Men's Basketball

UH's Sampson, Shead Honored by NABC

After a record-setting season, University of Houston Men's Basketball Head Coach Kelvin Sampson and senior point guard Jamal Shead earned national honors from the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

Sampson was named the NABC National Coach of the Year presented by the Marines while Shead was recognized as the organization's National Defensive Player of the Year.

Under Sampson's and Shead'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.

ABOUT KELVIN SAMPSON
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.

"This award is a special recognition of a tremendous season by an exceptional staff with players I love being around on a daily basis and a program that has been built on the backs of our former players, our current staff and a great university," Sampson said. "I am grateful for this honor and accept on behalf of our staff and players."

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.

This was only the latest honor for Sampson during the 2023-24 season. He received the Henry Iba Award – presented annually to the National Coach of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers Association – and was recognized as the National Coach of the Year by Field of 68.

Sampson also was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year by the league office and the Associated Press and was recognized as the National Association of Basketball Coaches 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 Year 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).

ABOUT JAMAL SHEAD
Shead has been a leader for the Cougars throughout his career and never more so than during the 2023-24 season. He owns a 120-18 record in four seasons during his Houston career and ranked second in school history with his victory total.

The Cougars held 23 opponents to 60 or fewer points while the Manor, Texas, native recorded 22 games with multiple steals with 12 games with 3+ thefts, including a season-high six steals against rv/– Texas in a home win inside Fertitta Center on Feb. 17.

In the Houston records book, Shead ranked third in Houston history with 226 steals and was sixth in school single-season history with 80 steals.

"I want to thank my coaches and my teammates for this honor. We play hard and get after our opponents. Our system helped me in so many way, and, once you learn our system, you can really thrive in it," Shead said.

He was named the Player of the Year by the league's head coaches and the Associated Press and also was named the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, becoming the first player in Big 12 history to accomplish that feat in the same season.

It also was the second straight season in his second different league in which Shead was named Conference Defensive Player of the Year. He joined forward and Houston great Bo Outlaw as the only Cougars to accomplish that feat.

Shead stood second among the Cougars with 12.9 points per game. Shead also led Houston and ranked among the Big 12 Top-Five leaders in assists per game (6.3, 3rd), steals per game (2.2, 3rd) and assist-turnover ratio (3.11, 2nd) and was the only student-athlete to rank among the nation's Top-20 leaders in all three categories.

He was named the Big 12 Player of the Week twice during the regular season and was recognized as the Naismith Trophy Player of the Week for Feb. 26 and the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week for Jan. 23.

Shead scored double-digit points in 27 games, including 13 of the last 15 . He also dished out 10+ assists in six games with a career-high 29-point, 10-assist performance at #21/19 BYU on Jan. 23. He was the only Cougar to record points-rebounds AND points-assists double-doubles in 2023-24.

Purdue's Zach Edey was named the NABC Division I Player of the Year and the NABC Pete Newell Big Man of the Year. Kentucky's Reed Sheppard was honored as the NABC Freshman of the Year presented by adidas.