I don’t think he will leave but a couple of things: both his kids are on staff - They could move with him
The media treats him well, do you want the articles that Penny Hardaway gets if you’re not meeting fans expectations. And Louisville has high expectations - Penny Hardaway is not Kelvin Sampson. He would go there and instantly turn them around with how the portal is these days.
*postseason success. If we were getting bounced in the 1st Round every time, maybe. But 3 NCAA tourney appearances, Sweet 16 and Final Four 4 is pretty darn good - He wants to win a national championship. I guess the question would be, where would he have the better chance to do so?
*Great recruiting class next season - He could get players to go there
Again, I do feel like at his age and this stage in his career he probably wants to keep this good thing going. But it’s not like Louiville wouldn’t be an attractive job.
1.About his kids going with him, that’s true. Maybe I had the nepotism laws for a state on my mind.
2.Regarding how the media treats him, you just never know. Chris Mack made the tournament 8 of 9 seasons at Xavier. (3) Sweet 16s, (1) Elite 8. Definitely thought he would turn around Louisville. The fans at Louisville expect Pitino levels of success. Deep runs in the NCAA tournament. I just think that type of pressure would piss off Coach Sampson. He said it on tonight’s CKS Radio Show. When people ask him about Houston going to another Final Four, he hates that question. Cause it’s hard to get back to the Final Four.
Well, unfortunately, the fans were spoiled by Rick Pitino and those high expectations would be on Sampsons shoulders. Especially with your rival,Kentucky, out performing you.
3.i think he does wanna win a Title, but I think he even knows that the Tournament you need some luck to make a deep run. Unlucky against Michigan and Kentucky & luck went our way vs Rutgers. I think he wants to make the hall of fame. If he coaches for another 4-5 years, he’ll finish with 800+ wins. The great Bob Huggins might finish his career without a Title as well
4.Recruiting, the roster that Sampson could have next year (if Sasser and Mark return). Final Four quality. The culture that he’s developed at Houston, could he implement it quickly at Louisville, sure. The level he has Houston at right now, he could probably reach that at year 2 or 3 at Louisville.
And unfortunately like you mentioned, he’s mid 60s, later part of his career, so I don’t think he wants to start over and rebuild another program
How many times have you heard CKS talk about the commitment of Dr. Khator, Tilman Fertittta, Rhodes, Yurachek or Pez? No way he jumps into that rudderless mess.
Haven’t we already gone through this with Arkansas? If Arkansas can’t do it what makes you think Louisville could? Just another distraction every time a Houston team is doing well at something. When the Rockets won two titles it was because Michael Jordan retired, when the Astros won their only title its because of cheating, when the Coogs are doing great in basketball – their coaches will leave for another team.
With so much animosity against the city of Houston in the world of sports is it a wonder why Houston sport teams have so much trouble winning titles? I guess this is the reason those refs are always cheating against us as well — we are an easy target for them to cheat against. If they cheat against us nobody outside of Houston cares anyway since they all want us to lose! And to me all of these anti-UH rumors are based on one thing – those mofos want us to lose and hate it when we win! They can take their rumors and innuendos and shove them up…
I was at radio show last night he emphatically talked about how most of his players would return to Houston to live their lives out after basketball, he said Houston was a great place to live, I think he likes it here.
My daughter lives in Louisville for now doing an ON/GYN residency. Louisville ain’t much, it’s an older run down city, it’s really cold in winter, Sampson probably wouldn’t like it there lol. The area around the campus is run down and very sketchy, I was shocked by that, and y’all think the area around UH is bad, Louisville would surprise you with the rough areas around campus
Also, the Louisville fan base is delusional. They are the equivalent of TAMU, UGA and UTee football fans. They believe they should win the title every year, and are not happy with 20 win seasons.
It is enough to drive a basketball coach to drink!
Kelvin currently makes $3.2MM/per. $6.4MM/year would be more than every coach in the country except Calipari and Krzyzewski. They aren’t doing that. Anything they offer, we are matching. Count on it.
I too was at the radio show…what we should worry about is when CKS talked about how the arena for the UCF was packed and the student section was packed…he said we should fill out arena…we complain about not having a winner…well as CKS said last night…“we have a winner let’s enjoy it NOW while it lasts”…
I still can NOT understand how we have over 8500 students on campus, probably another 2-3000 living in the apts surrounding campus and we can fill the student section. At the most that would be around 200-300 behind the court and another 500 behind the band…GEEZ!!!
That’s what we should be worried about…it is not just the grey section but the whole arena!!!
Jay Wright makes $6.15MM. I’m not saying Louisville COULDN’T pay $6.4MM. I’m saying they wouldn’t. The extension Bruce Pearl just signed with Auburn raises him up to $5.4MM per. If Louisville was willing to go to $6.4MM, Bruce Pearl would be headed there after the season.
