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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: TULSAMarch 21, 2019Kelvin SampsonCorey Davis Jr.Galen RobinsonTulsa, Oklahoma THE MODERATOR: We are open for questions. Q. Galen, earlier this week you had mentioned about the difference this time around from last year, you were the newcomers. Do you have like an example of what's different or what the locker room is like from last year being the first time in a decade to now making your second one in a row? GALEN ROBINSON, JR.: Just like the guys who never been to the NCAA Tournament, they were asking us what are we about to do now? We had all the answers. Just this and the open practice. How many people are going to be there? All the excitement, the questions we had last year, we had the answers to. We just know what to expect. Q. Either one of you. You guys are such a big favorite on paper and you're the highest ranked seed against a team that most would say have no chance. Has the coach addressed the idea that anything can happen in this tournament, and what are your thoughts of being such a big favorite? COREY DAVIS, JR.: I mean, I just really feel like paying attention to like what's going on in the media, like who is favored to do what, that never really -- like it doesn't resonate with us. We're always conscious of coming out, playing hard and playing cooler basketball. Doesn't matter what the opponent is, what their seeding is, how big the team is. It matters how hard we play and how intense we come out. Q. A big point of emphasis has been made on Georgia State and their ability to shoot the 3. You guys also really good at defending the 3. Can you kind of talk about the confidence and the defense as a whole? GALEN ROBINSON, JR.: I just have confidence in our coaching staff and the game plan they have for us to have success to defend the 3-point line. I know as a team we carry it -- we take a lot of pride in defense, but I believe in our game plan. That's what we're going to go by. COREY DAVIS, JR.: Reiterating what Galen said. We have amazing confidence in our defense regarding guarding the 3. Whatever. We have a great amount of confidence in ourselves. I know with me on point, we're ahead of that. We're on point. The rest of the guys will follow through and we'll carry out our game plan. Q. If you could describe maybe how Coach Sampson has changed the culture at Houston and really elevated things to 31 - 3 record is just amazing. When you first talk about the Phi Slama Jama, how about that? GALEN ROBINSON, JR.: It's always great to kind of relate it back to Phi Slama Jama, what they -- the history they made. To even be compared to them is a blessing, definitely. You know, we want Cincinnati make history. We don't want to live in it. We want to make our own destiny and do something special that's never been done. COREY DAVIS, JR.: I think Coach Sampson, like everyone already knows, he plays a big part in our success. He's taught us a lot. We've learned so much from him. He's taught us a new way of how to play basketball. We played with a lot of energy that we didn't know, me for certain. I didn't know until Coach Sampson introduced everything to me. Just what he shared on basketball to me. I give him all the credit, honestly. Q. Corey, the NCAA posted a video a couple days ago that showed the life of a student-athlete. You tweeted jokingly -- obviously delete this, and there's a lot of reaction to it -- what is the life of a student-athlete truly like and specifically for you, because Kelvin has praised you for going to class and being studious. There's obviously a different version of that video. COREY DAVIS, JR.: To just mildly put it, it's a lot harder than what the video shows. It's a lot more that goes into it than just trying to get sleep, going to class, enjoying your social life, going to practice. A lot more, especially emotionally, mentally that goes into the everyday life of a student-athlete. Q. Galen you have 101 career wins at Houston. That's the second most. Can you just, in your wildest dreams, did you ever see that happening when you decided to play here? And then if you could kind of reflect on that and what it means to you. GALEN ROBINSON, JR.: In a nutshell, no. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. But I believed in myself and I believed in Coach Sampson and the vision that he showed me. You know, I just went in with a blindfold, and all I ever did was just meet the standard that he set for me, and, you know, I followed whatever he laid out before me. And by the grace of God, I had the kind of success I had. What was the second question again? Q. Reflecting on it. GALEN ROBINSON, JR.: Yeah. Looking back at everything and how far we've come as a program, it's really nothing short of a blessing. Kind of like -- I don't know, I can't even put into words, but our new arena, the fan base. I remember we had to go to frat houses and knock on people's doors and "Come to the game." They'll tell us, "We're coming. Just to get us to the game." I know they weren't coming to the game. I could hear my mom's voice -- like I can't even hear anymore. Coach Sampson, that's the dude. That's the guy. Q. I'm not sure which one of you guys, in terms of D' Marcus Simonds, how y'all playing defensively if one of you will be on him, but what do you think of him and what they do on the defensive end? They run kind of variation of a 2 - 3 zone, like to mix it up a little bit. Have y'all seen much of that in terms of how maybe that will affect what you do, or does it nag you at all on the offensive end? COREY DAVIS, JR.: Yeah, we've been watching a lot of film going over our scouting, our game plan the way we do. They have a great team. Simonds is a very great player. He does a lot with the ball, off the ball. They play kind of like a matchup zone. So I mean, speaking from a shooter's standpoint, I love zones. We're kind of prepared for that. We'll be ready. GALEN ROBINSON, JR.: Piggyback on what he said. Simonds, he's definitely dynamic with the ball, lot of moves, real deep bag. In regards to the zone, our coaches are going to have a game plan. We know what it is, but we can't tell that to you guys. Q. Galen, you mentioned that guys who haven't been here asking you questions. Do you have answers? No one had the answers for you guys last year. What difference do you think that will make in terms of the nerves and being prepared for what you will see this weekend? GALEN ROBINSON, JR.: I remember last year coaches told us to attack it as just another basketball game. None of us ever been on that stage. We definitely have experience and we definitely -- we're definitely a pretty poised veteran group. We got an older team, veteran team. That plays into our favor in regards to any kind of scenario or environment that might be in front of us. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the Cougars of Houston? Okay. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Best of luck tomorrow. As advertised, the head coach of the Cougars is here, Kelvin Sampson. KELVIN SAMPSON: Anytime you make the tournament, it's a reward. Always thrilled to see our young kids and how they react to being in the tournament for the first time. We've got two freshmen, three sophomores that haven't played in the NCAA Tournament game, so I'm anxious to see -- actually two sophomores -- to see how they handle some things. But I like -- our team. I've liked our team all year. Once we hit Thanksgiving, you kind of have a little bit of an idea, and by the time you get to Christmas, those are always kind of milestones for me over the years. Thanksgiving, Christmas. You hit Christmas, you kind of have an idea of whether you have a good team or not. Because you can still improve, but you kind of know who you are by then. I thought we were pretty good. But how you do in close games -- we've won a ton but lost of a couple as well. Came out of a tough league. The thing I was most proud of how we played on the road, being 8 - 1 on the road in our league was outstanding for this group. So, you go through the regular season and stack it up, and next thing you know, you're in the NCAA Tournament and here we are. Q. Houston is obviously a very proud basketball program, traditionally. When you start throwing round first since Phi-Slama-Jama says a lot. How have you been able to elevate the program to this level, and how have you evolved as a coach getting to where you're at now? KELVIN SAMPSON: Well, I've asked that question a lot, too. I think there's some dormancy. When the Big 8 expanded to the Big 12, I think Houston kind of become a little bit of an orphan. They were the only Texas school not to go to the Big 12. You know, they could have easily went with Baylor and Tech and -- I was in the Big 12, I should have known who the four teams were. A & M and Texas. Then later when they reconstructed, TCU went in. Could have easily been in those groups. You know, fans, they want to connect to something. When they move conferences, I think they lost a little bit of the fan base. I think the administration I don't think valued basketball enough, and I don't think they invested. I think that's where it starts. You know, basketball coaches and players, you know, win games. I know our people that follow us -- sick of me saying this, but our administration is the reason why. They stepped up. Before I got there, every four years they fired a coach. They didn't change anything. They were going to fire me in four years, too. I wasn't interested in going in that situation. We had to get some things ironed out, find out what their commitment was. Even then, for a year and some change we played all our home games at Texas Southern University. It's been tough and fun. I've enjoyed every step of this adventure, this journey that we've been on getting this program back going. But you know what Coach Lewis did with Elvin Hayes and that group, what he did with the Phi Slama Jama era people can identify with, there was a history. There was -- it had been done. When something has been done before, it can be done again. It's just a matter of getting the right pieces and people together, and that's what we did. Q. I need to read you some stuff that Ron Hunter said prior to you coming out here. He said, "I love Kelvin. When I was 6 years old, I think Kelvin was 60. I grew up wanting to be Kelvin. When your grandfather is coaching at the other end over there, I got to ask for permission for everything. He said he knows that you don't know he refers to you as "grandpa." Before the game, when y'all shake hands, he's going to say, "Grandpa, I love you." What do you think about all that? KELVIN SAMPSON: Well, I am a grandfather and actually a very proud one. I hope my granddaughter is as proud of her grandfather as I am my granddaughter, little Maisie Jade. Q. That's it? KELVIN SAMPSON: You want something else? That's not good enough for you? Q. Kelvin, during your six years in the NBA, I guess a two-part deal, number one: Was it always your intent to come back to college basketball; and number two, what was your ultimate takeaway from the NBA? Was it like going to grad school or getting your Master's in basketball? KELVIN SAMPSON: No. The first part is an easy answer. No, it was never my intent to come back to college. I was interviewing for some head coaching jobs, and just because you interview for a job, sometimes it's not -- sometimes you may decide that you're interviewing them, too. Some jobs that it's -- it's a tough one there, let's move on down the road and see if we can wait for a better one. There's always an assumption when you interview for jobs, you didn't get it. But there was some tough ones. But I wanted one where we could have a chance build, whether it's through the draft or free agency, and I enjoy talking to presidents, owners about the future of their franchises and how we could build the organization around the best players. That's where -- I wanted to be a head coach in the NBA. But I learned a lot in the NBA. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. I think I was a good enough coach to help an NBA team win a game when I first got to that league. I think my "hello" moment was when I was in San Antonio with Pop and Mike Budenholzer and Bret Brown and Donnie Newman were doing all the scouting reports -- so when you've been a head coach your whole career, you've never seen another guy do it. I was head coach when I was really young, so I had to experiment and fail and fail and fail and figure it out. Just the freedom, the delegation that Pop gave his assistants and how they came up with how to guard actions on their own. It was their decision. That jumped out at me. I never done that before. I made all the decisions. Then just the multiple ways to do things. How to guard pick and rolls. In the NBA you better be able to guard pick and rolls somewhere. Slot, middle, side, step upset. I didn't know about a lot of that stuff. We had trouble guarding pick and roll, we just went zone. I didn't know how to adjust the way those guys did. I said, "Wow, man, I got a lot to learn. These guys are way smarter than I am." Then when I got to Milwaukee, Scott Skiles, who we were connected through our Michigan State days with Jud Heathcoate -- Scott was a brilliant, brilliant, tactician. He really was. I read where people were brilliant tacticians, but I never seen one or worked with a brilliant tactician. He was. He lived for the last two minutes of an NBA game. That's the only reason I wanted to be a NBA coach. I wanted to coach those last two minutes. I loved that. Scott knew how to do NBA stuff, how much film to watch, how little film to watch. In the NBA is such a long season and you're grinding. I know you guys have Billy Donovan here. I'm sure Billy went through the same thing. How much, how little. I had to go through all that. But I was becoming addicted to that. And then when I went to the Rockets with Kevin McHale, Kevin was unbelievable to me. I was the associate head coach, so I got to assign all the scouting reports. I was allowed to do a lot of head coaching things with the rockets, and Kevin was great about delegation. He gave me a lot of freedom, lot of rope to do things that I had learned just coaching against the other teams in the ledge, how they did things. That's kind of where I was headed. I was learning. I would say -- I don't know allow to compare it to a Master's degree or anything, but I know it made me -- it made me better, and I appreciate everybody that I coached in the NBA with, especially Gregg Popovich, Scott Skiles and Kevin McHale. Q. You talked about the dormancy of the program at one point, administration maybe not paying as much attention to the program as maybe it could have. Playing at another school's arena know, those kinds of things that work against your program. With all of those things being said, how did you sell these young people on coming to the University of Houston and being a part of turning it around? KELVIN SAMPSON: That's a great question. I don't think you understand the depth of how good a question that is because you would have had to have been there. When we brought kids on campus, we didn't have anywhere to take them. When a kid comes -- when you're recruiting a young man, he's taken other visits to other schools. So when he comes to your school, he's going to compare. Just like if you went on a job interview, you're going to compare it to the job you have or a job you had. And it's really what it is, it's an interview with the young man. There was a lot of frustration. I got frustrated with people. I said, "What are we doing here? You guys say you want to win, but what are you doing to win?" I know a lot of people were probably frustrated with me, you know, because there was a lot of -- I know the -- I don't know if "demand" is the right word. We kept saying we have to do this. I think the worse thing you can say to someone, "Well, this is what we've always done," especially when you haven't had success. If that's what you've always done, let's stop right there. Let's evaluate what you just said. So we had to change our attitudes. Before you can change attitudes, you have to change behavior. That was the biggest thing in Houston was changing the behavior. The top of the league was Cincinnati and at time Larry Brown was at SMU doing great. Connecticut. That's one of the things that drew me to the job was the top of the league. I didn't look anywhere but the top because that's I remember where you want to be at the top of the league. You don't go to the league to be at the bottom. I always had the sense that's -- there was an acceptance of who we are without a burning desire to be better than that. That's where you've got -- you can't be afraid to fail. You can't be afraid to stick your neck out there. You've got to fight for something a little bit. But when we brought kids on campus, we had nowhere to take them. Mack Rhoades got that practice facility going. He deserves a lot of credit for that. We got that going, you know. I wanted that construction fence up today. I wanted those bulldozers and machines in there today. That thing needed to be dug. Those kids that were selling that vision, they need to see that. You can talk all you want, but they need to see it and feel it. They need to know that this is going to change. The guy that bought into the vision first was Galen Robinson. He bought into a vision when there's nothing to see. There was nothing to see, just -- here is what Coach Sampson said and he could have taken it and ran with it or he could have -- he visited Georgetown, TCU. I knew what they had and we didn't have. We had a vision. We didn't have anything. I appreciated him for buying into it. Q. You were talking a couple days ago about how you'd like to see the NCAA make so much money off these tournaments and you've been doing it for so long and how you would like to see players and their families be able to attend more. Anything come to mind for any of your current players where the families weren't able to make it? What would your like to see the NCAA do to make sure that the families can afford to watch their sons and daughters play in the NCAA Tournament? KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah. Anytime you talk about that, it always goes back to the monitoring process which has to go through the school. Somehow -- it's not just -- it's not money. It's travel and hotel rooms. One of my kids -- I'm not going to mention who it is -- his parents would like to come. The only way they could come would be to drive and then they would have to get a hotel room possibly for -- if they came in on Friday, they would be Friday and Saturday night. For a lot of people that's not a big deal. That's a big deal for that family. They don't have the money to do that. They would have to decide how they would do it. And I've had families ask me, "can I sleep on my son's floor in his room?" Think about that now. That's my life. That's not unusual for me. "Can I sleep on the floor" because they don't have the money to pay for a room. When you look around at how big this industry has become, why can't we figure that out? I'm not saying give them this or that. I'm saying when young men get to the NCAA Tournament, let's find a way to get their parents and their brothers and sisters a plane ticket and a hotel room. I don't think that's asking too much. THE MODERATOR: Final question. Q. Kelvin, you talk about some assistants you've worked with and assistants under Pop, et cetera. How did the NBA change your experience with assistants and what do you do with Alvin Brooks and those guys that work with you? KELVIN SAMPSON: That was another thing, Jerome. I wish -- obviously not the way I did it, obviously, but I wish every college coach could take a sabbatical, step back a year and go spend a year in the NBA, following a coaching staff to see how they do things. It's got to be a head coach. I think I'm a lot more -- I delegate more, I trust more, I give more responsibility. I prepare them a little better. I've had a lot of assistants go on to become head coaches. You can always get better. You can always do better. You know, as you get to a certain point in your career, you can see where you're headed here now. Just being able to get back to the game as much as you can but help those people around you. I didn't know Bret Brown and Mike Budenholzer. Donny Newman was my assistant at Washington State for five years, so I knew Donny. I could tell Mike Budenholzer was a head coach. I could tell Bret was. I worked with Lionel Hollins in Milwaukee. Lionel was a head coach. Those guys acted like head coaches. I went back -- when I got back to college, I said I want my assistant coaches to act like head coaches but work like assistant coaches. And that's kind of what we've -- the culture that we've established here at Houston. I want them all to think like head coaches but work like assistant coaches. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. Best of luck tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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