The setting of San Antonio offers more than a nice home-state advantage to Houston in this year’s Final Four.
For Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson, Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs provided a career lifeline when his tumultuous tenure at Indiana ended.
In 2008, Sampson was handed a five-year show-cause penalty for NCAA recruiting violations that included texting recruits, something disallowed before 2013. Amid an investigation, Sampson resigned at Indiana in February 2008.
Not three weeks later, Popovich brought Sampson on in an advisory role with the Spurs.
Sampson’s stay in San Antonio wasn’t long — he accepted an assistant coaching role with the Milwaukee Bucks two months later — but Sampson is close with Popovich and remembers that moment with gratitude.
“Pop and I have been in contact and we’re going to hook up here,” Sampson said in a press conference Friday. “It was important. But, you know, we all had friends, all of you have friends that have helped you along the way. I like to think I’ve done that with a lot of young coaches, helping them along the way. That’s our responsibility.”
Popovich, who suffered a stroke in November and has not been coaching the Spurs, sent a long congratulatory text to Sampson when the Cougars qualified for the Final Four as the No. 1 seed out of the Midwest Region.
Sampson recalled the “mutual respect” Popovich and his players displayed.
“That’s what makes Pops special. He shows great respect and he gets it back,” Sampson said. “What he did for me, I’ve tried to pay that forward many times.”
When asked a question later in his press conference about his legacy, Sampson turned back to Popovich, the Basketball Hall of Famer and all-time winningest coach in NBA history.
“Kind of what the gentleman asked me about Pop,” Sampson said. “You can’t control what people think … but I would hope my legacy would be I tried to help my kids be the best they could be so that when they got older they were in a position to help somebody be the best they could be.
“If that’s my legacy, then I think I’ve had a career worth having.”
–Duke freshman phenom Cooper Flagg collected national player of the year awards from the Associated Press and U.S. Basketball Writers Association, and he’s on his way to becoming the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft this June.
But to say the 18-year-old has an unassuming personality in public would be an understatement.
Asked Friday how he balances basketball and NIL opportunities with his day-to-day life, Flagg said, “I mean, I think I’m a regular kid. I’m OK at basketball, I guess. Just doing normal things that any teenager, any kids like to do. Not acting a certain type of way, being humble, being who I am, how I was raised by my parents.
So yeah, I think just being normal and knowing I’m no different than anybody else.”
–The last time Duke made the Final Four was 2021-22, Mike Krzyzewski’s final season before his retirement.
Krzyzewski had chosen then-associate head coach Jon Scheyer to succeed him upon retiring, and his last year on the job and tour of the ACC was viewed by many as the divisive coach’s self-indulgent “farewell tour.”
But Scheyer insists that the year he spent preparing to take over was vital for the transition from one coach to the next.
“I think that year was definitely mischaracterized,” Scheyer said. “Coach K’s biggest intention of just having, he wanted the program to be able to sustain great success. In order to do that, especially at that time, I think it’s a little bit different now, but especially at that time you had to have a chance to recruit a team.
“Another thing that was just as important and made it more real for me, so some of the best conversations I’ve ever had with Coach is throughout that season, just talking about why he made certain decisions, what’s going on in his mind. Real-time in game, you’re thinking about, ‘He called a timeout. Would I have called a timeout at the same time? Why is he calling a timeout?’ Being here at the Final Four, going through the tournament. It made it more real.”
–Sampson had only positive things to say about Scheyer and Duke, revealing earlier in the week that the programs held a preseason scrimmage behind closed doors the year Scheyer took over (2022-23).
“I think Mike deserves a lot of credit for being involved in the process to pick Jon,” Sampson said. “He coached Jon. He worked with Jon. So Jon had a head start.
.”.. But this is Jon’s third year, right? In his third year, it’s not talked about as much. That’s a credit to both of them. Mike for having a huge part of choosing the right guy, then Jon for being independent enough to become his own person.”
Sampson also didn’t hesitate to name Flagg among some of college basketball’s recent icons.
“One year we were playing Syracuse in the Elite Eight to go to the Final Four,” Sampson said. “Syracuse’s best player was Carmelo Anthony. I coached against Gary Payton as a freshman. Sean Elliott. Jason Kidd. Paul Pierce. T.J. Ford. A lot of great players.
“This guy is right there with all of ’em. It’s hard to say what he’s not good at.”
–Field Level Media
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