‘Culture vs. culture’: Wichita hosts NCAA dandy between Gonzaga-Houston, Few vs. Sampson
Wichita will be the center of the March Madness world on Saturday night when two college basketball powerhouses square off in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
There will be no shortage of storylines when No. 1 seed Houston plays No. 8 seed Gonzaga at approximately 7:40 p.m. at Intrust Bank Arena with eyes around the nation glued to TNT for the television broadcast.
“It’s culture vs. culture,” Houston star L.J. Cryer said.
If the matchup feels like a second-weekend game, that’s because it typically would be with Houston and Gonzaga, who are both tied at 239 wins apiece for the most winningest programs in the country the past eight seasons.
They are each led by all-time great coaches in Gonzaga’s Mark Few (742 career wins) and Houston’s Kelvin Sampson (720 career wins). And the two currently have the two longest streaks of reaching the Sweet 16, as Gonzaga has made the last nine Sweet 16s — only the fourth team to do so in Division I history — and the Cougars have made the second weekend five times in a row.
“I respect all those guys over there,” Gonzaga point guard Ryan Nembhard said. “I think they’re great players. I think they’ve got a great program, great tradition, great coaching. It’s a great program. It’s two great teams, and I think it will be a full team effort to go get this win (Saturday).”
Few and Sampson have a relationship that dates back nearly four decades when Sampson was a first-time head coach at Washington State from 1987-94 and Few joined the Gonzaga staff in 1989.
Despite being two coaching icons who have consistently made deep runs in the NCAA Tournament, Few and Sampson have only faced off one time in their careers as head coaches — in 2007 when Sampson’s Indiana squad beat Few’s Gonzaga team 70-57.
Ahead of meeting again, the two were effusive in their praise for one another.
“Gonzaga was somebody we’ve always looked up to,” Sampson said. “(Few) is not one of the best coaches in our game, he’s one of the best coaches our game has ever seen. Mark is a Hall of Famer. Not just Hall of Fame coach. He’s a Hall of Fame everything: father, husband, friend. He’s one of those guys that makes our profession look good.”
“I think the players were already fatigued about how much I talked about Houston during this year to them and referenced Houston and Kelvin over and over again,” Few said. “Then lo and behold, here we end up with a chance to play them. He’s just an amazing guy, amazing coach. It will be an honor to tee it up with him.”
When asked about two of the most prestigious programs in recent history meeting in the second round, Sampson took exception to the question.
Houston has been great in the past decade. Gonzaga has been great for decades.
“We’ve only been doing this for about eight or nine years, whatever it is,” Sampson said. “Mark has been doing this a lot longer, so don’t compare us to Gonzaga. If the Poole kid doesn’t hit that shot (for Michigan in 2018), that’s six straight Sweet 16s, right? They’re 16, so we don’t really compare to them.
“They’re what every program aspires to be, have that consistency year to year. We’ve been good in our little bubble, but when you are playing Gonzaga, you are playing one of the elite programs in the history of this game, and I really mean that.”
Not only does the tradition suggest Wichita might be in store for an all-time second-round game on Saturday, but so do the advanced metrics from this season.
According to KenPom’s net efficiency, Gonzaga — rated the seventh-best team in the country — is one of strongest No. 8 seeds in NCAA Tournament history. In fact, it will be just the second top-10 KenPom matchup (Houston is No. 2) in the second round of the tournament in the last 15 years (the other being Illinois-Loyola in 2021).
“It could be a later matchup, but last year we played (Texas) A&M in the second round,” Cryer said. “So you are going to play somebody that’s really good in the round of 32. So yeah, that’s out of our control at the end of the day how they make the brackets. We were going to get matched up with a good team, and it just so happened to be them.”
That sentiment was shared by players from both teams on Friday, but there was an appreciation for the expected high-caliber game.
“It shows they have a winning culture, just like we do,” Houston’s Emanuel Sharp said. “The record shows that. We’re consistent with our effort throughout the years and teaching the young guys the culture and keeping that alive, and it looks like they do the same. Hats off to that program. It’s a great program. They are a great team.”
This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 4:33 PM with the headline "‘Culture vs. culture’: Wichita hosts NCAA dandy between Gonzaga-Houston, Few vs. Sampson."
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