Big 12 Basketball: Top 10 head coaches of the century (2000-20)
By Joey Loose
7. Big 12 Basketball coach rankings – Kelvin Sampson (Oklahoma, 2000-2006)
There’s plenty to like about what Sampson accomplished with the Sooners, a job he took in 1994. Oklahoma was making the NCAA Tournament on a regular basis under Sampson’s lead, no surprise for the man who had achieve success at fertile Washington State in the years before. While he’s certainly known more today for his runs with Indiana and Houston, what Sampson did with the Sooners cannot be overlooked.
The obvious highlight is the 2002 Oklahoma team that won 31 games and marched to the Final Four. He finished top 3 in the Big 12 and made the NCAA Tournament in five of those final six years. He built continuous success with the Sooners and was 68-28 in conference play during that stretch. When you throw in an Elite Eight run from 2003, it’s clear that Sampson built a really solid program in Oklahoma.
Like the other coaches in the Big 12, Sampson spent much of his tenure chasing behind Kansas, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do a great job himself. That Final Four was especially impressive, and Sampson used that success to land the job at Indiana in 2006. While things ended very badly for him with the school, he’s bounced back in a major way with Houston and continues to prove that he’s an impressive coach and recruiter.