NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - RUTGERS VS HOUSTON

March 21, 2021

Kelvin Sampson

Lucas Oil Stadium Unity (South)

Houston Cougars

Postgame Media Conference

Houston 63, Rutgers 60

KELVIN SAMPSON: Hats off to Steve and his kids. I thought Rutgers, they played good. I mean, they really played good. They defended us. They had a good game plan. Their kids played hard.

Unfortunately somebody had to win the game, so I'm proud of our guys. We had a lot of things go against us. We couldn't make free throws. Marcus Sasser's been one of our best shooters all year. He couldn't make a shot. Just didn't play good. But Rutgers had a lot to do with that.

We talk about getting home on the offensive boards. We're not a first-shot team. People that followed us this year, say this was an ugly win. We have some of these occasionally. We have a lot of pretty ones, too. But we have some that look like this. This is not the first game we've won that looked like this.

Our second- and third-chance points, when I went in at halftime, that was my biggest disappointment. You can't ever get upset at your team for shooting poorly. They don't try to miss. Seriously, they try to make shots. But we had three points at halftime, second-chance points. In the second half we had 12. That's how we have to win some nights. On nights when we shoot well, we look good. There's not a lot of teams that can play as poorly as we did and still win, but we've done that a lot.

Offensive rebounding is part of our fiber, part of our DNA. We talk about rebounding and making free throws. A couple weeks ago, seems like a couple weeks, I guess it was just one week ago, we beat Memphis in our conference tournament same way. We made free throws down the stretch and we got offensive rebounds.

Proud of our guys. A lot of adversity tonight. DeJon Jarreau, I thought his leadership was great, probably being half speed. Quentin Grimes, kind of the way his night went, misses two free throws, gets the rebound, backs up and makes the three. When it was 50-40, Fabian White made the big three to make it 50-43. Boy, did we need that. That was a big, big possession. They had some momentum going. A lot of time left, but they had some really positive momentum going at that time.

Then we just kept changing things up. Go zone, go man. Step up screens on the side. Middle screens, spacing. Once we got our spacing straight, we were able to attack with our guards on the offensive boards. They did a good job boxing out our fours and fives. What we did is really, really focused on our wings getting to the offensive boards.

Quentin Grimes I don't think had any offensive rebounds at halftime. Had four in the second half. Tramon Mark had three in the second half. Seven offensive rebounds from your wings. Sometimes when the good Lord closes windows, he opens doors.

They were being physical. Rutgers is big. They were boxing out our fours and fives. But they couldn't box us all out. Really proud of how our wings got in there and got us some second and third shots.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions.

Q. You've seen it all as a coach. How would you describe what DeJon meant to your team, to refuse to go out of that game, to keep playing through obvious pain, and to be a part of the closing minutes to make sure you got into the Sweet 16?

KELVIN SAMPSON: Great point. Maybe the play of the game for us was when he got on the floor after a loose ball. I think we had the possession there down at the end.

I mean, when I say he was in pain, he was in pain. I knew he was going to try to go today. He got a hit early in the game. He's one of our best defenders. He just could not keep those guys in front of him because he couldn't move laterally. Marcus got two fouls the first half. He didn't play any of the first half. Maybe 4 minutes, something like that.

Leadership doesn't have to be loud. It doesn't have to be words. DeJon's leadership was huge tonight just by his actions, refusal to lose. Sometimes you don't play good enough to win, so sometimes you just have to refuse to lose. I would put that in the refuse-to-lose category, and DeJon was the captain of that ship.

Q. Could you talk about the putback that Tramon had, making the free throw in that situation with so much on the line?

KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah, one of the things that helped us -- you never know, sometimes as a coach you're just throwing stuff against the wall to see what works. We couldn't get to the boards big, but we could get to the boards small, especially when we were spaced in the corners.

The action we were running didn't matter. Somebody get off a screen, move it, shoot it. Now, if it goes in, great. If not, we've got to find a way to tip it or get it out.

Playing big, we were just one-and-done too much. So once we went small and got our guards to the boards, that's where we made a difference. That's where Tramon was. Tramon is a good rebounder. He was a terrific high school player, but most of these guys coming into this program never really understood the importance of rebounding. Rebounding is something they said would be in the category of follow through. Follow through, rebounds, just words. Here with us, obviously it's the way of life.

When we had Corey Davis, Armoni Brooks, Rob Gray, great shooters all over the place, we weren't as good of an offensive rebounding team, but we didn't have to be. With this team we have to be. This team has learned to be.

Tramon Mark is a very talented young man. Doesn't matter who we play, he can get up to that talent level. The culture that our team plays with, the rebounding, the offensive rebounding, the toughness, the defense, when we got down 50-40, we kept closing it, we kept missing -- we came out of timeout, ran something. Fabian had a point-blank layup and missed it. We tipped it and missed that. We missed this free throw, that free throw. Seems like there were so many negatives that were going against us that really forced us to persevere. Our perseverance, just refusal to go away.

Did we play poorly? Yes. That's okay. There's a lot of teams that played a lot better than us that's at home tonight. Don't get carried away if you don't play good. That's an ugly win. It's a win. This time of year, I don't evaluate them. What did you think about this? We won the game. We're in the Sweet 16. We play Syracuse next Saturday. That's the bottom line.

Q. DeJon, I lost the number of counts that I had with him saying the word 'culture', culture win, culture win. How rewarding is it that your players acknowledge the fact this was a culture win, all the work you put in behind the scenes to get to this point?

KELVIN SAMPSON: I think it goes to the guys before them just as importantly. All the way back to Damyean Dotson, Rob Gray, Galen Robinson, those guys preached culture to the new guys. Every class that comes into the University of Houston hears about the culture from the class ahead of them.

We're going to lose DeJon, we're going to lose Brison and Justin. That junior class, the sophomore class, we have a terrific recruiting class coming in, those freshmen when they come in, a transfer that we may take, when they come in, they're going to hear about the culture from the class before, the class that precedes them.

For us, they define our culture. If you go into our film room on the back wall, it says 'culture'. Culture can be a noun or an adjective. For us it's both. It's who we are. It's being on time. It's going to class. It's graduating. It's being a good teammate. It's playing hard. It's getting on the floor after loose balls, it's rebounding, touching every line in practice, learning the difference in competing and playing hard.

Culture is the most important thing we have going at Houston. We're never going to just out-talent you, although we have talented kids. But we're 26-3. We've lost some games maybe we could have had back, but that's okay. You're going to lose some games. We've won some games like tonight that without our culture we would have lost. Our culture did win this game because our kids believe in it. It's something to believe in.

Not everything has to be an intangible. Culture for us, even though there's a ton of intangible things with us, is tangible because it's something they feel like they can touch.

Q. We saw tonight another example of Oral Roberts had a victory tonight, the parity we continue to see in college basketball. Does this shock you at all with what you're seeing? See something in every tournament. This season has proven to be that's the case again, some of these teams that are the underdogs are taking care of business and moving on.

KELVIN SAMPSON: Who did Oral Roberts play tonight?

Q. Played Florida.

KELVIN SAMPSON: What was the score in that game? I hadn't heard the score.

Q. I'm looking it up now.

KELVIN SAMPSON: How about being prepared a little bit (laughter)?

I watched Oral Roberts play.

Q. 81-78.

KELVIN SAMPSON: Thank you.

I saw them play, who was that they beat the other day, Ohio State? I didn't see a lot of difference in the two teams. Sometimes we decide what's an underdog by what conference they're in and what somebody rated them, what their seed number is.

There's two kids that play on Oral Roberts' team that Florida and Ohio State would love to have. But when those kids came out of high school, they probably weren't quite good enough then. But Oral Roberts was smart enough to take them and develop them. They've gotten better, better, and better. I'm assuming those kids are juniors or seniors. Three, four years later, look how good they are.

My favorite team I've seen so far is Abilene Christian. Everybody talks about how hard our kids play. Nobody plays harder than Abilene Christian. That team plays hard.

The last 10 minutes we would have done Abilene Christian proud tonight. I don't know Joe Golding. I know one of his assistants, Tanner, worked with Kellen for Danny Casper at Steven F. Austin. I can't tell you how proud I was of those kids from Abilene Christian, those kids from Oral Roberts, North Texas against Purdue. Good coaches, good players, good programs, and good cultures take you a long way.

Q. When you look at the defensive plays you guys made this year, Marcus, those last two defensive plays he made in the final minutes, it goes without saying what you do defensively, but the timing of those. Talk about what he meant there on a night he wasn't as good offensively.

KELVIN SAMPSON: I think there was 20 seconds left. I think we were at five team fouls. We had one to give. We didn't want to wait to take it. We wanted to take it as soon as they crossed halfcourt to make them take the ball in from the side. Something like that may have thrown their rhythm off. I don't know.

I know that usually our pickup point is somewhere around the three-point line. Pushing them up, getting up into the dribbler, makes getting a three off, because now you have to go further back.

Marcus is 1-9 tonight. He made two huge free throws. He made two huge free throws, and he made two great defensive plays. Tells you what kind of kid he is. Couldn't make a shot, open or otherwise, but he still played hard, still played defense, still played winning basketball.

Our defense and our rebounding carried us through tonight against a good defensive team that played well against us. Found a way to win. Proud of our guys' perseverance.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.