COLLEGE HOOPS: Jim Nantz helps University of Houston dedicate new Guy V. Lewis Development Facility

University of Houston alum Jim Nantz was on hand to help dedicate the new Guy V. Lewis Development Facility Sunday, April 3, 2016. Nantz believes the practice facility is an important step towards putting Houston back in the national spotlight. less University of Houston alum Jim Nantz was on hand to help dedicate the new Guy V. Lewis Development Facility Sunday, April 3, 2016. Nantz believes the practice facility is an important step towards putting ... more Photo: Tony Gaines Photo: Tony Gaines Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close COLLEGE HOOPS: Jim Nantz helps University of Houston dedicate new Guy V. Lewis Development Facility 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

HOUSTON - Amidst the brouhaha of the Final Four, and in the eye of the storm between the semifinals and finals, alumni, donors and a host of big names, like CBS’ Jim Nantz, gathered at the newly constructed Guy V. Lewis Facility on the campus of the University of Houston for the official dedication.

The facility, a $25 million, three-floor state-of-the-art building complete with locker rooms, student-athlete lounges, a practice floor, training and medical areas and film rooms, is to serve as the home of the university’s men and women’s basketball teams, and is named in honor of legendary Houston coach Guy V. Lewis.

Houston men’s basketball head coach Kelvin Sampson alluded to what the Lewis name means in a conversation with Nantz.

“When you walk in every day and see Coach Lewis’ name, you realize you’re in a place that you can achieve greatness,” Sampson said. “Here at Houston, we wanted to be a school that had a chance to do some great things. We realized that to do that, it started with student-athletes, our players, and we needed the best of the best.”

Lewis, who earned a belated slot in the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in 2007, is known for his impact on the game of basketball as a whole, not only his role as Houston’s head coach. Lewis helped to usher in an era of racial integration by signing black players like Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney in a era when other coaches would not, aided in elevating the visibility and popularity of college basketball by putting together the first prime-time televised regular season game in history - 1968’s “Game of the Century” versus the University of California, Los Angeles - and led the Cougars to five Final Fours and two national title games in 1983 and 1984.

In recent years, Houston has fallen somewhat from national prominence, in part due to serious deficits in the facilities and accouterments to which top-flight recruits are accustomed. Nantz, addressing Lewis’ family in the crowd, credited Lewis for Houston’s past success and alluded to the team’s impending reemergence on the national level.

“I knew your mom and dad so well,” Nantz said. “They put us on the map. They made us the most important, relevant basketball program in the state of Texas. That’s what we were, and we went away for a little bit, but I see what these coaches are doing, and we’re reclaiming our place and our footprint.”

Nantz, a revered broadcaster who is calling his 34th Final Four, intimated that the facility puts Houston on par with nationally recognized schools and may well inspire some chatter amongst rival athletic directors.

“I practically live on college campuses much of the year,” Nantz said. “I’ve seen basketball facilities. Programs like Duke, I’ve been to their facility, Michigan, I’ve been to their facilities, and I hear athletic directors saying, ‘they did this’ or ‘they did that.’ Well, now, they’ll be saying, ‘Did you see what Houston did?’”

Sampson asserted that the new building, and all of the benefits it will provide for the basketball programs, will be a major boon to Houston’s chances at regaining a national level of relevancy, by allowing the Cougars to capitalize on their location amidst a hotbed of basketball talent.

“We can win a championship here,” Sampson said. “Not every school can do that, because of location. But because of our proximity to some of the best players in the country, we can. Look at these NCAA Tournament teams and look at all these rosters dotted with kids from Houston.”

While in recent years, the university might have lost those top-tier Houston players to other programs, the Guy V. Lewis Development Facility gives them a reason to seriously consider staying home.

“In the past, there was not a lot of reason for them to come here because of what the other schools had,” Sampson said. “Now, we don’t mind getting that kid from the airport or going to the kid’s house and bringing him here. The first thing we do is bring them here, and we knock their socks off.”

The Guy V. Lewis Development Facility is the first of a two-pronged plan to elevate Houston’s appeal to basketball recruits. The second, a $60 million dollar renovation for Hofheinz Pavilion, will begin at the conclusion of the 2016-17 season and is anticipated to be finished in time for the 2018-19 season.

Sitting as it does in the middle of some of the most fertile ground for basketball recruiting in the country, Houston can reasonably expect to be a dominant recruiting force in the very near future, and a return to the top tier of the college basketball world may be just around the corner.