Fresh off an appearance in the second round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament, the Jayhawks entered a new-look Allen Fieldhouse with a new-look team following their best season in over a decade.
After losing three starters to graduation over the summer, the Kansas women introduced eight newcomers during the Late Night in the Phog walkouts, including three freshmen and five transfers.
“It was their first time in the building,” head coach Brandon Schneider said. “They haven’t shot in there, they haven’t practiced in there, so for us to make any shots I think was a good sign.” Allen Fieldhouse has been closed for renovations since the end of the 2024 season.
This year’s team also features four Kansas kids, including junior transfer Sania Copeland who came in from Wisconsin this offseason after playing many years with S’Mya Nichols in Kansas City-area youth basketball, as well as fellow transfer Brittany Harshaw.
Head coach Brandon Schneider started the women’s basketball portion of the night by shouting out some “future Jayhawks” in the crowd on recruiting visits.
“It’s always been big, whether it’s official visits, which we have one here this weekend, but the opportunity really to have multiple unofficial visits,” he said afterward. “We’ve got a lot of really, really good young players that are within driving distance of Lawrence, Kansas. And we’re really fortunate that a lot of those families committed to come and watch us practice and be a part of tonight.”
Schneider talked about the honor he has of being a Jayhawk through his coaching position and applauded the team for setting the highest attendance since 1997 last year and the second-highest average attendance in program history.
“We need your help to break the attendance record this year,” he said, calling on the fans’ help to “make Allen Fieldhouse one of the best home atmospheres in college basketball.”
“We’ll try to replicate the home success, or even better, than a year ago,” Schneider added. “We only lost one game at home and I think we worked really hard to try and establish a true home-court advantage. And what greater place (is there) than Allen Fieldhouse?”
In the main event of the night, Wyvette Mayberry and Nichols led the Jayhawks in a scrimmage against practice players with Harshaw, Regan Williams, and Carla Osma joining them on the floor to start. Things started off slowly with a couple of missed shots but good defense. Returners Nadira Eltayeb, who saw limited playing time during her years with the Jayhawks as Taiyanna Jackson had a stronghold on the starting center spot, and Laia Conesa checked in about three minutes into the 10-minute scrimmage.
Conesa scored immediately on a rebound as the shot clock expired, which she extended into a layup on the other end to give the crimson team an 11-7 lead. An 8-3 run, capped by a 3-pointer from newcomer Zoe Canfield, gave them some breathing room as they capitalized on missed shots to set up some plays at the other end for buckets underneath.
“(I wanted them to) have fun, but I did want them to take it a little bit more seriously than maybe they did a year ago,” Schneider said of his message for the night. “We had a little bit of the NBA All-Star feel a year ago with everybody shooting 40-footers, and I just encouraged them to at least give the fans somewhat of a look of how we’re trying to play this year.”
A six-point run by the practice players included a dagger 3 to make it 19-16 as Osma, Harshaw and Mayberry returned to the floor and Danai Papadopoulou got her first minutes of the night. Papadopoulou grabbed four points down low to get a 23-21 lead with about two minutes left. A foe hit back-to-back 3s, but a 3-pointer by Harshaw secured the 26-24 win for the crimson team.
Nichols was called on to say a few words after the scrimmage, as she echoed Schneider’s sentiments to the fans.
“Rock Chalk, get your tickets. We’d love to see you,” she said as she blew a kiss to the fans to end the women’s portion of the night.
“We worked really hard to build a kind of program where the women are hard to beat in Allen Fieldhouse too is our goal,” Schneider said, adding that he hopes showing fans more of their product on the court tonight will attract the attendance for which they are looking.
“We’re a work in progress,” he said. “But we don’t have an anchor center in the paint, so we’re going to try to spread it out.”
In media availability after the event, Schneider further hyped up the team’s potential while highlighting the current popularity of women’s basketball around the country.
“Women’s basketball is hot right now, and if it were a stock, I’d encourage everybody to buy it,” he said. “I think that the athletes that are playing and competing and showcasing their talents and abilities, our game’s as good as it’s ever been.”
When asked how he wants the Jayhawks to be remembered in the ascendancy of women’s basketball that we’ve seen over the past few years, Schneider said, “We’d like to be a key contributor to it. Kansas has always been a pretty important contributor to basketball as a whole, and we want our women’s program to hold up their end of the bargain.”
The Jayhawks will look to further make their mark on this rising era of women’s basketball with an exhibition game on Nov. 1 against Washburn before the season opener on Nov. 6 against Lindenwood.
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
