When the fourth and final game of a long day of first-round NCAA Tournament action ended Friday at PPG Paints Arena, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson went through all the mandated postgame rigmarole, gathered his belongings and headed back to the team hotel with his players.

It already was Saturday morning when they got there.

“I didn’t watch film last night,” he said, back at the arena in the afternoon, following a short practice session in advance of No. 5 seed Houston’s scheduled South Region second-round game at 12:10 p.m. Sunday against No. 4 Illinois. “Twenty years ago, I might have watched last night, but I had about 15 minutes to play with my granddaughter before she went to bed, so I elected to play with her.”

With just an abbreviated period of shut-eye, Sampson arose early Saturday and began to pore over film of the 19th-ranked Illini (23-9), who have one of the nation’s best big men in 7-foot, 285-pound junior Kofi Cockburn.

His 17 points and 13 rebounds helped Illinois escape Chattanooga with a 54-53 victory in the first round, a game in which the Illini led for just the final 25 seconds.

“Well, we led the right 25 seconds, and that’s the important thing,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said.

The Cougars, ranked 15th and coming off an 82-68 first-round victory over UAB on Friday, await the Illini and Sampson, who, at 63 and with a calmer approach now, tries to not look in the rear-view mirror. If he did, he’d see a dark time that produced numerous recruiting violations resulting in his firing in 2008 as Indiana’s coach and an effective five-year banishment from the NCAA.

Instead, Sampson, whose career record is 697-339, decided to keep his eyes on the road ahead of him.

Of the unpleasant ordeal that began more than a decade ago, Sampson has said he could have felt sorry for himself, but he pressed on, earned another opportunity and now has Houston rolling as one of the nation’s elite teams.

Houston (30-5) reached the Final Four last season before losing to eventual national champion Baylor in the semifinals.

“They’ve got a really good idea who the Cougars are,” Underwood said, referring to his team’s mindset following the Illini’s last-minute, one-point victory in the first round.

When it was suggested the Cougars, who play in the relatively new American Athletic Conference, perhaps were underappreciated and looked upon with less relevance than some Power 5 conference schools, Houston senior forward Fabian White Jr. shot back: “Technically, we’re Power 6.”

White, who is averaging 13.2 points per game — one of four Illinois players in double figures — then gave the notion a bit more consideration.

“It’s not really motivation,” he said. “We’ve always been the underdog since I’ve been here, especially, so we just take it to the chin, just trust our work and keep it moving.”

Underwood has no doubt about what his team is up against for another chance to reach the Sweet 16 (Illinois last season lost to Loyola Chicago in the second round.).

“They were a Final Four team last year,” he said of Houston. “They’ve obviously been very successful for a long time under Kelvin (Sampson, who is 197-69 in eight seasons with the Cougars). It doesn’t matter what league they’re in. We know they’re good.”

But mainly, while still somewhat under the radar nationally, Houston basketball primarily has been known for “The Twin Towers” of the 1980s, 7-4 Ralph Sampson and 7-0 Hakeem Olajuwon, with the NBA’s Rockets.

Perhaps, if Houston continues its current rampage under Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars can add a unique chapter to their history.

In a 2019 Chicago Tribune account, Sampson said: “You’re not a loser in anything until you quit. Don’t quit. … Get up. Regardless of how it happened, or why it happened, you get up, and you fight.”

And that, Sampson said Saturday, is how he continues going about his life’s work as a basketball coach — a college basketball coach.

During his time away from the college ranks, though, Sampson spent six years as an NBA assistant. He figured he’d do well, as he had done at the college level during stops at NAIA Montana Tech, Washington, Oklahoma and Indiana.

He was wrong.

“When I first got to the NBA, I thought I could coach an NBA team,” he said. “That couldn’t have been further from the truth. I wasn’t anywhere close to being qualified.”

In 2014, another college opportunity came about at Houston, which hired Sampson just months after his father, Hall of Fame high school coach Ned Sampson, encouraged his son to get back into the college game.

Since then, Sampson has won three AAC Coach of the Year awards (including this season), and his teams have claimed two conference tournament championships.

Seemingly settled into his latest niche, Sampson smiled as he thought about the success his Cougars are experiencing during an impressive stretch of winning seasons.

He doesn’t want it to end, but he knows it could happen in a heartbeat.

“It’s emotional because this is our life,” Sampson said. “We pour our lives into these young men, and we want what’s best for them, and then when the game is over and you lose, that’s it.”

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