Houston -coach Kelvin Sampson has high praise for Texas Tech after his team’s loss

Texas Tech Basketball -Fans typically don’t care about Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson. After all, he has been a thorn in Red Raiders’ side for almost two decades, considering his current race in Houston and his long successful term of office as Oklahoma Head coach many years ago, when Sooners were also a conference -rival.

Whether fans like Sampson are, however, no one denies the man knowing basketball. Therefore, his remarks are after the red raiders’ 82-81 Wind in Houston on Saturday night was so telling to Texas Tech fans.

After the game, the media seemed to be focused on Houston and the end of their 33 games home-woning row. However, Sampson quickly turned the tables to Texas Tech, on which he harvested lots of praise.

“The story of the game is Texas Tech,” he said. “They were amazing. I mean they were amazing. Let’s give them some credit. They lose their best big ones, they enter this fitness center and go to the free throwing line. 34 times, do 12 triangles and play well.

“You know we’re on the free -throwing line to go up five. They come down and knock (down) one three to tie to go to go to overtime. Every time they needed a big basket they got it and we protected them.

An area where Houston almost always has the edge is in toughness and competitiveness. However, Sampson said that technique was better in that regard.

“So I’m not disappointed that we lost,” he said. “I’m not disappointed we lost. I’m disappointed that we didn’t fight harder or competed harder. It was one of the few times I thought the other team came competing with us and that is Therefore, I say guys give Texas tech credit.

“This team was great tonight and they are really good. It’s a really good team, extremely well coached.”

Sampson acknowledged that life in Big 12 is brutal and that each team will be stumbled up. He summarized these comments with a fun analogy.

“We have to play in the BIG 12 and you play 20 games will not be whining,” he said. “Texas techs lost two home matches. They lost against central Florida and they lost against Iowa State but they haven’t lost on the road yet. They’re 5-0 on the road. We were five and oh on the road. Now we lost a Home match.

“Each team in this league goes through the same thing. That’s the best. If you want to play in this league, you can play team that is good enough to beat you. We’ve been very lucky. We could have lost it Central Florida games, but we didn’t do it.

In his career, Sampson has won 780 matches. What’s more, he has a .688 winning percentage as a head coach.

Of course, the job he has done in Houston has been remarkable. He has taken them to five NCAA tournaments in a row and he does it for a sixth time this season.

During this race he reached the sweet 16 every time. What’s more, in 2021 he got Cougars for Final Four, and by 2022 he got them to Elite 8.

Of course, Sampson can be creepy, scary and less than friendly. He suffers no fool and does not have the most sympathetic behavior on the sidelines.

However, he is one of the best college -basketball trainer in the nation and few people know the game better than he does. Therefore, Texas Tech fans should enjoy the credit he gave to Red Raiders on Saturday night, although Sampson is not a beloved figure in West Texas.