The No. 10 Houston Cougars got another dominant season-opening win under coach Kelvin Sampson and began the 2026-27 campaign with a 94-55 win over La Salle at Fertitta Center on Monday night. 

Given the fact that Houston is a brand new team that features four new starters and a different bench unit, the early development over the next couple of weeks will be interesting to watch. 

Sampson gave some key thoughts in the post-game press conference about the team’s performance in game one of the regular season. 

Variety of Standout Areas for Houston in the Opener

“Our defense was outstanding tonight first time out. We’ve had three opportunities to play defense and we’ll keep getting better,” Sampson said. 

Houston has the look of a more traditional Sampson-led squad that can play elite defense and the fact that he’s already mentioning how good it is in the first game bodes well for the future. A big part to the puzzle that will determine how strong Houston’s defense can be is the transition that senior forward Joseph Tugler is making from the five (center) to the four (power forward) spot. 

Sampson mentioned a few times that Tugler got the wrong man a few times and that led to some open 3-pointers from La Salle. 

“We don’t need any help on the five Jo, we got one there. We need you to go guard yours. It’s gonna take him a while. You’ve been playing a certain position every possession of your entire career, then all of a sudden you’re playing a different position,” Sampson said. “But if these guys keep trusting in the process just like everything else here, they’ll get better.”

Houston also has the looks of a strong rebounding team across the board. Junior guard Mercy Miller racked up seven rebounds, which was a team high. 

“Mercy’s a good rebounder. Mercy was a good rebounder before he got here. We have not made Mercy a good rebounder,” Sampson said. “Every good rebounding team that I’ve had here, we’ve had really good rebounding guards, so this team has a good chance to be a good rebounding team.”

Miller had gotten 10 rebounds in the scrimmage against Ole Miss. Additionally, the Cougars have a different style of offense this season that is more focused on points in the paint and free throws. This Houston team attacks the basket far more than last year, which was more of a jump-shot team. 

“That’s a big emphasis with this team. We’ve always had good 3-point shooters, but we don’t play the same way every year. We have one of those teams where I have no idea who our leading scorer was. We don’t have a leading scorer,” Sampson said. “Getting to the free throw line is a big emphasis for this team. We’ll get to the free throw line more. We’ll shoot more two’s, probably not as many threes.”

The Cougars went 27 out of 37 at the free-throw line and had 44 points in the paint against La Salle. 71 out of the 94 points were from those two categories.