HOUSTON — A year after losing to Florida in the national title game, Houston‘s Kelvin Sampson is focused on his team’s Sweet 16 matchup against Illinois on Thursday night. The Toyota Center is expected to resemble a Houston home crowd just a few miles from campus.
But basketball isn’t the only game in town. On Thursday, the city will host the first round of the PGA’s Houston Open, the Sweet 16 (Iowa and Nebraska square off as well) and the Houston Astros‘ Major League Baseball opener against the Los Angeles Angels, which is also of interest to Sampson.
Sampson obviously can’t attend Opening Day, but he said Wednesday that he has developed a strong relationship with third-year manager Joe Espada, who sometimes asks him for advice.
A few years ago, Espada asked Sampson if he could come talk to him before a game when they were both in Florida at the same time. Sampson said the logistics didn’t work out, but they began to connect after Espada reached out to him.
“We just started texting each other and then during the season, it just started developing,” Sampson said at his team’s news conference Wednesday at the Toyota Center. “He watched our games and I’m a big baseball fan. I mean, I love baseball. And so he’d run stuff by me. Nothing major, but he was a first-time manager and I’m an old guy, seen a lot and done a lot, but I’ve seen a lot.”
Sampson’s baseball ties are deep. He said he also had a relationship with former Astros manager Dusty Baker, who once gave him a customized bottle of wine that had an image of Hank Aaron, Sampson’s favorite player. He hasn’t opened it yet. “He said, ‘Don’t you crack that wine until you win a national championship,'” Sampson said. “So I still got that bottle of wine.”
He said he was in awe when Baker sent him a photo of himself standing next to Willie Mays. Baker told Sampson that he had told the baseball legend about the success of Sampson’s Cougars teams.
“He’d been telling Willie Mays about us, so he sent a picture. He took a picture with Willie Mays and sent it to me,” Sampson said. “As soon as I got the picture, I said, ‘God, I wish my father was alive so I could show him that picture of Dusty Baker and Willie Mays,’ because Willie Mays was his favorite player. Mine was Henry Aaron. And that led me back to my relationship with Dusty because when Henry Aaron was patrolling right field for the Atlanta Braves, Dusty was the left fielder for the Atlanta Braves.”
But basketball is Sampson’s priority, especially this week.
Houston fans are expected to fill the arena Thursday night, but Sampson isn’t convinced it will matter when his team plays Illinois.
“In this same game last year, we were in Indianapolis, 60 or whatever miles it was from Purdue’s campus. They had 20,000 Purdue fans. And then the next game we played Tennessee. They had 20,000 Tennessee fans. So it’s hard to say,” Sampson said about those two matchups that Houston won last year, despite their opponents having more fans in the stands.
“I do know that, having coached in the Big Ten for two years, that the Big Ten travels well. … I think Houston’s got four great basketball programs and four great fan bases [in the NCAA tournament].”
