SAN ANTONIO — Whoever said there were no great underdog stories left in March Madness, or that the title would go to whichever team spends the most money — or amasses the gaudiest collection of big names from the transfer portal — hasn’t been following the Houston Cougars.

And anyone who thought college hoops was leaving behind teams with no NBA-ready stars coached by tart-as-lemon lifers who care more about the size of a player’s wingspan and heart than his 3-point percentage — well, that’s these Cougars, too.

Watch the championship game LIVE on KHOU 11 Monday night! Tipoff is 7:50 p.m. You can also join us at our watch party in downtown Houston!

Coach Kelvin Sampson’s squad of defenders and deniers face Florida for the national title on Monday night. They wrap up a front-runner’s Final Four that featured all No. 1 seeds but ends with the two top ones — Auburn and Duke — sitting at home.

“We’ve kind of done it our way,” said Sampson who, at 69, would surpass Jim Calhoun to become the oldest coach to win the title if his Cougars prevail. “It’s worked out pretty good.”

When Houston (35-4) left the American Athletic Conference in 2023 to join the Big 12, it immediately became the school with the smallest athletic budget among the five (now four) major conferences.

Houston has tradition — everyone remembers Phi Slama Jama — and is building a budget but that takes time. 

in the meantime, Sampson still manages to attract and keep gritty players. 

“Bottom line, he’ll do what he does best. He builds a culture and gets the right kids with the right work ethic,” UH Athletic Director Eddie Nunez said. 

Sampson’s biggest portal piece is LJ Cryer, the guard who won a title with Baylor in 2021 before transferring and become the Cougars’ leading scorer. If Houston is going to place a player in the NBA next season, Cryer probably is the one.

“I don’t think necessarily that applies to my program,” Sampson said when asked if the portal has changed the nature of his job.

The rest of the roster spends time making life hard on players who certainly will be in the NBA soon. See the last 10 minutes of Houston’s 70-67 win over Duke on Saturday.

They are players like J’Wan Roberts, a 23-year-old senior who has played 148 games in five seasons, all at Houston — a career that was extended because of the coronavirus pandemic. Or Emanuel Sharp, now in his third year with Sampson and averaging about three 3-pointers a game.

Houston’s calling card is scrapping out games that turn ugly. It has the nation’s top defense in field goal percentage (.382) and points allowed (58.5).

“I think they’ll pressure the ball screen, try to get the ball out of Walt’s hands. But they rotate, they’re long, they play so hard, so tough,” Gators coach Todd Golden said.

In an era when players like Duke’s Cooper Flagg — a 6-foot-9 force of nature who can dunk, spin and shoot the 3 — get air time, there’s not as much room for, say, Houston’s Jojo Tugler, a 6-8 sophomore out of Monroe, Louisiana, who has more rebounds than points this season and whose four blocks against Duke gave him 77 in 35 games.

“One of the first things we do when we bring a kid on campus is we measure their wingspan because of how we play pick-and-roll defense,” Sampson said. “There’s a lot of 7-foot kids that are very lumbering. They have a hard time moving. Those kids would not function well in the way we play defense.”

CBS might not be rushing to make highlight reels of those kind of things.

Sampson goes after the kind of players who don’t care about that.

“That’s what you want to be part of,” Roberts said. “You want to be with someone who’s going to develop you, going to love you and not let you have bad days.”

Florida, a 1 1/2-point pick over Houston n this game per BetMGM Sportsbook, has played underdog in its own way this year.

The Gators (35-4) were picked to finish sixth in their (very good Southeastern) conference and are led by a player, Walter Clayton Jr., whose first sport was football.

Their roster is filled with late bloomers from mid-majors (Clayton, Will Richard, Alijah Martin) and a few more out of high school who were 3-star recruits at best (Alex Condon, Thomas Haugh).

Even so, it would be hard to put Florida, with a rich athletic department, rich history and playing in a rich conference, in the same category as Houston — a commuter school in America’s fourth-largest city called “Cougar High” by some locals.

If things go Sampson’s way, they’ll be calling them champions instead.