TCU defeated Houston by one point on Saturday evening. The No. 2-ranked college basketball team in the nation dropped their second game of the season on a wild closing-minute sequence that ended with a court storm.
Not long after the game, somebody either released their excitement in an usual manner or let out their anger by destroying the opponent’s facility. A mysterious hole in the wall appeared on the wall right outside of the locker rooms.
It could have been a headbutt or an elbow or a high kick. It was likely a punch.
If it was indeed the Cougars who were responsible for the hole, as could be surmise, that’s a bad look. Kelvin Sampson will need to address the incident and indicate how he will prevent similar frustrations from boiling over in the future. That is unacceptable. Especially on the road.
There is also a slim chance that the Horned Frogs were the hole-makers. If their excitement led them to punch the wall of their own team facilities, then there needs to be a conversation about two things:
- Hey, don’t do that again!
- We need to scale back our excitement (just a little bit) over a regular season win.
More than likely, the visitors were the culprits. Houston, which began the year with Final Four hopes, is playing its first season in the Big 12. Sampson and company won their first conference game against West Virginia and then lost back-to-back games to Iowa State and TCU.
They are 1-2 through their first three games as members of the Big 12. That is not ideal.
Unfortunately, Sampson did not take accountability. He was focused on what could have been instead of what is.
We should be 3-0. We easily could be 3-0 but we’re not.
— Kelvin Sampson
His press conference after the first loss to the Cyclones was even worse.
There are some glaring issues surrounding the Cougars after two-straight losses to middle-tier Big 12 teams on the road. Both the Horned Frogs and Cyclones are good teams, but Sampson has to win those types of games if his team is going to be legitimate national championship contenders.
And then, to make things worse, one of his players or coaches likely threw a punch and put a hole in the wall of an opponent’s facility. Assuming that is what happened, that isn’t cool.
Sampson needs to get his team straightened out as soon as possible. Both in terms of its on-court play and its alleged off-court actions.