Starting point guard Milos Uzan is the latest player to leave the NBA Draft process and return to school. Uzan is one of the few who have not transferred and is returning to his old school. Houston was already going to be a top 5 team in the country for most of the year, but Coach Sampson's return of his point guard makes Houston one of the top teams in the nation heading into next year and a preseason favorite to return to the Final Four and cut down the nets in April.
Kelvin Sampson is one of the best coaches the game has ever seen. He has won everywhere he has ever gone, and his latest masterpiece is transforming the Houston Cougars program, consistently getting them to play like a top-5 program every season. The Cougars preach family and togetherness. Those are just a few of the many reasons that Houston players rarely transfer.
Everyone is going to look here and say well, what kind of impact did Uzan have? Houston is a defensive team that makes it impossible to score; everyone knows that. What gets overlooked about last year and the Cougars was their ability to shoot the basketball. They were in the top 5 in the country by a three-point percentage, and the leader of the pack in that department was Uzan. He shot 43% from deep a season ago while leading the team in assists.
Uzan was overshadowed by his teammate LJ Cryer, who was the offense for Houston and earned an All-America nod because of it. Cryer is gone, and the offense is going to fall into the hands of Uzan. That is precisely what coach Sampson was hoping for. His best teams were all led by an experienced point guard who would rather pass and play defense than score. I don't think Uzan will turn into former star Jamal Shead, but he doesn't have. This current team is different from those teams.
Another way to view the success or failure of an individual player is to look beyond the numbers everyone can see. Let's examine the +/- stats for Houston last year, and you will see that the big three players returning for Houston (Emmanuel Sharp, JoJo Tugler, and Uzan) had a +32 rating when they were on the floor together last year. That means that the trio was 32 points better on the scoreboard than the opponent. Isaac Trotter also confirmed this fact from 247 Sports.
Any time you can get players to come back to your program, especially one that was the National Runner-up, it's a good thing. Houston does have those three players returning, and it is adding two top-15 first-year students who will likely be lottery picks in the 2026 NBA Draft. They have a fantastic starting five and have added depth that they previously lacked. Uzan makes them whole and allows freshman point guard Kingston Flemings to learn without having to run the offense in year one.
Uzan, Sharp, and Tugler are also among the highest-rated defensive players in the country. Those three players can guard every position on the floor, and when they are locked in and out of foul trouble, they make it impossible to score. Houston is going to be Houston again. They will defend, and they will shoot, and will probably win the Big 12 again.
All of those things are a successful season, but can the Cougars get back to the National Title game and, this time, win their first National Title? It's May, so it's hard to say with certainty they can do that. The roster is loaded, and the Cougars have some of the best talent in the country, and their whole is better than most teams. They are the best team, even without the best individuals.
I did pick Florida, especially after the Boogie Fland commitment, to be the preseason number 1 team, and I am going to stick with that. Houston is poised to be a preseason top 3 team, and possibly even a top 2 team in the country, who are expected to win the Big 12, secure a one seed in the NCAA Tournament, and return to the Final Four. All of those would be a success. Tugler, Sharp, and Uzan remember the feeling of being so close to winning a National Title that it shouldn’t surprise anyone if they were to get the job done this year. Uzan’s return makes that closer to reality.