by HOUSTON – University of Houston Men’s Basketball Head Coach Kelvin Sampson (Lumbee) received another postseason honor Friday morning when he was named the National Association of Basketball Coaches District 25 Coach of the Year.
Friday’s honor was the fourth District Coach of the Year of his career. He previously received District Coach of the Year honors in 1992 and 1991 (both from Washington State) and in 2018 with Houston.
This was the second Coach of the Year honor that Sampson has received for his team’s work in 2018-19.
Earlier this month, he was recognized as the American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year. It was the second straight season he received that honor from the league and marked his sixth conference Coach of the Year award from his fourth different league.
For his team’s impressive performance in 2018-19, Sampson was previously recognized as a finalist for the Werner Ladder Naismith Coach of the Year Award, the Henry Iba Award, the Jim Phelan Award and the Ben Jobe Award earlier this season.
ABOUT KELVIN SAMPSON
In 2018-19, Sampson has led the Cougars to a 31-3 record, the program’s first outright regular-season conference championship since 1984, Top-10 rankings in both national polls and a No. 3 seed in this week’s NCAA Tournament.
His Houston team won its first 15 games to open the season for the program’s third-longest winning streak in school history and followed that with a 12-game streak after enduring its first loss at Temple in early January.
After winning 19 straight games in H&PE Arena as their home arena underwent a $60-million renovation, Sampson’s Cougars won their first 14 home games in the Fertitta Center and owned the nation’s longest home winning streak at 33 games until late February.
With the Cougars’ win at SMU in mid-January, Sampson became only the 52nd coach in NCAA history to reach 600 victories in his career. That win also gave him 100 in his Houston career and made him the fastest coach in UH history to reach that total.
In 2019, he was named the American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year for the second straight season, becoming only the second coach in program history to win accomplish that feat and the first since Hall of Fame Coach Guy V. Lewis did so in 1983-84 in the Southwest Conference.
NABC ALL-DISTRICT COACHES
District 1 John Becker, Vermont
District 2 Tony Bennett, Virginia
District 3 Casey Alexander, Lipscomb
District 4 Mike Rhoades, VCU
District 5 Kevin Willard, Seton Hall
District 6 Chris Jans, New Mexico State
District 7 Matt Painter, Purdue
District 8 Chris Beard, Texas Tech
District 9 Mark Few, Gonzaga
District 10 Joe Mihalich, Hofstra
District 11 Jeff Jones, Old Dominion
District 12 Derrin Hansen, Omaha
District 13 Matt Langel, Colgate
District 14 Nate Oats, Buffalo
District 15 Rob Jones, Norfolk State
District 16 Darian DeVries, Drake
District 17 Craig Smith, Utah State
District 18 Rob Krimmel, Saint Francis (Pa.)
District 19 Rick Byrd, Belmont
District 20 Mike Hopkins, Washington
District 21 Rick Barnes, Tennessee
District 22 Mike Young, Wofford
District 23 Joe Golding, Abilene Christian
District 24 Chris Ogden, UT Arlington
District 25 Kelvin Sampson, Houston
