The Kansas women’s basketball team will field a new-look roster this year, but fortunately for head coach Brandon Schneider, he already has a sample of data he can refer to for what a S’Mya Nichols-led team looks like — from late last season.
As he has repeatedly pointed out throughout the offseason, “When we moved S’Mya to our primary decision-maker and moved Wyvette (Mayberry) off the ball, we lost three games.” They won 10 in the meantime, and those losses, he makes sure to note, were at Baylor and to two top programs in the country in Texas and USC.
That model — Nichols on the ball, Mayberry off it — has provided a rather compelling vision for the 2024-25 KU women’s basketball team. And it fits well with the young guard Nichols’ on- and off-court growth into more of a team leader as a sophomore, after she spent her freshman season making her mark on a team with four fifth-year seniors.
“I was really just, I’d say, shy on the court, kind of, just not wanting to mess up because I was a freshman,” Nichols said. “But towards the middle, semi-end of the year last year, I just became more vocal. What also helps is that I went back and forth between 4 and the point, so as a point guard you have to be vocal, and then this year I’m the straight point guard, so that comes with directing, hyping up teammates and, I mean, being there for them both on and off the court.”
The promise of playing with Nichols, an all-conference performer who averaged 15.4 points per game in her first year, was clearly an effective sales pitch as KU brought in a slew of offseason additions to put around her and the veteran Mayberry. And to hear new teammate Elle Evans, a transfer from North Dakota State, tell it, Nichols lives up to billing as a leader.
“I think S’Mya is one of the big reasons why I came, or why a lot of the other transfers or freshmen came here,” Evans said. “So for her to do the things that the coaches said she was going to do and her to lead by example, it’s just huge, and especially her still being technically an underclassman but having a huge role on this team, I think speaks a lot about her and her experience.”
The team’s play style will inevitably look quite a bit different this season, because while Schneider and his staff brought in transfers like Evans, Sania Copeland (Wisconsin), Brittany Harshaw (Creighton) and Jordan Webster (UC Riverside) to go with a solid group of freshmen, they do not have anything resembling the type of post presence that Taiyanna Jackson gave KU for the last three seasons. Schneider joked that he thinks most about Jackson and her fellow veterans’ absence “when we see somebody lay the ball up and nobody’s there to challenge a shot.”
He said he anticipates spreading the floor a lot more, “which plays into S’Mya Nichols’ hands, I think, just as a playmaker. Really, a lot of intent went into our spring recruiting and trying to add shooting around her to create more space.”
Certainly Evans, a 45.7% 3-point shooter last year at North Dakota State, figures into that vision.
“I already knew how she played last year, and then we got on the court together and I couldn’t stop talking about her,” Nichols said. “I actually went up to Brandon and I was like, ‘That girl is so good.’ And then I went to go shoot with this girl. It made me look like a terrible shooter because I don’t think she missed.”
The reshaping of KU’s team to mesh with Nichols goes beyond on-court considerations. Nichols and Schneider spent time in the offseason “talking about the future of the program and the role that she would play in it in a lot of different facets.” Essentially Schneider’s goal was to ensure that he was taking into account anything that would be important to her that he might not consider — topics as simple as what KU wears on the plane during trips.
“I just think that there’s things that sometimes between a coach and a player, at the end of the day we’ve got to be on the same page,” Schneider said, “and I’ve got to have her back as a leader, and she’s got to have my back obviously as a head coach.”
The pairing certainly seems to be working so far.
“She, I think will develop into probably — not there yet — but will probably develop into one of the better leaders that I’ve ever had the opportunity to coach,” Schneider said.
Kansas guards S’Mya Nichols and Wyvette Mayberry talk during free throws Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, against BYU.
Kansas’ S’Mya Nichols (12) calls a play against Oklahoma Saturday, March 2, 2024, at Allen Fieldhouse.
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
Carter Gaskins/Special to the Journal-World