Houston Escapes Temple Of Doom (For Now)

Houston, do we have a problem?

Certainly doesn’t look that way for the No. 13 ranked Houston basketball team, which beat Temple, 73-66, Thursday night to avenge its only loss of the season. The Cougars are now 21-1 and own the nation’s longest home game winning streak at 31. They are an excellent defensive team and will surely be a team to watch closely in March Madness.

So what is the problem here? Well, let’s take a look at the good news and the bad news for the Cougars all bound in one. The good news is, Houston is coached by Kelvin Sampson, who in five years, has turned the Cougar program around and is without question one of college basketball’s best tacticians. The bad news is, Houston is coached by Kelvin Sampson, who is not exactly best buddies with the NCAA.

When Sampson coached at Indiana from 2006-2008, he was cited for five major NCAA recruiting violations, stemming from the recruitment of Eric Gordon. Gordon was verbally committed with Illinois before changing his mind to go to Indiana and play for Sampson. Before coming to Indiana, Sampson had a successful 12-year run at Oklahoma that was marred by a three-year investigation by the NCAA for rule violations. Impermissible phone calls, numbering 550 believe it or not, was cited in the NCAA’s findings.

I once had a coaching friend, tell me there is an “Honor Among Thieves”, which might explain why so few cheaters get caught by the NCAA. But that theory usually goes by the wayside when you’re trying to steal away a prized recruit, Gordon in this instance, who has committed to another school in your conference.

Indiana forced Sampson to resign early in the investigation in 2008, and by the time the NCAA was finished, he was slapped with a five-year show-cause penalty. Once again, Sampson was cited for making impermissible phone calls. So much for learning your lesson. The show-cause penalty imposed by the NCAA means that the violations will stay for a coach for a specified period of time and can be transferred to another school. Meaning that any school that hired Sampson in the five years would have been on NCAA probation. Houston wisely waited until the five years was up before hiring Sampson in 2014. Now, the Cougars are on their way to a second straight appearance in the NCAA’s and are certainly a team with deep run March Madness potential.

Only time will tell if Sampson can keep the Houston program clear of NCAA troubles. After past transgressions at Oklahoma and Indiana, Sampson is a marked man. Remember how Jerry Tarkanian finished his college coaching career after his historic run at UNLV? At his last job at Fresno State, Tarkanian was remembered more for his battles with the NCAA than any championship runs.

Much like Tarkanian, Sampson is an outstanding coach who knows how to win. He is among the NCAA’s all-time leaders of active coaches in wins, with a 600-321 record and is one of a select group of coaches having led four different schools (Washington State, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Houston) to the NCAA tournament. Sampson is a demanding coach who gets his teams to play with great effort.

Of all the teams I have watched this season, I would rank Houston among the best defensively, along with Virginia and Texas Tech. The athletic Cougars play more aggressively than either Virginia or Texas Tech in their man-to-man defense, and for a team that pressures the ball so hard, they contain exceptionally well. Which translates into way fewer rotations on the defensive end and the ability to contest more shots. No wonder Houston is second in the country in both field goal (36%) and three-point (26%) percentage defense while allowing just 60.5 points per game.

While few would dispute Houston has a national championship caliber defense, the questionmark for the Cougars is clearly on the offensive end. Houston has only two players scoring in double figures, guards Corey Davis (15 ppg) and Armoni Brooks (14.3), and they take 53 percent of the Cougars’ shots. Both Davis and Brooks have unbalanced offensive games, with a majority of their shots coming from the 3-point line. Of the 264 shots Davis has taken, 164 have been from the arc, and Brooks cranks them up at even a higher rate, with 195 of his 274 shots coming on 3’s. The good news is, both have good 3-point percentages, with Davis at 36% and Brooks at 40%. If both shooters are hot in the NCAA’s, Houston will have a chance for a Final Four run. If not, the Cougars could be an early exit.

While on the topic of the NCAA’s, let’s talk about Temple’s chances on the curtain call for Coach Fran Dunphy, who will be retiring at the end of this season. After the Houston loss, the Owls are 15-6 and 5-3 in the American Athletic Conference (AAC). Temple boosted its NCAA hopes by handing Houston its only loss a few weeks ago in Philly. A strong finish in the AAC, which is one of the country’s most under-rated conferences, would put the Owls in a strong position for the NCAA’s.

It would be nice to see Dunphy, who is one of the true gentlemen in college basketball, go out with an NCAA appearance. “There haven’t been many coaches around who have been as successful, respected and as well-liked as Fran,” said Big 5 coaching competitor Jay Wright of Villanova earlier in the season.

I remembered meeting Dunphy early in my coaching career many years ago when visiting my father, Dick Harter, on vacation in Hilton Head. Dunphy had just become the coach at Penn, where my father had coached years before, and he couldn’t have been any nicer. The true test of somebody’s character is how they handle fame, and well into the tremendous success Dunphy would enjoy at both Penn and Temple, he was always cordial when we would bump into each other recruiting.

All season long, I have been talking about college basketball’s most under-rated coaches and Dunphy is definitely at the top of that list. His 572-323 coaching record and 17 trips to the NCAA’s is outstanding, but if Dunphy possessed a bigger ego, his accomplishments would probably be even greater. While Dunphy was winning three consecutive Ivy League championships at Penn without losing a league game between 1992 to 1995, he was one of the hottest names in college basketball. Florida, before Billy Donovan led them to two consecutive national titles, was among the many jobs he turned down. Dunphy, who has lived in Philly his entire life, was never going to leave the city he loves. When Hall of Fame Coach, John Chaney, retired at Temple in 2006, he was the right man for the job.

Temple is a good job, but not a place like Florida where you can win national championships. Not that much of this likely matters to the egoless Dunphy anyway. I imagine one more trip to the big dance will have him leaving the game feeling just fine.