Several times during the 2014-15 mens college basketball season, Lauren Sampson flew from her home in Charlotte, N.C., to Houston to visit her parents and attend University of Houston games. Kelvin Sampson, Laurens father, was in his first year as the schools head coach, while Kellen Sampson, her younger brother, was an assistant coach.

Lauren was working as a pharmaceuticals sales representative, but she had grown up around the sport and worked in athletics early in her career. As she sat in the stands at Cougars games, she grew frustrated at the small number of fans there and the arenas dull atmosphere. She took notes on what needed to be improved upon and shared her ideas with her father. The next season, Lauren was able to begin executing on those plans when she accepted a job working for the program in a marketing and publicity role.

Now the programs director of external operations, Lauren has been in Indianapolis since the middle of last month with her father, brother and 28 other members of the Houston traveling party. They have lived an isolated lifestyle, spending time in their hotel rooms or at basketball courts, to make sure they remain free of the coronavirus. But no one is complaining.

On Saturday, the Cougars (28-3) face Baylor (26-2) in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament, the first time they have made it this far since appearing in three consecutive Final Fours from 1982 to 1984 under legendary head coach Guy V. Lewis and future Hall of Famers Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.

Houston, the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Regional, has defeated No. 15 Cleveland State, No. 10 Rutgers, No. 11 Syracuse and No. 12 Oregon State, the first time a school knocked off four double-digit seeds on its way to the national semifinals. Still, that doesnt make the accomplishment any less gratifying.

After the Oregon State game, it broke me emotionally, just the road weve been on for the past 14 years, Lauren Sampson said.

This season has served as somewhat of a redemption for Kelvin Sampson, whose last college head coaching position at Indiana ended in frustrating fashion. In February 2008, near the end of his second season with the Hoosiers, Sampson resigned under pressure due primarily to making impermissible phone calls to recruits at Indiana and Oklahoma, his previous job. Later that year, the NCAA imposed a five-year show-cause penalty, the most severe punishment a coach can receive for violating NCAA rules.

Sampson ended up heading to the NBA, serving as an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks from 2008 to 2011 and the Houston Rockets from 2011 to 2014. Kellen Sampson, who was a graduate assistant on his fathers staff at Indiana, became a graduate assistant at Oklahoma and later an assistant with Stephen F. Austin and Appalachian State.

During the spring of 2014, with Kelvins show-cause penalty expired, the University of Houston offered him the job after firing coach James Dickey, who had finished 64-62 in four seasons and never made the postseason. Kelvin accepted the position, choosing to get back into college coaching and run his own program even though the Cougars were far from their mid-1980s form. In fact, since the three consecutive Final Fours, Houston had only made four NCAA tournament appearances in the following 30 years when Sampson took over, losing in the first round each time.

Still, Sampson didnt have to move from Houston and could reunite with Kellen, whom he hired after Kellens staff at Appalachian State had been fired. He also wanted his daughter, Lauren, to join him, but she refused that first year.

Lauren Sampson had worked in the University of Oklahomas athletics department while attending school there when her father coached the Sooners and led them to 11 NCAA tournament appearances in 12 seasons. After graduating from Oklahoma in 2004, Lauren had marketing roles at the Oklahoma City sports commission and the College of Charleston before reuniting with her father at Indiana during the 2006-07 season. But the way her fathers tenure ended at Indiana left a sour taste, prompting Lauren to spend the next several years in sales and marketing roles primarily for pharmaceuticals companies.

Indiana had broken my heart, she said. It was tough on a lot of levels. I think in the best of times, its a fishbowl. It was a tough experience.

When Houston finished 13-19 in Sampsons first season and struggled to create any buzz among fans, he again asked his daughter to help him out and promote and market the Cougars throughout the city and state. This time, she agreed, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

Indiana had definitely made me wary of going back and selling my Dad again, Lauren said. Thats not an easy thing to do. I had to really think about it.

Making things even more challenging, the Cougars were basically an afterthought in a city that has professional football, baseball and basketball teams. High school football is also a much bigger deal, as are the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, which played in more prestigious conferences and had larger budgets.

We had to take what people thought of Houston basketball and completely change it, Lauren Sampson said. We had to go, We understand what you thought, but thats not who we are. From a brand level, I needed to flip the script.

Lauren, Kelvin and Kellen Sampson made it a priority to reach out to locals and get involved in community service projects, including helping people whose lives had been upended in 2017 by Hurricane Harvey. Lauren also helped spread the word about the program by attending student events and orientations and through social media, particularly with the #ForTheCity slogan that former point guard Galen Robinson Jr. had first posted in 2015. Houston has upgraded the game day atmosphere, as well, making it more festive and fun.

The outreach helped increase the average attendance at home games to 6,738 fans per game during the 2019-20 season, up from 2,635 in Sampsons first season. That is a near-sellout at the Fertitta Center, the schools on-campus arena that has a capacity of 7,100 fans. This season, the school only allowed 25 percent capacity at games due to the pandemic, but most games reached that limit.

It was a slow burn, Lauren Sampson said. At first, it was. Wait, we have a basketball program? Its rewarding now.

The winning has certainly played a major role in the interest, too. The Cougars made the NCAA tournament for the first time during Sampsons tenure in 2018, knocking off San Diego State in the first round before losing by one point in the second round to Michigan, which ended up losing in the national championship game to Villanova.

Houston advanced to the NCAA tournament again in 2019 and would have made it last season but the event was cancelled as a result of the pandemic. The Cougars entered this season ranked 17th in the Associated Press poll, the first time they had been ranked in the preseason since 1984. They ended up capturing the American Athletic Conferences tournament title and are on an 11-game winning streak heading into Saturday.

Houston is an underdog against Baylor, but the teams are close in terms of Ken Pomeroys adjusted efficiency margin metric, with the Cougars ranking third (30.16) and the Bears second (30.73). The winner meets either UCLA or Gonzaga for the title on Monday.

More than 13 years after leaving Indiana amidst relentless scrutiny, which now seems overblown considering the violations he committed, Kelvin Sampson has resurrected his career and done so with his family by his side. Lauren and Kellen live two streets from each other and about two miles from their father and mother, Karen, a longtime college basketball fan and Kelvins high school sweetheart. Kelvin and Karen were away from their children for several years following the Indiana situation, but they have all now found a welcoming home in Houston.

Were an abnormally close family, Lauren Sampson said. Its so nice to be together now. We appreciate it now that we wandered away from each other for a minute.