On Monday night, the Gators eked out a nailbiter win over Houston to claim their third championship in school history. 

The University of Houston Cougars basketball team was about as big of an underdog as a 1-seed gets entering the Final Four in San Antonio. 

Duke, led by their superstar Cooper Flagg, was considered an historically good team. Auburn was ranked first in the nation for large stretches of the year, and their conference foe, Florida, took the championship in what may have been the toughest conference in the history of the sport.

Despite the heartbreaking result, Monday night — and Houston’s entire postseason run for that matter — was emblematic of the culture and attitude instilled within this program. They fought to the bitter end, went to war for every loose ball and rebound, and left every ounce of effort they had in them on the hardwood in the Alamodome.

Houston doesn’t get the respect it deserves. 

The fourth largest city in the country is typically an afterthought to coastal elites who think culture is nonexistent outside of New York or L.A.. No, Houston doesn’t have the glitz of Hollywood or the billionaires of Manhattan. But the city is a celebration of diversity –– a kaleidoscope of cultures who all bring their unique color to the city and who, when times are tough, buckle down and go to work. 

That was the hallmark of Houston’s run this NCAA Tournament. 

Their furious comeback against Duke in the Final Four was fueled by relentless determination and frenetic defense rather than luck or particularly bad play on Duke’s behalf. Their wins over extremely talented Tennessee, Purdue, and Gonzaga teams were street brawls that the Cougars willed themselves to win. This Cougar team, just like their city, knows how to wear it on the chin and still come up swinging.

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When Kelvin Sampson was hired to be the head coach of the University of Houston basketball team in 2014, he inherited a program that was a shell of its former self. The glory days of the 1980s and Phi Slama Jamma were a distant memory. It had been decades since superstar athletes like Clyde Drexler or Hakeem Olajuwon graced campus. The Cougars’ once-proud basketball team hadn’t seen an NCAA Tournament appearance in four years — let alone the Final Fours and Championship games that had been the norm under legendary coach Guy Lewis for nearly three decades.

Sampson was determined to change that. Just like his Cougars basketball program, Sampson was in need of a fresh start, freshly off a five-year NCAA punishment (Sampson made the egregious violation of… wait for it… texting recruits. My how things have changed!). 

So how does a coach with a checkered past right the ship of a listless program? He does something that should ring familiar to all Houstonians who have endured trying times — he rolled up his sleeves and got to work. 

Knowing that his team would need world-class facilities to compete with the Dukes and Kansases of the world, Sampson helped the university raise $25 million for a new practice facility and $60 million for a sorely-needed renovation to the basketball arena. Knowing the impact a raucous crowd could have on his team, Sampson walked around campus to introduce himself to students and ask them to come support his team.

But more than anything, Sampson changed the identity of his team. Sampson is, as my diehard Cougar fan uncle likes to say, a grumpy old man. He has impossibly high standards and screams himself hoarse pushing his players to meet them. He puts his players through drills that more closely resemble football practice than basketball, and in turn he, inevitably, has the hardest working, toughest, and grittiest team in the nation, year in and year out.

Perhaps unwittingly, Sampson has imbued in his basketball team a spirit that is reminiscent of the city of Houston itself. 

The Cougars don’t have the glitzy, elite recruits that the Blue Bloods of college basketball do. They don’t play in an elite conference. Everything they get is earned — every inch won through sweat, blood, and tears. 

The Cougars win because they do the little things right, they work harder than you do, and they embrace team basketball. 

Like clockwork, some in the national media are already declaring Sampson and Houston’s title chances to be all but dead. But that’s exactly where Sampson and his players thrive — as the underdogs, scratching and clawing for everything they get. Star players come and go — culture, toughness, grit, and determination last. Sampson has built a program at Houston that is here to stay.