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Kelvin Sampson: Houston budget 'closer to Texas Southern than we were Texas' in early years

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones05/20/26brianjones_93

Kelvin Sampson said Houston‘s budget was not in the best place when he first arrived. Chris Baldwin of Paper City Magazine shared a video of the Houston basketball coach speaking to a group of supporters, talking about where the budget was over 10 years ago.

“We were not an American Conference team; we were more Sun Belt,” Kelvin Sampson said. “We were more Horizon League. We were closer to Texas Southern than we were Texas. We had no money. We had no money. Yet, everybody gets mad when things don’t go well.

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“I don’t have a lot more years left, and that’s fine. So I can say things like this. I’m saying it for (women’s basketball coach) Matt (Mitchell). And I’m saying it for (football coach) Willie (Fritz). I’m saying it for our volleyball, our swimming, and diving. I’m saying it for our new baseball coach. We’ve got to be supported at a higher level.”

This is not the first time Sampson has spoken out about Houston’s financial issues. In February, Sampson said his team can’t sign more recruits because the athletic department is “very poor.”

Kelvin Sampson says Houston has ‘a very poor athletic deparment’

“We have a very poor athletic department,” he said, per Myron Medcalf of ESPN. “We’re poor. We were poor when I got here, and we’re still poor. We probably have the lowest budget of anybody in Power 4. The way our recruiting is going, we have to stop at some point because we don’t have the money to keep bringing in many good players. And that’s not easy for us to do.”

Mitchell shared that Houston ranked 56th in Division I athletics, with revenue of $78 million in 2024, per USA Today. That was nearly one-third of Texas’ athletic budget.

Despite the lack of funds, Sampson hasn’t stopped putting together strong basketball teams. During his time with the Cougars, the 70-year-old has won five conference regular-season championships and three conference tournament titles. In 2025, Sampson led Houston to a national championship appearance, losing to Florida 65-63. This past season, Houston finished with a 30-7 record and reached the Sweet 16 of the tournament.