Houston’s Men’s Basketball Team Reaches No. 1 This Season For First Time Since 1983

In April 2014, the University of Houston hired Kelvin Sampson as its men’s basketball coach. The move was noteworthy as Sampson had not coached in college since February 2008 when he resigned under pressure from Indiana for breaking NCAA rules related to impermissible phone calls to recruits.

Still, the Houston job was nowhere near as glamorous as the Indiana position when Sampson took over. Now, though, Sampson has changed the perception of Houston and brought the Cougars back to national relevance for the first time since the Phi Slama Jama days of the mid-1980s.

In late November, Houston was ranked first in the Associated Press poll for the first time since Feb. 28, 1983, a team that featured future Hall of Famers Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.

After losing, 71-65, to Alabama on Dec. 10, Houston fell to fifth in the AP poll. But the Cougars (16-1) haven’t lost since and became No. 1 again on Monday, collecting a total of 1,457 points and 34 first place votes. They are ahead of No. 2 Kansas (14-1), which had 1,440 points and 22 first place votes, and No. 3 Purdue (15-1), which had 1,386 points and the other four first place votes.

Houston’s place atop the rankings is a testament to Sampson, who took over a foundering program.

Before Sampson arrived, the Cougars had made the NCAA tournament just four times in the past 30 years, losing in the first round each time. They had last won an NCAA tournament game in 1984 when they lost in the tournament’s championship game for the for the second consecutive season.

That’s not to say Sampson was an overnight sensation. Houston didn’t make the NCAAs until his fourth season in 2018, but since then the Cougars have advanced to the tournament each season save for 2020 when the event was cancelled due to COVID-19.

In 2021, the Cougars made the Final Four for the first time in 37 years. They followed that up with an Elite Eight appearance last year even after starting guards Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark sustained season-ending injuries in December.

This season, Houston was third in the preseason AP poll, the highest preseason ranking since the Cougars were second before the 1967-68 season. That optimism was based on the fact that Sasser and Mark are back and healthy and the Cougars added two talented freshmen in forward Jarace Walker and guard Terrance Arceneaux. Walker was 11th and Arceneaux was 40th in the 247Sports Composite rankings for the 2022 high school class.

Sasser, a preseason AP first-team All-American, leads the Cougars with 15.8 points per game. The rest of the starting lineup consists of Walker, who is averaging 10.4 points and 6.1 rebounds per game; Mark, who is averaging 10.1 points per game; forward J’Wan Roberts, who is averaging 9.9 points and a team-high 7.4 rebounds per game; and guard Jamal Shead, who is averaging 7.5 points and a team-high 5.2 assists per game.

Unlike other schools that have relied on transfers, Houston has built a winner through stellar recruiting and development. In fact, the Cougars’ top nine scorers all enrolled at the school out of high school.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Houston is No. 1 in analyst Ken Pomeroy’s rating. The Cougars are second in adjusted defensive efficiency and 10th in adjusted offensive efficiency, joining Connecticut and Kansas as the only schools ranked in the top 10 of each of those categories.

The Cougars return to action on Wednesday night against South Florida at the on-campus Fertitta Center, which is almost always sold out for Houston games. They are averaging more than 7,300 fans per home game this season, above the arena’s 7,035 capacity and up from 2,635 in Sampson’s first season.

Houston is favored to win its remaining 14 regular season games, according to KenPom. That is in large part due to the Cougars’ talent as well the fact Houston plays in the American Athletic Conference, which is ranked eighth in KenPom’s league rankings.

Starting next season, Houston will be a part of the Big 12 Conference, KenPom’s top-rated league for the second consecutive year and eighth time in the past 10 years. The Cougars will then face top 25 teams in league play on a regular basis. It will be a more difficult schedule than now, but with Sampson at the helm, Houston should be up to the challenge and contend for conference and NCAA titles.