April 1, 2022

NEW ORLEANS, LA -- Houston’s Kelvin Sampson has earned the 2022 Ben Jobe Award, presented annually to the top Division I minority coach.

Sampson, who has won 69 percent of his games in 29 seasons as a Division I coach, steered the Cougars to a 32-6 record, the American Athletic Conference regular season and tournament championships and the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament.

The Cougars entered the Final Four weekend No. 2 in the KenPom ratings despite losing two of their best players and leading scorers to injury during the season. Once again, Sampson built one of the nation’s best defensive and rebounding teams. Houston ranked eighth in adjusted defensive efficiency, second in effective field goal percentage defense and third in scoring defense, allowing 58.8 points per game. The Cougars were also third in offensive rebounding percentage.

Sampson has guided four programs to the NCAA tournament, won 692 games at the Division I level and won at least 72 percent of the games at each of his last three coaching stops. 

The Ben Jobe Award, which is presented annually to the top Division I minority coach, is named in honor of one of the finest men to ever coach collegiate basketball.

Coach Jobe is an icon in the history of basketball at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He is best known as the head coach of the Southern University, a position he held for 12 seasons. He was also head coach at Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Talladega, Tuskegee and South Carolina State.

His record at Southern was 209-141 and included four NCAA Tournament appearances. He also coached the Jaguars to one NIT appearance, five SIAC championships, 11 SWAC titles and two NAIA Tournament Championships. Perhaps his most memorable moment as a coach was leading No. 15 seed Southern to a 93-78 win over No. 2 Georgia Tech in the first round of the 1993 NCAA Tournament. It stands as one of the great upsets in the history of the event.

2021-22 BEN JOBE AWARD FINALISTS