Future Remains Bright for Houston After Cougars Fall Just Short Against Florida
SAN ANTONIO — Forever the bridesmaid, but not yet the bride, the Houston Cougars were the hard-luck loser at the end of an unforgettable 2025 men's Final Four fraught with frantic second-half comebacks.
The Cougars came ever so close to pulling off what might have been the most impressive national championship run of all time.
Drawing a top-10 Gonzaga team in the second round was quite the "gift" from the selection committee. So was needing to deal with Purdue in the Sweet 16 in what was effectively a road game in Indianapolis.
Yet, the Cougars persevered. They destroyed Tennessee in the Elite Eight. They pulled off an historic comeback against an all-timer Duke team in the Final Four. And they led by a dozen points in the second half of the national championship against Florida.
All that work for their all-too-familiar finish in second place.
First runner-up.
Best loser.
"We guarded 'em," Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson said after the game. "We held that team to 65 points. Thought if we held Duke to under 70, we'd have a good chance to win. I felt like if we held Florida under 70, we'd have a good chance to win.
"Saturday we found a way to win. Tonight maybe not so much."
Houston ended each of the past three seasons ranked No. 2 on KenPom before also entering (and ending) Monday night rated second in those ever-cited tempo-free analytics. The Cougars also finished fifth on KenPom in 2021, but they lost in the Final Four to eventual champion Baylor.
It looked as though this was finally going to be the year they broke through and won the first national championship in program history.
Between Emanuel Sharp and Mylik Wilson, the Cougars had Florida star Walter Clayton Jr. in a vice grip all night long. They grabbed 15 offensive rebounds, won the turnover battle and ended up taking sixteen more shots than the Gators. They led for seemingly the entire game—as Duke did against Houston two nights prior.
Slowly but surely, though, the Gators chomped their way back. Even with Clayton and Alijah Martin going a combined 5-for-20 from the field, Florida somehow forced Houston to settle for the silver medal. Again.
In the postgame celebration on the court, Ernie Johnson announced that Todd Golden (39) had become the youngest head coach to win a national championship since Jim Valvano in 1983.
That one, too, came at the expense of the Houston Cougars, in another two-point game that famously ended on a mad scramble for a loose ball.
On the one hand, Houston fans would have killed for this degree of "oh so close"-ness a decade ago. It's minimal consolation in the moment, but a testament to how far they've come.
In the 31 years from the end of their run of three straight Final Fours in the early 1980s under Guy Lewis through the first year of the Sampson era, the Cougars went 487-455 (.517 winning percentage) overall with an 0-4 record in the NCAA tournament.
When the once mighty Southwest Conference disbanded in 1996, the Cougars were a cat without a home, ending up in Conference USA for nearly two decades—and struggled mightily there, making just one NCAA tournament in 2010, and needing a miraculous conference tournament run to get there.
But Sampson put this program back on the map with his "football on hardwood" approach to conditioning and relentless defense.
By his fourth year at the helm, he had the Cougars cemented as an annual contender—not just in the American Athletic Conference, but at a national level.
Before making yet another league change in 2023, Houston won either the regular-season or conference-tournament title in five consecutive years in the AAC.
Any doubts about how their style would translate from a mid-major conference to the Big 12 were quickly put to rest, winning back-to-back outright regular-season championships in what was for the better part of a decade the undisputed best conference in the country.
Had there been a Dance in 2020, Houston would likely be working on a run of eight straight years as a No. 6 seed or better.
The Cougars have now made it at least to the Sweet 16 in six straight tournaments, including a pair of Final Fours.
Even without any title banners to hang in the Fertitta Center, you could easily make the case this has been the best team in basketball over the totality of the past eight years.
It's all very reminiscent of when Gonzaga made the leap from "lovable Cinderella" to "serious annual threat to win it all" about a decade ago.
And, buddies, Houston might just be getting warmed up.
Looking ahead at possible November rosters in early April is a fool's errand, with way-too-early top 25s always looking drastically different by the time the transfer portal has worked its voodoo magic. But, for kicks and giggles, let's take a peek at what Houston ought to be bringing to the table.
L.J. Cryer and J'Wan Roberts are out of eligibility, as are reserves Wilson and Ja'Vier Francis.
Those are huge losses, to be sure.
But the Cougars could/should have all of Milos Uzan, Emanuel Sharp, JoJo Tugler and Terrance Arceneaux back next season, which is one heck of a starting point of veterans who already know the Houston Way.
To that quartet, they add one of the best recruiting classes in the nation, and easily the best in program history.
Big man Chris Cenac Jr. is a top 10 recruit and one of those Sampson dream archetypes with a pterodactyl-like 7'3" wingspan. He is, as far as 247 Sports is concerned, the highest-rated recruit in Cougars history.
No. 3 on that all-time list is Isiah Harwell, a 6'6" shooting guard who thrives on both ends of the floor and could be an immediate dream fit for the Cougars next season.
Only slightly behind Harwell at No. 4 in Houston recruiting history is incoming point guard Kingston Flemings. We'll see how they decide to handle roles, but he has the talent to immediately become the primary ball-handler with Uzan perhaps becoming more of an off-ball shooting guard.
Add it all up and that's three of the four best recruits the Cougars have ever had, plus three returning starters and a key reserve. They also have a fourth potential impact recruit in Bryce Jackson, plus combo guard Mercy Miller who barely saw the floor this season as a 4-star freshman.
In those aforementioned way-too-early top 25s that are already flooding in, Houston seems to be the unanimous No. 1. And rightfully so. If they don't lose any of the main seven players just mentioned, the Cougars really ought to be the best team in the country.
And maybe, just maybe, it will finally be enough for a ring.
