Nov. 4, 2025 marks the campaign start of coach Matthew Mitchell’s tenure debut with Houston women’s basketball, and thanks to his proven resume, potentially the start of the next great program rebuild inside the Fertitta Center.
“We’re all just working to embrace the system, embrace the winning tools, come to work everyday,” Mitchell said. “To come pursue this aspiration we have to be the best we can be, with honesty, hard work and discipline.”
The introduction of Mitchell on April 1, following a 5-25 campaign the season prior under the final season in Ronald Hughey’s time in Houston, lit a new spark in the program’s recruiting path, leading to a largely-overhauled roster of 10 new players.
Among the 10 is an incoming three-player freshman class in Australian forward Jemma Hunter, forward Jade Jones and guard Kayla King.
However, the bulk lies in a seven-player transfer portal class headlined by the additions of senior guard TK Pitts from SMU, and graduate forward Amirah Abdur-Rahim from Texas A&M.
Pitts and Abdur-Rahim’s outlooks
In her career across three seasons at SMU, Pitts averaged five points per game and nearly four rebounds while shooting at a 45.4% clip from the floor, as her 2024-25 campaign with the Mustangs established her presence as a proven starter.
Through her offseason studies, what ultimately drew Pitts to commit to Mitchell was not only his energetic passion for the game but also his leadership value and how it never changed from the resume he built in his 13 seasons at Kentucky.
“One thing that I said stuck out to me was that everything he said 12 years ago, eight years ago, 10 years ago is what he says now,” Pitts said. “That’s how I know the culture and the standard will never change, and he holds everybody he interacts to such a high standard, not on the court but off the court.”
Abdur-Rahim shares the same sentiment with her 2022-24 teammate at SMU in Pitts, reflecting on how Mitchell’s tools of success, no matter what setting, ultimately brought her career marks of 6.9 points and 4.1 rebounds per game across five seasons and three schools to Cullen Boulevard.
“What drew me to this program is the values and everything that coach Mitchell stood for,” Adbur-Rahim said. “When we had our first conversation, mentioned his winning tools to me: hard work, honesty and discipline.”
Keeping these tools, and their resumes from playing in other power conference slates including the ACC and SEC in mind, Pitts and Abdur-Rahim look to extend their leadership amongst their back and frontcourt slots respectively, especially as Big 12 play looms.
Big 12 surprise in store?
In the Big 12’s preseason coaches poll released on Oct. 9, the Cougars were picked to finish second to last in the conference, in a similar position to their finishes in their first two league campaigns.
However, such a ranking does not matter to the likes of Pitts, who expressed her and the team’s expectations of shooting for goals higher than anticipated, which could help bolster the ongoing theme around UH Athletics of quick, yet proven program rebuilds.
“We’re gonna be in that NCAA tournament,” Pitts said. “We’re gonna shoot to win the conference. I have very high expectations for the team myself, and the team has very high expectations for themselves.”
Although five of the Cougars’ 18 league games are against preseason AP top 25 teams, Houston, even in the first two seasons of the program’s tenure, has shown it can stay in play against the top portion of the conference.
What the Cougars seek to limit and instead create with its veteran-heavy presence roster are turnovers in an effort to win the fourth quarter, especially at Fertitta Center, against league opponents of all calibers.
This, paired with a healthy rotation, will be substantial in Houston being able to take care of business against the bottom portion of the conference and improve upon its average result margin of 17 in league play from 2024-25, while bettering its resume in the NET rankings.
The Cougars will begin Mitchell’s first Big 12 campaign on the road against West Virginia at WVU Coliseum in Morgantown, W. Va. on Dec. 21 at 1 p.m. CST. After a 10-day Christmas holiday break, Houston will host Iowa State in its conference home opener at Fertitta Center on Dec. 31 at 1 p.m. CST.
Year 3, new-look program for Merchant
Junior guard Kierra Merchant enters 2025-26 having averaged nine points and 4.7 rebounds per game in two seasons at Houston, while setting career highs in scoring overall and in Big 12 play with a 30-point performance against Mississippi Valley State on Dec. 17, 2024, and a 23-point outing against BYU on Jan. 8, 2025, respectively.
This time though, it comes with taking in a new coaching culture and standard brought in by Mitchell, to which she felt welcomed warmly. Through her enjoyment in summer workouts and developing connections to the newcomers, she expressed how she felt it was the right choice to stay home.
“For one, it’s home,” Merchant said. “For two, when I talked to coach Mitchell, he spoke very highly of me. He told me that he’s seen potential and that I could fit this program and be really good in it.”
Opening night
The Cougars will open their 2025-26 campaign hosting UT Arlington at Fertitta Center on Nov. 4 at 6:30 p.m. CST, the start of a three-game homestand and a five-game stretch against in-state opponents.
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