Do we think that Sampson merely prefers this roster size, or that he ran out of NIL, or something else?
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This is who Sampson wanted…
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We’re poor.
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Situation has to be right when you fill in a roster after 10 so getting to 15 is tough.
It would need to have a balance of vets, young players, role players, developmental players, red shirts, possibly injured or early HS graduates.
Plus you don’t need to stuff your roster anymore with the new transfer rules & a stout NIL budget like we have…
You can pick up who you need in the transfer portal every year.
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There are diminishing returns the further down the roster you go. Why spend any revenue or NIL money for a practice or mop-up player? Coaching a smaller roster gives players more individual coaching and playing time, allowing them to improve their skills. End of the bench players who play limited minutes are likely transfer candidates, and why pay a player for a year only to see them leave?
Use your available financial resources wisely.
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sampson is an old coach who has spent 25+ years mastering a formula for winning and multi-year player retentions with 12-13 ships…
Nil plays a part but there are cheap talent (ie some juco all-american, former 5star that wasnt great at his previous school that sampson can rehabilitate)… we are the Winnest program the last few years, there are player that would come here for free… especially 2nd chance guys
i think we’ll start seeing 15 ships when kellen takes over…i think kelvin himself knows there are flaws in sticking with 13, he noted we lacked depth the last 3 season at big (despite having free ships to bring in bigs)… but sampson is an “old dog” in the saying…why change what he has constantly won with
We don’t pick up players just to fill the rosters and I doubt we will start doing so with Kellen.
There is nothing wrong with 13 each season and occasionally bumping it to 14-15 with an early graduate or rehabilitation player.
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This is not about our roster but Gonzaga is in deep doo doo. Gonzaga has now lost their two point guards on the roster. One of them decided to stay in the NBA draft and starting PG decided to go back to Spain and play for a pro team there.
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…but wait, they have Isiah Harwell. 
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What would you guess the coogs spent on the full roster this year?
Just feel like Houston is still very much an untapped market. I met some Houston natives on a Disney cruise last week and I brought up that Houston has a great basketball program. But they thought I was talking the rockets. They said they didn’t watch coog basketball and hadn’t been to a game despite one of them graduating from there in early 2000’s.
There were about 8 of them and none were coogs fans. Whereas in cincinnati, if you ask any one UC or Xavier they will have a strong answer.
I’ve always wanted a nba team in Cincy in my lifetime (they did Back in the day) but I do wonder if having a team like the rockets in the same city has an effect on coog Nil and over all city engagement.
Just my read… I’ve only passed through Houston and never stayed long
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Houston is not a college basketball city… good luck getting any college basketball talk about any school from the majority of Houstonians…
But we do get good tv viewership when we’re winning so NIL opportunity is there…
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Greater Cincinnati in 2025 was 2.31M
Greater Houston in 2025 was 7.9M
Odds are pretty favorable running into someone from Houston doesn’t mean they are a Coog fan.
They probably couldn’t have named a single Rockets player either.
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If you go by Houston sports radio, the City of Houston is very much a pro sports town. UH gets coverage only when the situation merits, e.g., upcoming big game, bowl game, NCAA Tournament. I would like UH to get more coverage, but with professional sports, UH will always take a back seat.
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Plus, Houston is Full of transplants
They pick up the local pro teams pretty fast but have no local college interests
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Plus it’s just not a college basketball town… it’s a huge city that has its share of fans for anything and everything, but not a disproportionate amount of fans for any one thing…
I remember when I drove to Cincy to go to the AAC Football Championship game a few years back I thought I’ll just drive downtown near the campus and then just drive 10-15 minutes past and get a hotel… but when I drove 15 minutes past I ended up in cow pastures…
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I’m going to disagree to an extent. Houstonians want to associate with high profile. This is why UTATM will always be popular here. The city has never supported UH the way other cities support their home team. There are probably as many UH grads in town that root for Texas as UH. Not UH grads that are sports fans, but “meh” UH grads that just want identify with something cool. The modern era UH admin is not at fault. Its a city personality disorder.
But I do agree that Houston is not a college sports town (but only as it applies to the home teams.)
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I don’t know if that is fair representation. I can drive 25 min in either direction and I don’t think I’d see a cow. That said, Houston is major major city whereas Cincinnati is a mid size city.
I just feel like Houston still has so much potential to grow in college sports. If they decided to redesign or rebuild a new arena that holds 13k, I’d bet it sells out every night. But feel like a 7k arena in a city the size of Houston is probably a disservice now that they are in the big 12…
I think Houston could legitimately be an SEC target if pushed and developed correctly. UC can next have that appeal unfortunately
I’d take that bet.
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SEC won’t target us because they have the Houston market with LSU, UT & TA&M…
Unfortunately, the 25 years in the G5 really did a number on us and we’re still recovering from it…
I’m sure you remember how empty Hofheinz was when we were in CUSA, AAC and that was around 10k capacity…
We need to keep selling FC out for another 5 years at least before we look to expand and use the Toyota Center for big neutral site games… if we keep selling out after CKS retires then we should expand.
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