Building the foundation: Inside a UH basketball summer

UH men’s basketball treats summer as perhaps the most important time of the year, as mental and physical conditioning take the forefront. | Anh Le/Houston AthleticsFor the UH men’s basketball team to perennially be among the nation’s best defenses and ferocious rebounding squads, it requires its players to be better conditioned mentally and physically than anyone else.

That toughness that lines the entirety of the Cougars’ team culture comes from a mix of the famously hard coaching of head coach Kelvin Sampson and the team’s ability to recruit and develop players with the correct work ethic and personalities. But every season, the trademark grit that the Cougars play with begins growing…