Amira Abdur-Rahim remembers her first conversation with Houston coach Matthew Mitchell after she entered the transfer portal. He had brought up his “winning tools,” which had helped him turn Kentucky into a women’s basketball powerhouse, and which later formed the basis for his best-selling book.

They were remarkably simple: honesty, hard work and discipline.

“It spoke to me,” Abdur-Rahim said. “You want to have someone who has values and who stands on them.”

Abdur-Rahim eventually committed to the Cougars. TK Pitts did, too, after three standout seasons at SMU, and after Mitchell had courted her with the same principles he planned to use as the foundation for another vast rebuild.

“One thing that struck me,” Pitts said, “is that everything he said 12 years ago, eight years ago, 10 yea

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