After his program's third straight 30-win season and fifth consecutive appearance in the Sweet 16, University of Houston Men's Basketball Head Coach Kelvin Sampson was named the Associated Press National Coach of the Year, the second time he received the honor during his career.
Sampson first collected the annual AP award at Oklahoma following the 1994-95 season. He became only the 10th coach in history to receive the award multiple times and the second Cougar with Guy V. Lewis in 1983 and 1968.
Sampson joined John Wooden (UCLA), Bob Knight (Indiana), Bill Self (Kansas), Ralph Miller (Oregon State), Eddie Sutton (Arkansas, Kentucky), Roy Williams (Kansas, North Carolina), Tony Bennett (Washington State, Virginia) and Ray Meyer (DePaul) as multiple winners and joined Sutton, Williams and Bennett as the only coaches to accomplish the feat at multiple schools.
This marked the fifth National Coach of the Year honor that Sampson earned for his work during the 2023-24 season. In late March, he received the Henry Iba Award, presented annually by the United States Basketball Writers Association, and was named National Coach of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and Field of 68. He was honored as the John McLendon Award recipient for the second time in his Houston career on Thursday.
Sampson also is one of four finalists for the Werner Ladder Naismith Coach of the Year, which will be presented at the NCAA Final Four in Phoenix this weekend.
ABOUT KELVIN SAMPSON
Under Sampson's leadership, Houston posted a 32-5 overall record and captured the Big 12 regular-season championship by two games in the Cougars' first year in the league in 2023-24.
Finishing his 35th season overall and his 10th season at Houston, Sampson has placed the Cougars among the nation's elite during his tenure.
His Cougars competed as the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament South Region – the second straight season Houston earned a region's top seed – and advanced to the Sweet 16 for the fifth consecutive season. Houston joined Gonzaga as the only schools to compete in each of the last five NCAA Tournament Sweet 16s.
Houston leads the nation in scoring defense (57.6 ppg), turnover margin (6.9), field goal percentage defense (37.9, 1st) and ranks among the country's Top 10 in turnovers per game (8.9, 7th), scoring margin (+15.9, 3rd) and steals per game (9.8, 8th).
Under Sampson's leadership, Houston has been ranked for a school-record 84 consecutive weeks, including each of the last 39 weeks in the Top 10, another program best.
In addition to the national coaching accolades, Sampson also was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year by the league office and the Associated Press and was recognized as the NABC District 8 Coach of the Year This marked the third straight season (in the second different league) in which Sampson was named the Conference Coach of the Year and the fifth time in the last seven years.
During his career, Sampson has been named a Conference Coach of the Year nine times from five different leagues. That total includes one Big 12 (2023-24), four American Athletic (2022-23, 2021-22, 2018-19 and 2017-18), one Big Eight (1994-95), one Pac-10 (1990-91) and two Frontier League (1984-85, 1982-83).
