For the better part of 40 minutes Monday night, an elusive championship was in Houston's and head coach Kelvin Sampson's grasp.
A victory would have have marked a breakthrough for a program and a coach who took the championship stage in San Antonio on similar trajectories.
Houston, in its seventh Final Four, is a program with a rich history and a proud lineage that features Phi Slamma Jamma, Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and Elvin Hayes. It's a history that does not include an NCAA championship.
Sampson entered Monday's game as one of the winningest coaches of his generation and a respected leader who's now taken two programs to three Final Fours and coached in 50 previous NCAA tournament games.