The 2025 Houston basketball team has a lot of talent, but they need to find a way to be consistent and put it all together. That is mainly due to how well they have been recruiting lately. Syracuse almost came back and beat Houston after the Cougars nearly choked the game away. Houston managed to hang on for a 78-74 win against Syracuse, but Sampson was not happy with what he saw from the Cougars and said the quiet part out loud about his team.
Kelvin Sampson said in the postgame press conference after the overtime win that Houston is not good enough to look ahead. The Cougars had a looming matchup against Tennessee on Tuesday, an Elite Eight rematch after Houston beat the Volunteers in last season's NCAA Tournament. Sampson's issue is that his team is not good enough yet, and he said as much to the press.
“We're not good enough to look ahead,” Sampson said after the win. “You saw the way we played [Monday]. I see it every day. Some days we're better than others. This is not last year's team. I'm not saying they can't be eventually, but they're certainly not now. Look at the mistakes we make.”
Houston dominated the Volunteers in that Elite Eight matchup, winning 69-50. They completely shut down the Tennessee offense, and they struggled to do much of anything well.
The Syracuse basketball team went on an 11-0 run in the last 3:06 of the game, which overshadowed standout performances from Milos Uzan and Emanuel Sharp, scoring 26 points each. The Orange were missing leading scorer Donnie Freeman and made only 44% (11-for-25) of their free throw attempts, but they still managed to push Houston to the brink.
Sampson went on to say that he thought Houston's shaky performance was due in large part to their youth this season. Sampson signed one of the most decorated recruiting classes of his tenure at Houston, with Chris Cenac Jr., Isiah Harwell, and Kingston Flemings coming to play for him. All three were top-25 recruits, but they went a combined 7-for-22 against Syracuse. As a team, Houston made 36% of its field goals and also had 13 turnovers in the game.
“It is hard to beat any really good team,” he said. “It's hard to beat them when you're making silly mistakes. ‘What are we doing here?' But I try not to overreact to things in November.”
The Houston basketball program has a lot of work to do to get to where Kelvin Sampson wants them to be in March and get back to the Final Four after last year, when they shocked Duke.
