play, we're playing too. So I have been bored of seeing you in person. And from all the looks of things, Vegas was a good trip. I know you wanted to go 3-0, but what great competition you faced there at that players are a tournament?

Yeah, good to talk to you, too, Matt Thomas. Yeah, that was a good trip in a lot of ways. I don't know that I can say that we left there playing great, but, you know, November basketball is, it is what it is. You're throwing some new guys out there. You're trying to mesh. You're building chemistry. your defense, you're figuring out, can we do this or can we do that.

You know, the players are still trying to find themselves. And as coaches, we're still looking at what's best for this team. You know, you can practice for four, five, six weeks. But until you get in the game and see how the other coaches are defending you or the actions they're running that you're struggling with, maybe you can go back and try to work on it or fix. that I think we're still in that stage right now, but I like this team, Matt. I'm excited about where we can be as time goes on.

You know, we're in December now, so we've got to start making some hard decisions on whether it's what we're doing or personnel, but that's the fun part of coaching is trying to solve the issues as they pop up. And at the same time, seeing these young kids, we have developed and grow. And I'm really, really proud of our leadership we have on this team. Calvin, you have been able to adapt to the times. Some of it very good. Some of it a lousy part of the world that is college athletics.

You have two amazing young freshmen, Flemington Cinnick, who have helped you out. But knowing you for as long as I have, you know that freshmen make freshman mistakes. And sometimes they need to grow. And maybe it's halfway into conference play. before they can do that. And I don't want to talk about the two young men, Chris and Kingston, by themselves, but just in general, are you Calvin Sampson having to adjust how you treat your freshman because of the fact that your recruiting classes are as phenomenal as ever?

You're having another great one here, and you have with these guys? Have you had to change a little bit about your philosophy, about playing time, way you teach, maybe you're teaching faster, knowing that these guys have got, you know, big-time aspirations beyond obviously helping the university. Houston winning a national championship? Well, I think it goes all the way back a little deeper, Matt, and the kind of kids they are, their backgrounds. You know, we want to help them develop and be the best they can be

so they can get to the next level, whatever that level may be. It's not always the NBA. I mean, there's a lot of basketball played around this world. You know, Malik Wilson and J. popped in when we got back from Vegas. They were on their way back to, Malik was flying back to Budapest and Hungary. That's where he's playing.

J-Wan is playing in Berlin and Germany. Justin Gorm, Fabian White, Josh Carlton, Kyler Edwards, Tage Moore. No, I'm leaving somebody out. They're playing professional basketball. Rob Gray's doing really well. But for some of these guys, do want to play in the NBA and the adjustment the adjustment is I think more patience than

anything else there because they're going to make the mistakes that you know freshmen make but we're we still have championship aspirations now whether or not we can be champions I have no idea but I know that developing these kids and throwing them in a deep end early gives us a much better chance later, maybe not see the results today. But I think down the road, it's really going to help them, but also help us. But you know, Emmanuel Sharp, Milo Zuzan, Jojo Tugler, Ramon Walker, Mercy, Chase, Ced, Cordell. You know, we've got a lot of returning players. And just watching these kids go against those guys every day is really is really helping them our practices are you know can be intense you've seen them right but but it's been helping these freshmen make

their mistakes and then when they come to get in the games they've had they have that experience to build off calvin sampson our guests here on the matt thomas show with ross again you've aged going to play florida state coming up this saturday inside totus center already finishing off a trip to Las Vegas, have a visit to Brooklyn coming up soon to take on Arkansas. Scheduling, too. Look, you know, I love who you're playing, what you're playing for, the non-conference schedule. Have you been able to quantify that as to, man, that does pay off for us in January and February, or is, look, the Big 12, just a different animal in itself? No, there's always got to be a balance for the, for how we schedule.

But Syracuse is a good team. They beat Tennessee last night. Notre Dame beat Missouri last night. A lot of times, if we don't play well but still win, a lot of times you may say, well, that team wasn't that good. You may not have the information to know whether that's a true statement or not. But I knew that Notre Dame was a good team. Missouri is a good team.

We played Tennessee, so we know. know they're good. And they lost to Syracuse. So all these teams are good enough to beat you. And if you continue to get better, we're good enough to beat them too. But you're right about the Big 12. We saw Iowa State out in Las Vegas. They're really good. Kansas, Kansas is Kansas. I mean, they're always outstanding. Texas Tech. B.Y. but you know the strength of this league this year is teams like Oklahoma State is undefeated they won some big games so is Colorado Colorado's much improved you know we had a good win in Birmingham against Auburn you know and Auburn beat St. Johns the other day and

St. John's is a good team Auburn's a good team so if you're playing quality teams you know you want to be playing good enough to win the game but you also know that there's a lot of things that we can get better at and our hope is that the schedule we're having we're playing now can put us in a position when we get to January and conference play we're able to go compete whether it's at home or on the road with teams that are and I think the best conference in the country this year for sure

we bragged about your freshman a minute ago let's get Emmanuel a little bit, shooting 37% from three. Uzan, just a great ball distributor per usual. You're getting 30 plus minutes from him. Jojo, as long as foul trouble does become an issue, has been as good as expected for you. You mentioned a minute ago about your rotation. Are there some serious questions right now? Are there a few more minutes to be shaved or added to a couple of guys?

How competitive right now internally is it with your guys that feel like can go by eight or nine deep comfortably here? We've been playing nine, you know, solid nine. But, you know, I could go down to eight or they could stay at nine. It just depends on how these kids continue to develop. You know, I was watching Duke and who was that they were playing? Florida last night. That was a hell of a game. That was a hell of a game.

But those teams are playing seven or eight. Yeah. Depth always sounds better. Always sounds good. But at the end of the day, coaches are going to play. play who they think can impact winning in the minutes that they get. By last year, we had Terrence and Malit that came off the bench. Some nights Terrence had it, and the other nights Malik had it.

So you say, well, we're not going to continue to play them both, which one's playing the best? And so you don't want to take your best players off the floor, especially if they're not in foul trouble, and it's a choppy game, and maybe they don't need to come out. So you have a tendency to play your main guys. Up front is, I think, is where we're still a work in progress. Chris is a freshman, still makes freshman plays. I don't say mistakes. Just he makes freshman plays.

He's playing a position. He's never played. So it's not an easy, easy transition for him. You know, everybody wants to play a position down. Fives want to be fours. Fours want to be threes. Threes want to be twos and twos want to be ones. uh ones are just ones are i guess they're only ones that are happy because that's what they are

um but he's playing a position he's never played uh probably stands out more defensively than offensively he played really good against alburn maybe not so good against uh Tennessee but that's uh you know that's a a board you're going to have to ride with with those guys you know can't was really good against tennessee um you know not very good against Notre Dame and probably just average or below against Syracuse. But I know that when we decided to do this, that that's part of the deal. You're going to have a little bit of a roller coaster effect.

But Jojo, Milos, and Emmanuel, they're also dealing with different roles. You know, last year, Emmanuel was probably our third and some nice, our fourth option. This year is some nice. He's our first or second. So that's a different role. Milos was usually our fourth or fifth option last year.

this year he's our first or second so that's a different role kingston was at brunham high school in san antonio uh chris was at link academy in missouri and isaiah harwell was at wasatch academy coming off at acl so that that has our team a little bit kind of in a you know patience mode where we just got to keep plugging keep showing up every day with the right work ethic being a pay attention, learn, follow instructions, be attentive, and figure out how we can take a complete possession. The offense to the defense, defense to the offense, and then just continue to repeat that over the course of five minutes

or six minutes or seven minutes, and we're still working toward that. For a let your run, I want to go back to the Auburn game because I thought that was, even though it was a mid-November game, the game was technically a neutral site, but you know Birmingham and Auburn, that's right around the corner. I thought that got some hair on some guy's chest going on that road and getting that victory. Would you not agree?

Yeah. Especially the two freshmen. Kingston was outstanding that day, and so was Chris. You know, Chris has struggled with his shot, struggled offensively here and there. But the one thing he's been solid with is rebounding. And if you can find one thing that can be your baseline, then you can grow from there. I said, Chris, your rebounding is keeping you on the point. floor. Don't let up in that area. And now we can just start building off that, you know,

whether it's defensively or offensively or making the right play, helping Jojo if he's out a position or if somebody gets beat off the dribble, reading it early and getting over and being a rim protector. There's so many things that don't show up on the scoreboard that you want the freshman be able to do. You take a guy like Javier Francis or J. J.1. Robert. or some of the really good bakes we've had for granted. But they were in there, you know, for J-1, it was his third, fourth, fifth year. Same thing with Javier, his third, excuse me, second, third or fourth year. You know, these guys aren't going to be as good as those guys.

You know, the pro-aspirations, notwithstanding, that's down the road. You're not a pro today. You're a college player and you're an inexperienced college player. So don't say, well, he's an NBA player. He's not an NBA player. We don't have an NBA player on our team. We have guys that could be one day, but they're certainly not today. They're college guys trying to fit into a system that can help them understand what it takes to win, impact winning,

and being a player that finds out or figures out what is it that I'm good at and how can I build from here. But that's the beauty of coaching. That's what my staff and I have. hang our hat on, and we'll just continue to work at it. I don't have any aspirations long-term with this team right now. We just come in every day with these young kids, the veteran guys, and trying to get them to mesh and be a good team. Calvin, thank you for the time, friend.

The Toyota Center's been super cold this year, so you may want to wear like a heavy sweater because it's going to be pretty chilly for that Saturday night game even though there's a roof on it. So be prepared for that. Best of luck against the Seminoles, and it's great talking with you as always. Okay, Matt. Thanks for having me.

You got it. All right. Take care of yourself. Calvin Sampson with this University of Houston head coach. We've taken his Cougars over to Toyota Center this Saturday for a game with Florida State.