In 2014, the University of Houston hired Kelvin Sampson as its men's basketball coach, turning around a floundering program that had made just one NCAA Tournament appearance since 1992.
Now, Houston is trying to replicate that success on the women's side, hiring former Kentucky head coach Matthew Mitchell, a two-time SEC Coach of the Year. Mitchell will attempt to revive a program that hasn't made an NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011 and finished just 1-17 in Big 12 play last year.
While there's no guarantee that Mitchell turns Houston into an immediate contender, the decision to hire a coach with his pedigree signals that the university is ready to at least try to compete for the national spotlight in women's basketball.
Matthew Mitchell might be the key to turning Houston around
The move to the Big 12 has been a frustrating one for Houston fans. Trust me on that one — as a 2012 graduate of UH, I was excited to see the Coogs compete in a tougher conference, but at least on the women's basketball side, the first two years have been a slog. After going 5-13 in conference play in the first season, Houston fell to 1-17 this past season and posted a 5-25 mark overall on the season.
How bad was the overall record? Only three teams in the four power conferences had single-digit wins last season. Wake Forest and Northwestern had nine wins, and then there's Houston with only five. It was a nightmare of a season, and in the end the team opted not to renew the contract of head coach Ronald Hughey. There were certainly some good moments from Hughey's tenure, including two trips to the WNIT and a miracle run to the AAC title game in 2023 where the team came up just shy of an upset trip to March Madness.
However, it was clearly time for a change. The big question, though, was what kind of resources the program would have for a new coach. USA Today listed Hughey's salary at just $330,000, a very small amount for a power conference team.
Enter Matthew Mitchell. The two-time SEC Coach of the Year at Kentucky retired in 2020 after suffering a traumatic brain injury suffered while on vacation to Mexico. It was widely believed the injury had forced Mitchell to retire, though he pushed back on that notion in an interview with the Lexington Herald Leader:
Though the surgery and the time needed to recover from it had an impact on how he thought about his future, Mitchell says he did not resign for health reasons. “I am physically fine. I was physically cleared to go back to work,” Mitchell says. “I could have coached the team this year. Physically and mentally, I could have done it.” Rather than health, Mitchell says his leaving as UK coach followed a period of introspection and prayer that led him to believe he is being called to take a different path through life.
Mitchell led Kentucky to a first or secnd place finish in the SEC four times and took the team to the Elite Eight three times. For some context, Kentucky had just one Elite Eight appearance before Mitchell — way back in 1982 — and has none since.
At Kentucky, Mitchell took a solid program and brought it to the next level. That task won't be nearly as easy at Houston, but it's not out of the question. We actually just saw TCU go from an afterthought to a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament in two seasons after hiring Mark Campbell. In the NIL era, the right coach can turn a team around immediately.
Houston is betting that Mitchell is the right coach. And while there's no guarantee that he actually is, he's certainly the closest the program may have ever come to finding the right leader.