re: Kelvin Sampson Legacy Narrative......

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They ran a set. There were two bigs setting screens near the top of the key and neither managed to screen Clayton. He came through lightning fast late to contest the shot. It almost looked like Clayton and Haugh miscommunicated whether they were going to switch out up top, so Clayton had to bust it late to get out there.

Clayton made another winning play. Dude is the man. Of course the Houston guy who caught the ball made a huge mistake, but I wouldn't blame that on the play call.

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the last few UH offensive sequences were so incredibly bad.

Tugler got a huge offensive rebound, didnt go right back up, brought the ball down and then lost it out of bounds

the second to last possession was UH"s Sharp going to the basket and losing the ball off his knee. Sharp was driving into three UF players and had Cryer to his right for a three and Roberts to his left in the paint. Sharp's head was down and he was driving to nowhere even if he didnt lose the ball

the last possession was 19.7 seconds left on the clock. UH ran some clogged up screening action up high that UF blew up but UH still had Sharp coming up to the top freely for a shot or drive. When SHarp caught it he clearly didnt know how much time was left because he went up for a LONG three that Clayton might have blocked. What Sampson said he wished had happened there was Sharp fake the shot and drive. Sharp didnt fake and it appeared he sort of panicked.

I have heard that Sampson's reputation amongst coaches is he is the best defensive head coach in CBB, he is a great recruiter, a great leader and teacher of men and a very mediocre offensive head coach. Sort of the Tom Thibodeau of the NCAA. In the FF so much of UH's success against Duke and UF was individual effort - long threes out of their arse, big rebound putbacks, steals and finishes. In the Finals, UH had 5 assists. Which was their lowest assist total since 2020.

Their offense looked much better when I saw them play in the Players Era tournament in November and a few other games during the season. LJ Cryer looked unstoppable in some of those games.

ETA: After a pretty physical Mavs game one night, when questioned about rough play, Eddie Najera said it was nothing. He said Kelvin Sampson ran tougher practices most days.