SAN ANTONIO – Players and coaches don’t think about legacy. There’s no time, not with practice, scouting, film sessions, individual workouts, NIL commitments, recruiting, media commitments, and more. But starting tonight and stretching for about 48 hours, legacies could be created while others could be rewritten.
With a win over Duke and another in the national championship game, Kelvin Sampson wins his first national title, hits 800 career wins, and 300 wins at Houston. With a national title, J’Wan Roberts gets to 150 wins, exactly half of Kelvin Sampson’s UH total, and cuts down his 11th net (regular season titles in 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025; conference tournament titles in 2021, 2022, 2025; Final Fours in 2021 and 2025; and a national title in 2025). LJ Cryer would become the first player in NCAA history to win national titles at two different schools.
But before that comes Duke, the best team UH has played since Baylor in the Final Four in 2021.
Duke is on an all-time tear, shooting lights out in this Tournament. The Blue Devils are shooting 56.2% and 49.4% from three through four games, averaging over 92 ppg. That’s insane, and all credit goes to Jon Scheyer for building a monster.
Duke has lost only three games—to Kentucky, Kansas, and Clemson—and has gone 31-1 since losing to Kansas in Vegas (the same day the Coogs lost to Alabama). Since then, they’ve only played one one-possession game, boat racing everyone else (save Clemson).
They force teams to play at their own pace, much like Houston does. Duke has only played three games this year in the 60s (UH has squatters’ rights to the 60s). What stands out in those Duke games is that they shoot the three poorly (28/95 – 29.5%) and turn it over more (40 total turnovers – they average 9.1 in the other 35 games). Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel turned it over 22 times in those three games (in the other 35, they averaged about 3.1 TOs per game).
The game at Wake Forest seems to be one that the UH staff would have scouted hard. Wake was physical and kept Duke off-kilter. Flagg (7 turnovers) and Knueppel (5) struggled with Wake’s physicality but still put up excellent numbers. Duke turned it over three times in three minutes to start the game and 16 times overall (tied for their season high).
People around the UH program have said Kelvin Sampson and his staff have a quiet confidence going into the game. Kelvin has intimated that Cooper Flagg might be the best player he’s ever faced in the college game. Still, UH’s experience and ability to force an opponent to play outside their comfort zone will be significant factors.
Sampson’s Houston Cougars are 40 minutes from playing for a national title and 80 minutes from immortalization. He knows that legacies are defined by winning games like these. The Final Four appearance put this team in rarified air, but the next two games could cement this team as Houston’s greatest.