BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2025

Kelvin Sampson

LJ Cryer

Emauel Sharp

T-Mobile Center

Houston Cougars

Postgame Press Conference

Houston 75, BYU 54

THE MODERATOR: Joining us on the dais is Houston Head Coach Kelvin Sampson; he is joined by L.J. Cryer and Emanuel Sharp. Coach?

KELVIN SAMPSON: Well, obviously, having played them before, it helps cut down your prep time because you don't have to worry about personnel.

But watching them on film, and I really hadn't seen BYU a whole lot. If you ask the coaches in this league you're always focused on the next game. I don't really watch a lot of the teams play. But the first thing that jumped out to me was how much better -- how much they had improved since January 4th. That was a long time ago.

The job that Kevin has done with that team. They've got really good players. Proud of our guys. Our defense is our defense, the way we rebound. The way we do things is -- we've been doing this for a long time.

This is our -- I forget how many years it is going to these tournaments, but first half defense was outstanding. Second half, we wanted to spread 'em and drive 'em because they were being really physical on the ball and we felt like we could get to the free throw line if we just drove the ball.

But it was just a good win. Get a chance to play in a Championship game. But at the end of the day it's a three-day tournament. The game tomorrow night doesn't determine the Big 12 champion; the regular season determines the Big 12 champion; that's why you play 20 games.

We played a game on December 30th and the last one on March 8th, and over the course of 20 games we decided who the Big 12 champion was.

This three days is an awesome, awesome chance for the Big 12 to show how great this conference is, and BYU is going to get a great seed in the NCAA Tournament. They're going to be a tough out for whoever plays 'em.

Again, really impressed with the job Kevin's done, and happy with our guys. Obviously having J'Wan out we had to shuffle things around, but whether that's good or bad we're used to having guys out with injury here the last few years.

So we plug somebody else in, and Mylik Wilson has been our best rebounding guard all year. He's our best rebounding guard. I thought his discipline tonight was outstanding. If I had to say what was the biggest difference in the way we played and our best defensive wins, whether it's at Arizona or at Kansas or at West Virginia was our defensive discipline. I thought our discipline was outstanding tonight.

Q. Coach, 26 three point attempts. Was that the game plan going in or was it just what the defense gave you?

KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah, I would say the latter, what the defense gave us. But if you look at -- I think we're the number one three point percentage shooting team in the league if I'm not mistaken.

Look at the guys who were shooting it. L.J. Cryer has made 90-some threes this year; Emanuel Sharp probably would have made 90 some but he was injured and missed a bunch of games with injury.

And who is the other one? Milos, I mean, all three of those guys are all 40% shooters three-point shooters. I like their fearlessness, and they all have the freedom to make the right play.

Again, I thought our basketball IQ and our discipline was outstanding tonight.

Q. Emanuel, you had two back-to-back threes; killed any momentum that BYU had. Walk us through what Coach said in timeout and how you were able to kill their momentum.

EMANUEL SHARP: We knew they were going to go on a run. We just had to survive it. We made some dumb plays, me included, at the beginning of the second half, and that's really what it was. Once we cracked down on that we started playing better.

Once we made better decisions, you know, that led to us getting baskets, and kinda putting the fire out a little bit, but, yeah, wasn't much to it, just cracking down on mistakes.

Q. Coach, your thoughts about Arizona or Texas Tech tomorrow night?

KELVIN SAMPSON: What's the question?

Q. What are your thoughts on Texas Tech or Arizona playing them --

KELVIN SAMPSON: I've not -- well, when we figure out which one we will play, I will give you my thoughts.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much.