With such dominance, the Coogs' national profile could be hard to ignore. That was the focus of head coach Kelvin Sampson's appearance Monday night on ESPN SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt.
[Ads /]
The Cougars (29-2) are the AAC champions and could cruise to an automatic bid into March Madness through the conference tourney. The Cougars begin play as the top seed on Friday.
On Van Pelt's program, Sampson said while his team is the talk of March, he knows that without consistent play, their time at the dance can end in an instant.
"For five, six, seven days, everybody's talking about your team and about your players and about your team's history and how you went about this journey. And then it ends. It's going to end for everybody," said Sampson, who has 14 NCAA tournament appearances to his name.
His 15th is all but wrapped up, but how the Cougars are seeded remains to be seen.
[Ads /]
The late-season loss to UCF dropped UH out of the top 10 and a possible top-two seed. Still, as of Tuesday before the start of the AAC tournament, ESPN's Bracketology with Joe Lunardi predicts Houston as a No. 3 seed.
RELATED: Houston Cougars take down Cincinnati to clinch conference championship
Houston Cougars take down Cincinnati to clinch conference championship