Kelvin Sampson walked into a meeting of Big 12 coaches not long ago and looked around the room, and the thought that popped into the Houston coach's head was that it felt like walking into a dog park. Indeed, the Cougars — along with UCF, Cincinnati and BYU — are taking a big step up by joining the Big 12 this year. The first three are joining from the American Athletic and BYU from the West Coast conferences.