When he became an NBA assistant coach, he learned how to coach offense. At OU, they spent half their practice times playing with a lid on the baskets to promote defense, toughness and rebounding. He had tough teams. But against teams who played good defense, we usually had some trouble scoring the ball. The most frustrating game of Sampson's tenure was the year Syracuse beat three or four highly rated Big XII teams on their way to the natty. That included a regional finals win over my favorite ever Sooner basketball player, Hollis Price his senior year. We'd been the the Final Four but laid an egg in the national semifinals. OUr point guard, Quannas White, got hurt in practice before that game, but Indiana was down a couple of players including missing their point guard. We could have pressed them out of the gym, but Kelvin didn't like that affecting his half court defense. But it allowed IU to do what they did best. And they shot lights out. Kelvin's learned.
Kelvin really had no clue about how to attack the Syracuse 2-3 zone, partly because all the good teams in the Big XII played primarily man defense. When he took the Indiana job, he didn't last for a lot of reasons, but amongst the highest was his attitude about defense first, second and third and we'll score enough on offense. He now is a much much better head coach than he was at OU. And at Houston, he can really recruit as well or better than he could at OU.
I'd have him back as he is now. Not so much the way he was in the first decade of this century. And it hit the fan, with his intentional violations of NCAA phone call rules.