Houston Coach Kelvin Sampson’s Three Keys for Building a Basketball Program

• By Grant Young

In the pressure cooker of March Madness, few programs have established a more distinct identity than the University of Houston men's basketball team under head coach Kelvin Sampson, which is a testament to his elite college basketball development program.  

As the Cougars advance to the 2025 NCAA Tournament Final Four, their success reflects the culture of toughness and resilience that Sampson has meticulously cultivated throughout his 11-season tenure.

Since taking over in 2014, Sampson has transformed Houston basketball from an afterthought into a national powerhouse. This year's Final Four run is the culmination of consistent program building, where players don't just develop skills—they develop grit.

The Cougars' defensive intensity has become their calling card. Houston typically ranks among the nation's elite in defensive efficiency, limiting opponents to contested shots and dominating the glass. This season has been no exception, with Houston's swarming defense strangling even the most potent offensive teams in the tournament.

The 2025 Final Four appearance follows Houston's continued success in recent seasons, including their previous Final Four run in 2021. With each tournament appearance, the Cougars have further cemented their reputation as a team nobody wants to face—a direct reflection of the no-nonsense culture Sampson has established.

As Houston prepares for their Final Four matchup, they carry with them the hard-nosed identity that has become synonymous with Cougar basketball under Kelvin Sampson, a coach who has proven that toughness and attention to fundamentals still matter in the modern college game.

While developing such a tough, blue-collar culture isn’t easy, nobody can teach basketball coaches how to do so better than Coach Sampson. And that’s exactly what he did in his ‘Kelvin Sampson - Building and Practicing Toughness’ clinic from the Texas High School Coaches Association's 90th annual Coaching School and Convention. We have pulled some of his most powerful lessons about building a tough culture and players and included them for you below. 

1. Standards

At one point in his clinic, Coach Sampson conveyed his three keys to building a tough basketball program, with the first being standards/

What Coach Sampson means by this is that a head coach has to set and exemplify the highest possible standards for their team to follow. He goes on to discuss that a coach can never have a bad practice because players will see this and it will negatively impact their own thinking and standards. 

“There are three people who can never have a bad practice: The head coach, the point guard, and the best player,” Coach Sampson said. He then mentioned how he can tell a lot about a team based on how that team’s best player practices. 

Regardless of whether they want to be or not, the best player is going to be a role model for their teammates, and the example they set is going to be adopted by their teammates when it comes to their toughness and intensity. 

“The greatest ability your best player can have is dependability,” Coach Sampson says to drive this point home. 

Coach Sampson says that while he never wants his players to play with injuries, he needs his players to be able to play with pain. He emphasizes this by saying, “Pain is an opinion. Some people have a high opinion of it, some people have a low opinion of it.” 

The head coach, point guard, and best player need to have a low opinion of pain. 

2. Expectations

Coach Sampson’s next key to building a tough basketball team is expectations. To convey this, he details a story about his team going 13-19 during his first season as head coach at Houston. 

“Sometimes you’ve got to lose first,” he then said. “Don’t be afraid of losing. Losing is part of the game.” This exemplifies Coach Sampson’s larger philosophy of losing some battles along the way in order to ultimately win the war, which is what the big picture vision is for a program, regarding what they ultimately want to achieve. 

“If you don’t have standards, you can’t have expectations,” he adds. And while every program wants to win their respective championship, there needs to be tangible and achievable milestones to ultimately reach that point, such as a .500 record, a league championship, or making the playoffs. These will depend on where your team is in its development. 

3. Accountability

The third and final one of Coach Sampson’s keys for building a basketball program is accountability. 

He explains this by discussing that the morning of this clinic, his team was going to run sprints at Houston’s baseball field 6:30 AM. When he got there at 6:15 AM, the entire team was already present, getting stretched and warmed up.

This was an indication that his team has great player leadership, because the team’s leaders scheduled this early stretch. 

“A player-led team is so much better than a coach-led team,” he adds. “If you [coaches] spend all your time coaching attitude and effort, then you’re not coaching basketball.” 

He then adds that the message has to get through at some point. And in order for that to happen, players need to step as leaders and told their teammates accountable to the standards and expectations that have been set.