<\/p>\n
Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson watches practice leading up to the South Regional semifinals in NCAA college basketball tournament in Houston, Wednesday, March 25, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jason Fochtman\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Another college basketball offseason means Kelvin Sampson<\/a> is about to head into the proverbial kitchen.<\/p>\n First, though, Sampson must go shopping as he embarks on arguably the biggest roster overhaul in his 13 seasons as men\u2019s basketball coach at the University of Houston.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are a chef and putting together a perfect dinner, you make a grocery list of things you need for that dinner,\u201d Sampson said Thursday during a nearly 60-minute video conference call with reporters. \u201cFor me, I have a clear understanding of what positions we need to focus on.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n You don\u2019t become the Michelin Star or James Beard winner of college basketball without knowing your way around, especially this time of year when schools must construct rosters worth millions of dollars and no guarantees they\u2019ll cut down the nets on the final Monday of the season.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year is a new year,\u201d Sampson said. \u201cWe\u2019ll figure it out. I enjoy figuring it out.\u201d<\/p>\n Down Aisle 1, Sampson will look for a veteran point guard to replace Milos Uzan and Kingston Flemings, who shared the role during a 30-win season that ended in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. A projected top 7 pick, Flemings is expected to declare for the NBA Draft in the next week.<\/p>\n On Aisle 2, the Cougars will look for more perimeter scoring. A stroll down Aisle 3 could land the type of frontcourt depth\u00a0\u2014 \u201cstarter-type minutes,\u201d Sampson said\u00a0\u2014 that has been lacking in recent years to offset foul trouble and injuries.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Sign up for Cougar Confidential<\/p>\n You’ll get get in-depth news and analysis about UH\u2019s basketball and football teams from reporter Joseph Duarte by signing up for the Cougar Confidential newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n What Sampson already has in his basket: Joseph Tugler<\/a>, Mercy Miller<\/a>, Chase McCarty,<\/a> Kordel Jefferson and Bryce Jackson have committed to return for the 2026-27 season. Incoming freshmen Arafan Dian\u00e9<\/a>, a 7-foot-1 center, and point guard Ikenna Alozie, who is \u201cmade in the mold\u201d of All-American point guard Jamal Shead, are set to join the program in the next few months.<\/p>\n That leaves anywhere from six to seven spots to fill through the transfer portal and elsewhere.<\/p>\n And it won\u2019t come cheap.<\/p>\n To be competitive, the projected roster budgets for some of the nation\u2019s top programs is expected to be between $10 million and $15 million-plus for the 2026-27 season, according to On3. UH is \u201cprepared to spend more than ever\u201d between $11 million and $12 million, according to a source.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Sampson said when asks if there is a specific dollar amount needed for schools, including UH, to contend for a national championship.<\/p>\n \u201cKellen (assistant head coach Kellen Sampson) and I talk about it all time. Here\u2019s the number we need. If you\u2019re not at a certain number, you have no chance to compete for a championship because you\u2019re not going to have a good enough roster. You have to be at a certain number. I don\u2019t want to say what that number is. But there\u2019s a number.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if you reach that number, Sampson said, there\u2019s \u201chuman error involved in everything.\u201d No guarantees. How does a transfer fit into a team\u2019s culture? Is the money spent in the right areas?\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere were some teams that got caught shorthanded on depth (last season) because they spent all their money on their top five players,\u201d Sampson said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t have enough fire power coming off the bench to sustain their level of play. A lot of that is due to how much you are having to pay your starters and do you have enough money to have a bench?<\/p>\n \u201cJust the fact I said what I just said tells you all you need to know about where we are at today in college basketball. You\u2019ve got to be really smart with your money. We have a number we have to work in, and we\u2019ll do the best we can to bring in the players that gives us the best chance to win based on our budget.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Sampson added: \u201cI think our track record around here is pretty good on building rosters.\u201d<\/p>\n As the only returning starter, Tugler will be a big piece of the Cougars’ plans for next season. A 6-foot-8 rising senior forward, Tugler has been a finalist the last two seasons for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year. However, Tugler has missed most of the last two summers as he recovered from injuries.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to really work hard this summer on JoJo,\u201d Sampson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve never had a summer.\u201d<\/p>\n Sampson said he\u2019s excited to begin working with Dian\u00e9, the nation\u2019s No. 1 center who will report to campus in May. \u00a0The Cougars must also replace Chris Cenac Jr., a 6-foot-11 big man who declared for the NBA Draft on Thursday.<\/p>\n Ideally, Sampson would like to improve frontcourt depth with four players \u201ccapable of starting.\u201d UH could also sign a developmental big man who would likely redshirt the 2026-27 season, Sampson said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Miller and McCarty took big steps last season, playing valuable minutes in the postseason, and are in line for increased roles at the shooting guard and wing spots, respectively.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are both very talented and I expect them both to be really good players next year,\u201d Sampson said. \u201cThey have experience and have been through battles.\u201d<\/p>\n UH plans to cast a wide net, targeting such players as Markus Burton, a 6-foot point guard from Notre Dame who led the ACC in scoring (21.3 points) two years ago; Delrecco Gillespie, a 6-foot-8 forward who averaged 17.7 points and 11.3 rebounds at Kent State; David Punch, a 6-foot-7 forward from TCU; Corey Hadnot II, a shooting guard who averaged 20.4 points at Purdue Fort Wayne; and Braden East, a 6-foot-9 forward who averaged 12.8 points and 9.1 rebounds at Lamar.<\/p>\n Sampson said it\u2019s not just about the numbers on the stat sheet.<\/p>\n \u201cAt some point character matters, man,\u201d Sampson said. \u201cI don\u2019t care where they are rated, or how tall they are, or what their numbers are. What kind of person is he? The best programs have great cultures. That why you see the same teams every single year because it starts with their culture. That\u2019s why you had to be careful in bringing in kids that are not going to be good for your culture. You have to find out what\u2019s inside these kids. Can they handle our culture?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And that can be hard to discover in a short amount of time in a transfer portal frenzy that Sampson says is akin to a dating app.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c(It used to be you) date the same girl in high school and five years later you marry her,\u201d Sampson said. \u201cNow everything is a\u00a0dating app.\u201d<\/p>\n And Sampson admits the Cougars may not look in the same spot as other top programs.<\/p>\n \u201cNot everybody fishes in the same fishing hole,\u201d he said. \u201cOur fishing hole may not be the same as the top-tier guys with the highest budgets. But there\u2019s a lot of examples that just because you have a big budget doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s going to equate to the best team. You still have to coach them. You still have to get them to fit. You\u2019ve still got to have good kids that care about winning than they do statistics.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s when, armed with the right ingredients, Sampson will step into the kitchen this summer. His roster will be complete. Then comes the cooking to prepare for the season.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got a good idea what we want our roster to look like,\u201d Sampson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson watches practice leading up to the South Regional semifinals in NCAA college basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-243462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-houston-headlines","10":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}