Kelvin Sampson and Houston are out for blood
The Cougars are a national title contender that doesn't get talked about like one.
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Sunday afternoon was yet another example of the ruthlessness of this season’s Houston squad. For a moment, it looked like the Cougars were going to overtime in their regular-season finale after an absurd series of bounces led to a game-tying three from Memphis’s Boogie Ellis.
No shame in going to OT against a Memphis team desperately trying to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes alive, right? Right! Tramon Mark, however, said to hell with that and pulled out a dagger for each and every member of the Memphis basketball program and promptly stuck it in their backs. On the Sabbath, no less! Have you no shame?!
“Lucky” shot or not, it’s another feather in the cap for a Houston team that is mean, nasty, and a very dangerous threat to win the NCAA Tournament. Houston hasn’t gotten the same level of buzz as teams like Gonzaga, Baylor, and [INSERT YOUR BIG TEN TEAM OF CHOICE HERE], but it checks a lot of boxes that make them a legitimate contender.
Sunday’s win was Houston’s 21st of the season to cap off a 21-3 campaign and 14-3 showing in the AAC. They’ll be the 2 seed in the AAC’s conference tournament after Wichita State got the top nod by way of winning percentage despite fewer wins than the Cougars. Nonetheless, Houston should be the favorite to take home the auto-bid. They’re playing for top-line seeding in the NCAA Tournament, not a bubble bid like other counterparts in the league.
How did Houston get here? In simple terms, they just kick their opponents’ ass on a nightly basis. The Cougars are a balanced team on both sides of the ball that looks to methodically grind their foes into a fine powder. They’re one of four teams to be ranked in both the top 10 of Adjusted Offensive and Defensive efficiency at KenPom (the Cougars rank 9th in both). The other three? Gonzaga, Michigan, and Illinois. History shows that a team needs to be elite on both ends of the floor to win it all (2014 Connecticut being the lone exception).
Everything about Houston’s defense is just *chefs kiss*. If you had to find one fatal flaw, it’s that the Cougars put their opponents at the charity stripe a TON (they rank 334th in the country in free throw rate). They’ve only allowed their opponents to score 1.00 points per possession three times this season, two of which resulted in losses. Every aspect of their defense is suffocating. They’re limiting opponents to 28.6% from 3-point range (8th nationally), 43.0% inside the arc (6th nationally), and just 66.4% from the free-throw line, which is 16th in the nation and definitely something that is within their power to impact. On top of that, they rank 13th in block rate and 9th in steal rate.
So, uh, yeah. Good luck!
On the other side of the ball, this is the most efficient team that Kelvin Sampson has ever had. As mentioned above, Houston ranks 9th in AdjO, marking the first time that Sampson has ever had a team in the top 10 and just the 3rd time in the top 20. The Cougars don't turn it over often (16.6% of possessions, 52nd nationally), and they shoot it relatively well from deep (35% from three). Nothing about their offensive approach would be considered elite, except for one thing: offensive rebounding.
The Cougars rank 2nd in the country in offensive rebounding rate at 39.5%, and 3rd in offensive rebounds per game. Senior forward Justin Gorham ranks 4th nationally in offensive rebounding rate, hauling down over four per contest. Offensive rebounding isn’t a sexy stat like other offensive metrics, but it’s representative of what makes this Houston team so good.
The Cougars are going to work harder than you and beat the hell out of you in the process.
It can be cliche to say that effort doesn’t take a night off, but that’s the reality of this Houston team. Even on nights when shots aren’t falling or when they aren’t bringing their “A” game, the Cougars can still grind out W’s on the defensive end and by imposing their will physically on the opposition. That’s been the DNA of all of Kelvin Sampson’s teams dating back to his early Oklahoma teams, including the 2002 team that made the only Final Four of his career.
Houston’s roster is comprised of a healthy mix of talented transfers and young, developing talent. After an underwhelming stint at Kansas, Quentin Grimes has found the form that made him such a highly-touted All-American coming out of high school. The steadying presence of former transfers in Grimes and senior DeJon Jarreau (UMass) has allowed talented younger guards like Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark to develop without having the burden of carrying an offense.
Those four guards alongside Gorham have become the de-facto go-to lineup for Sampson, and it provides enough shooting and defensive malleability to be able to hang with just about any type of look that the opposing coach might try to throw at Sampson’s bunch.
In an analysis of Final Four teams during the one-and-done era that ran in a Basketball Joe newsletter earlier in the season, I examined how experience and continuity affect NCAA Tournament success. The analysis showed that Final Four teams from the one-and-done era had an average roster experience of 1.66 years and 56.3% minutes continuity according to KenPom.
Houston checks in at 1.81 years of experience and 53% minutes continuity. It’s important to note that that’s not an automatic indicator stating that those two metrics mean they’ll be a Final Four team. But they do indicate that Houston’s roster makeup has a similar profile to teams that have made deep runs.
Barring a major collapse in the AAC Tournament, Houston is poised to wind up on the 2 or 3 seed line. While other teams might be more trendy to pick for a deep run in your bracket, the Cougars might be a more fundamentally sound pick based on their makeup. And that could play out to your benefit in your pools! Do you think Rick in Accounts Payable is picking Houston? Hell no. He’s picking all 1 seeds and a Big Ten team that he watched in a hotel room on a Tuesday night in January.
Houston’s appeal comes back to the fact that they’re going to play harder than their opponent almost every single night. With their physicality and in-your-jersey approach, it could make for a tough adjustment for a team coming off of short rest during the tight schedule of the NCAA Tournament.
There are sexier picks to make a Final Four run. And that’s okay.
Nothing about Houston is sexy. But that’s just the way Kelvin Sampson and Houston like it.
See you next Monday. Enjoy the hoops.
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