GEICO PLAYERS ERA MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP

November 26, 2025

Kelvin Sampson

Ramon Walker

Mercy Miller

MGM Grand Garden Arena

Houston Cougars

Postgame Press Conference

Houston 66, Notre Dame 56

Q. Kelvin, a game like this at the end to be able to get some of your guys off the bench some important minutes, how good of a takeaway is that leaving Vegas?

KELVIN SAMPSON: Well, according to today, I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of Flemings. It's hard for freshmen to do that two nights in a row. Seeing that, took five shots. I think they all were in the first half, and all five good shots.

Sometimes you've got to just mix and make in there occasionally. That would help.

But Ramon is a tough guy. I thought during this game, the biggest play of the night was -- we were kind of leaking oil there because we just couldn't make a shot. Ramon had an offensive rebound, put-back, got fouled. Typical Cougar fashion. He got the offensive rebound, made it, missed the free throw. Jesus, Ramon. Just when we had something going.

I thought him and Mercy, they've kind of -- early in the season, they've kind of been in and out of the rotation, but because they're both great kids, their attitudes have been terrific. That's why I wanted to bring them here tonight, just to make sure they heard from me, I was proud of them.

It's not easy sitting on the bench. Am I going to play, am I not going to play, I didn't play much tonight. Meanwhile, you've got these guys in there, like Sakho was witness protection program against Tennessee. So I said, you know what, you don't get to do that. I threw Ced in there. Ced went in there.

Ced is the only guy I know that can play eight and a half minutes and have the exact same stat sheet across the board as if he had not played. That's hard to do. Check his stat line out. That's hard to do.

But three games in three days, I'm not going to sit here and lie, this time last year we wanted to go for a cruise for three months after we lost the one here last year.

But I'm glad I stayed last year, and I'll stay again this year, too.

Q. To have a guy like Ramon that you can turn to in games that you need him, what kind of difference does it make as a coach, that security?

KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah, the fact that he stayed and has been with the program -- in 2022, so it would have been 21-22, right, he was a freshman, pretty good. He and Kyler Edwards were kind of going at each other one day, and 'Mon's hand fell kind of funny, and I don't remember if Kyler fell, but he had to have surgery. That would have been in early November, late October. Just to show you, God looks out for you sometimes. The morning that Tramon Mark had surgery on his labrum, and then that night Marcus Sasser broke his fifth metatarsal, and we lost them both for the year; it was Ramon came back.

That same night, Kyler had a grade 3 or 4 ankle sprain, so we go play Temple with three guards: Jamal Shead, Taze Moore, and Ramon. Our backup guard was Fabian White. Our starting center was Reggie Chaney and Josh Carlton.

But that team just -- my point is that at the end of the year we beat the Big Ten champs, Illinois, to go to the Elite Eight. Then we beat Arizona, the Pac-12 champs, and he was the sixth man. Played 25 minutes against Arizona, hit a huge three, won the game for us at Wichita State in double overtime. So Ramon has been through a lot.

He's had a ton of injuries, but he's still standing. And as a coach, I know we're not playing very good right now, but there's still silent victories. I like Ramon. He hung in there.

Tonight, he does what he does. That'll put fuel in his engine.

Mercy is really not that bad a shooter. He ain't Steph Curry, but he ain't that bad. He's letting the rest of the team rub off on him. But he goes in there and makes four free throws.

Kalifa, doesn't play the first half because I'm mad at him for how he played last night. He goes in there the second half, battles and makes two free throws.

There's not many games where I'm going to have a chance to do something like this, but the guys that go in there with the right attitude, take advantage of the opportunity, that'll help them next time around, too.

Q. Ramon, I want to take what Kelvin said and ask you, what does it feel to sit next to him and hear him talk about you like that? What does it mean to you?

RAMON WALKER: It feels great. Through all the things that he said, he's been there by my side through all of it. Just hearing him say that, it makes me feel good. I know he feels good about having me back, just being a guy that's been in the program who knows what he wants and how to protect that to the other guys. It just feels really good hearing him say that.

Q. From a team perspective, given your veteran role on this squad, getting three games in three days, in your view, what are the biggest lessons you take away from this trip as you get ready to head home for Thanksgiving and prep for the second portion of your schedule?

RAMON WALKER: That we have a lot to work on. We're not supposed to be the best team right now. It's November. So we've got to go back, work on some things that we weren't very good at here, and finish out the rest of the non-conference and then get ready for conference play.

Q. Kelvin, if I could go back where you mentioned silent victories, who are some of those that you maybe saw this week or maybe the first month of the season?

KELVIN SAMPSON: Well, I've seen us -- I think the thing that we're missing is just game-to-game consistency from whoever. Like Kingston was great one night. On that same night -- against Auburn. We didn't play great against Auburn. We had two guys play good, Cenac and Flemings. Emanuel and Milos, those guys weren't very good in that game.

Yesterday we had a team shoot 17 free throws second half, we shot two, but we were down one with a minute and something to go or two minutes to go. I don't think we played very good at all, especially defensively.

It's there. With the consistency, though, can we get Milos and JoJo and Emanuel, Kingston, can we get multiple guys playing good on the same night. That's where we were this time last year. We weren't very good this time last year. When I left here last year, I went, whoo, we've got a long way to go. I'm saying pretty much the same thing this year.

The thing that happened, we started getting one, two, three, four, five guys all start playing good at the same time, and now you're not the same team anymore. People are judging us right now, see us fragmented. But there's some teams -- we've played them. There's some teams that play their best basketball in November. I'd rather play my worst basketball in November. Just stay with it. Sometimes you've just got to keep showing up every day.

We're doing the right things. This program hasn't -- faces change, but the things that we do -- I don't even want to say out loud what we were from the field the second half. I know some of that's three games in three days, legs, overuse, usage rate and all that.

But of the three teams, we held two of them low shooting percentage. Tennessee was plus 20 on the boards coming into yesterday. We out-rebounded them by eight, I think.

We're good here and we're good here and we're good here, but there's nothing that connects us yet. But it will eventually, and we're going to be a good team eventually.

Q. Kelvin, on the foul trouble issues, do you think that's just November basketball? How much of a concern is it for you?

KELVIN SAMPSON: How old are you?

Q. 22.

KELVIN SAMPSON: So eight years ago you were 14. We've been fouling since you was born, especially with that crew out there tonight. We fouled a lot. It's hard to say anything to the referees. They're very democratic with the whistle.

This guy had four, this guy had four, this guy had five, this guy had four, this guy had five. We've won a lot of games fouling everybody out. One of those guys when we played Texas A&M, I think they went to the free-throw line 50 times.

You guys check that, make sure I'm right. It was 40 something for sure. We beat Texas A&M to go to the Sweet 16. That was in Memphis, I think.

They shot 40 something free throws. If you know anything about us, you know the answer to that question.

We didn't guard the free-throw line very good that night. We've been guarding it pretty good up to this point. How many did they make tonight? 16 for 21? I knew that our defense was no good when Brutus (phonetic) us went up there and banked two. That was not -- our mojo was not working. Our mojo was working the other day.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the pregame process, playing three games in three days. How did you as a staff structure that and especially last night not knowing your opponent until later on?

KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah, that was interesting. Of course not knowing the opponent took a backseat to the disappointment of not playing better. Sometimes it's not about whether you win or lose, you just want your team to play better. That's kind of where I was last night.

Our trainer and our strength coaches, we travel with ice tubs, and they do an awesome job preparing for that. I don't do a whole lot in that area.

But John Houston, Bilal Batley and Coach Bishop, those guys are awesome in that area.

But I always look at it that we're all in the same boat. It's our first game, our second game in two days, it's also theirs. Today, Notre Dame's third game in three days. So we're not operating from a deficit. We're all the same. It's just your attitude and how you approach it.

Today we came out and very unlike us, we were making a lot of shots, and then reality set in, and we go back to doing what we do best. I thought our defense and our rebounding hung in there and helped us win the game.

Basically those balls are going to start going in. The guys that are missing a lot of shots really are good shooters. Milos shot 43 percent last year. Emanuel shot 40 plus percent. Mercy is a good shooter. Isiah Harwell is a good shooter.

Right now we just need to keep showing up with the right attitude. It'll turn around. We have good shooters on this team.