NCAA Tournaments<\/a> without ever seizing the national championship.<\/p>\nNot long after leading Oklahoma to the Final Four in 2002, Sampson was cited by the NCAA for making \u201cimpermissible phone calls\u201d to recruits and barred from off-campus recruiting. So he went to Indiana and did the same damn thing, was caught and lost his job (infuriating Illinois fans along the way for stealing away mega-recruit Eric Gordon). Not entirely unfairly, it earned Sampson a reputation as something of a bandit.<\/p>\n
But fast-forward to today and \u2014 please \u2014 just try to tell me how terrible a bunch of phone calls sounds. In this college basketball recruiting climate? With players making millions and staying at schools so briefly, they might as well be resort hotels? Making extra phone calls sounds about as awful as giving them milk and cookies.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the point: I\u2019m picking Houston again. It\u2019s time for Sampson, 69, to let someone else be the best coach never to have won the tournament. The Cougars can even do it in Texas, this time in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
I have them beating Michigan State, an underrated, extremely dangerous team, in my view, that \u2014 like the Cougars \u2014 is better on the perimeter than it is inside, yet has the kind of toughness and togetherness from top to bottom that all coaches seek. Sampson and Tom Izzo, 70, each could point to the other and say, \u201cI get him. He\u2019s just like me.\u201d<\/p>\n