This is the 11th team I’ve had at Houston,” Sampson said. “We won 30 plus games five times, and this is the first time we won 34 games. And I’m glad these guys did it. The maturity of our older guys has been great for our younger guys.

Before Duke coach Jon Scheyer coached in his first official game after taking over for Mike Krzyzewski, he flew his team to Houston to play in a secret preseason scrimmage.  Scheyer intentionally sought out Kelvin Sampson and the Cougars for his first career "game.

Houston coach Kelvin Sampson held a media session on Thursday prior the Cougars’ Final Four game on Saturday against Duke in San Antonio. Sampson talked about the team’s journey to get this far, the Blue Devils,