K-State's Mittie Speaks with Media Following First Practices
Sep 24, 2024 | Women's Basketball
MANHATTAN, Kansas - K-State women's basketball started official practices for the 2024-25 season on Monday. K-State head coach Jeff Mittie spoke with the media on Tuesday following the second practice at the Ice Family Basketball Center.
The following is a transcript from the session.
On the start of practice...
Mittie: "It feels awful, awful early. Obviously, September 23 is the earliest I can ever remember starting, so it feels early to me. I think the one thing is we've got a lot of returners, a lot of veterans with this team. I thought we had a solid summer. I thought we had a good early part of the fall here. And I think that just for us, we've implemented a lot of new things offensively. So we're probably going maybe slower than you would think, but we're also further ahead than we've ever been. I was looking back at some drill work, and I'm like, 'you know, we're so much further ahead at the simple things.' Our habits are better. Our practice pace is better, and so we're able to do things a little differently with only a couple newcomers. And so, yeah, I've liked this group. This group has always been a self-starter group, hard-working group. They get in the gym. I catch them doing a lot of right things. I catch a lot of players in here on the weekends on their own, getting shots up, and that part of their DNA has remained throughout the summer and the early part of this fall. So I feel pretty good about where we're at."
On how the transfers have fit into the program...
Mittie: "I think that's the one thing that early I was almost like they were way behind our pace. And then I thought, well, it's probably to be expected, quite frankly, because we have so many returners, but Temira (Poindexter) really picked it up quickly. Kennedy (Taylor), not as quick as Temira, but I like the pace that she's working at now. And Finley (Ohnstad), like a lot of high school players, it's difficult for a high school player with this many veterans, and not just veterans. I mean, we're talking about four- and five-year players, you know. So the pace of practice is much different. But Finley is doing better, certainly, than she was a month ago."
On the strength of the Big 12...
Mittie: "I think every year is an opportunity. I mean we have good teams in the league. You've got Iowa State, you've got Baylor, you've got us, you've got TCU, West Virginia, we add Arizona, Colorado, we got to see them. So I think the league's in good hands, with a lot of depth this year, of quality, quality teams. I think there certainly is going to be heavy competition this year there. I thought a lot of the teams that had good years last year added some good pieces and didn't graduate a whole lot. So you look at the teams that finished at the top of the league, us, Iowa State, West Virginia, Baylor, we all return our top players, and we were able to add some good additions in the portal. So I think there's an opportunity there, like I do every year. But I think the depth of this league is pretty impressive on paper, on paper, you know, you have to do it on the court and not on paper. The league looks very strong."
On the success K-State has had in recruiting and player retention...
Mittie: "I think we got a good bounce off the Caitlin Clark effect. I mean, we got two big wins against Iowa the last two seasons and certainly got a lot of attention from that. We ran all the way to number two in the country last season. I think when you do those kind of things, you open up recruits eyes to take a look at you more, you know. You look at Ayoka Lee's 61 points. Go back to those kind of things. These are national stories. So I think part of it's been that you just keep doing things the right way, having success, and people will look at you. I also think that the success of our athletic department overall has been a positive for everybody."
On what K-State looks for in the transfer portal...
Mittie: "I think the first thing you look for is just, do they do they fill the needs that you have? Okay? So let's just look at this year. Okay, I felt like going into the transfer portal that we needed to add a three-point shooter and a scorer since we lost Gabby Gregory. I felt like the depth at the center position was in physicality, at the center position, so we identified Kennedy as someone that could do that. She's big, strong, physical and had success at Missouri State. I think that it's a positive if they come from winning programs whichth both of those did. I think that's a positive, if you get it. I don't think that's necessary. I think in most cases, we've known the players. About 80% of the portal players we've signed, we knew them prior. We either recruited them prior, we followed them in high school, et cetera, so we had a good idea of the growth that they'd made. We had a good idea of how they would fit with the culture of our program. That's most cases. In Temira's case, I didn't know her very well. I got to know her very quickly in the recruiting process, and just loved her attitude, loved she wanted to be at a place like Kansas State that was going to compete for championships and play at the highest level, and she saw that opportunity at her position with Gabby graduating."
On meshing the returners with the newcomers...
Mittie: "I always feel that if your team is able to coach the drills, hold each other to a high standard, do those things without the coaches, then you can get something special. And we've got a group that understands the expectations. You understand the standard that we expect. They understand how to do things in the weight room. They understand how to do things in the training room. They understand how to do things in preparation for games, practices, all of the above. I think the more players you have that understand that, the better. Now, in today's world of a lot of transfers, right, we may not see another roster like this, where we retain 90% of our roster. I mean, that's hard to do in today's world of college athletics, but I think that no matter how many you return, it's important that your returners pass that baton to your new players, and obviously, the more you have, the better chance you have to do that quickly, certainly."
On the return of Lee, Sundell and the Glenns...
Mittie: "That's kind of really neat. It's a really cool thing for them to care so much about Kansas State and to have such a great experience in Manhattan that they want to play together. But they want to stay. Their paths have been filled with the same adversity that a lot of college student-athletes face, whether it be an injury path, whether it may be not as successful one of the years as you wanted it to be, but to see them stick together, and I just think they've had a really good experience here, and I think that a lot of our student-athletes have a good experience here. Manhattan embraces them. The culture here in our athletic department is really, really good. All those things are really important to keeping players like that for all four years."
On the K-State women's basketball brand on the national landscape...
Mittie: "I don't really, necessarily step back. I think that you've got to fight for that every year. And I think this is a good opportunity for us, because we feel like we'll start higher than we have in the past because of success we had a year ago. Does that guarantee you success this year? No, of course, not, but starting higher, there's certainly more respect out there. There's people talking about us. That's a good thing. And there are expectations for our program, and that's a good thing. I mean, you know, it's one of the things. When I was recruiting Temira in talking to her about coming here, she wanted to go somewhere where there were high expectations. She wanted to go somewhere where she ran out of that tunnel and there was 7,000, 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 people expecting good things to happen. And I think that's a real positive for our program."
On the closeness of the roster off the court as well as on...
Mittie: "I think it's always important. I think the one thing that I want for them is to like each other. But I told him about a week ago that I don't want you to like each other too much. You have got to compete, and sometimes I did feel like that we weren't maybe going at each other hard enough. So it's interesting that you say that, because it can be an advantage. Certainly you want a close team, but you want a team so close that you can go to war for two and a half hours and still be close afterwards, and you can have an appreciation that that player across from you just went to war with you for two and a half hours and made you better, and you're grateful and thankful for it. I hope we're that close. I hope we're that close. We're getting there in terms of today's practice was as much as we've played all fall, and it was good to see them compete. It got better as the practice went on. It got to the points there where we some hard falls out there, there were some competitive elbows out there, there were some bumps and bruises. And I think what you mentioned is, what I liked is, afterwards, everybody was talking about how good practice ended, and if they can compete like that, that'll be good, and those moments off the court will be really, really positive."
On Temira Poindexter...
Mittie: "I don't know that there's been a wow moment. I think that one of the things she did coming in, Mitch, was she just wanted to fit in, and maybe a little bit too much, you know? I remember telling her, 'hey, I want you to go score. I want you to look for your opportunities.' I think she spent a lot of time trying to figure out, where can I fit in the best? And I think that's a positive, that she has that attitude. But we need her to be aggressive. Now, what I've liked in the last probably two weeks, has been her aggressiveness at both ends of the floor. I think she can be a really good defender. I think she can really add to that piece. This is a player that had over 50 blocks. It's a player that was very, very active defensively. I think she can be a more efficient three-point shooter. I think she took some tough threes last year. We want her to have the ability to knock those tough ones down, but also get more easy ones for her. We're still in the very early stages of seeing her more comfortable, but she gets more comfortable every day, and where you really see the wow moments is when the game breaks down, her natural instincts take over, and that's where you see it. That's where we're seeing it right now."
On returning all the primary bench pieces...
Mittie: "I thought Taryn (Sides) has had as good a week of practice last week, and we were only in our four hours, so it was limited, but, she had as good a shooting summer as I've ever had a player. She is making a lot of shots, and I want her to be aggressive there. She's had those wow moments of where she can draw all the attention to her. And we know that Yokie draws a lot of attention, but we've got to have more players draw attention. And Taryn has that ability. Zy Walker has had as good a summer as any player on our roster. Her mid-range jumper has been very, very good. Defensively, she's continued to have that, I think the young people call it that "dog" mentality. She has continued to grow in that area. I thought that group coming off the bench: Imani Lester, Gisella Sanchez, Eliza Maupin, were huge keys to the growth. I still felt like they had so much upside to them. So many times, when you have an older team, you're not going to get 20% better. You know, you're going to get incrementally better, right? That group that I just mentioned, and you mentioned coming off the bench, they have another jump in them, and we've seen moments of all of them having big jumps. Sanchez had a really good day today. Eliza Maupin continues to do more things offensively for us, and then we felt all along that Lester, you know, last year, she really battled the health at the end of the year, and that set her back, because she is a player that really knows how to play the game. So I really feel good about that group and their growth."
On the departure of Gabby Gregory's personality within the locker room...
Mittie: "We've been really glad that nobody's had her personality (laughing). Gabby's awesome. We will miss that fire and that competitiveness every day and just kind of that confidence, swagger, however you want to label it is just it was a lot of fun to coach, but her legacy continues with GAP goat. So it will continue in that way as well. And I think like any great player and great competitor, she's rubbed off. You see moments of our team having that swagger, and maybe it's not in their personality like it is in Gabby's, but in their own way, they have gotten more confidence, more swagger, because of Gabby passing that baton. You lose really good players every year, and while you miss them, that's what good programs do. They lose really good players, they replace them with really good players, and you just keep repeating that. And you know, on the floor, I think Poindexter does some things very similar to Gabby. She has that kind of swagger. And then I think defensively, Poindexter is going to be a more aggressive perimeter defender than Gabby, and that's where Poindexter can really make a difference for us."
On managing the playing time and if there is a stress level to that...
Mittie: "That is not one of the things that stresses me. No, no, no. I think that tends to work itself out. And I do think that we'll need to play a deep bench to be our very best. And the plan is to play a deep bench. And the plan is to, well, let me rephrase that. I'd like to play a deep roster, that depends on them. I'll play the players that are ready. I'll play the players that are playing the role that we need them to play, and how deep that is, that depends on them. But I like our depth. I feel like our players are bought in. We're not to the point of where I would say I am defining roles right now. We're still looking at some things, but we'll cinch that in here. We'll cinch that in because of the amount of returners we have, we had some good defined roles, but we'll start to cinch that in here in a couple weeks, as we get more familiar. You know, offensively, we switched offenses last year. We probably only put about 25% of the offense in last year, and we're probably creeping more towards 75% here. And there's going to be some growing pains in that, and we've seen growing pains, but I think after we get a couple weeks of practice here, then we'll start defining roles more."
On areas of improvement from last season heading into this season...
Mittie: "Offensively, I still think we need to shoot the basketball better. And our returning group has worked extremely hard. You know, part of that it's always in shooting the basketball better. It's not all just shooting the ball. It's about passing the basketball efficiently. It's about shot selection. Those things are critical to shooting the ball well. We already talked about Taryn Sides. I think Taryn Sides can make a big difference there. I think Poindexter can make a big difference defensively. We were a good defensive team last year, but I didn't feel like we turned the other team over enough. I thought our strengths last year were our field goal percentage defense was really good. The two areas I'd like to see improved is, is one - I'd like to take it away from the opponents more, and I'd like to defensive rebound better. Those two areas were areas that we could see really good improvements in."
On Ayoka Lee's summer...
Mittie: "Yokie's always been a lifelong learner in her young career, and not young in terms of college, but just in life. She likes to learn and she likes to get better, and she likes to challenge herself. So it is absolutely in her character to work hard. It's absolutely in her character to like new challenges, and she had a really good offseason, and she's been in the gym more than ever because of what you mentioned. I mean, most of the time she would spend her time in the training room. It's been really nice just to see her in the gym, able to get shots up, able to spend more time with her teammates, because that is a lonely spot to be in that training room rehab and in that training room just trying to get ready to be as pain free as you can. That's been good to see her out there."
On the senior leadership of Sundell and the Glenns...
Mittie: "They understand the expectation. They understand how we do things. They have that maturity to understand that the first 10 minutes of a bad practice isn't going to dictate the rest of practice. You know, sometimes young players get caught up in their own thoughts, and they can't get out of that. And this veteran team, that group in particular, understands that we control that, and we can get ourselves out of that. Maybe as young players, they couldn't, but as veterans, they can. And not only can they do it individually, but they can help others do it as veterans."
The Wildcats enter the 2024-25 season with the return of 10 letter winners, including four starters from last season's 2024 NCAA Tournament squad. The Wildcats will be led by 2024 All-American senior center Ayoka Lee, senior guard and 2023 All-Big 12 First Team selection Serena Sundell, and the senior duo of Brylee Glenn and Jaelyn Glenn.
The 10 returning letter winners were responsible for 85 percent of K-State's scoring, 87 percent of the team's rebounds and 81 percent of the team's rebounding in the 2023-24 season. The Wildcats will also welcome transfers Temira Poindexter and Kennedy Taylor and redshirts Mikayla Parks and Alexis Hess and freshman Finley Ohnstad.
K-State women's basketball season tickets are available now. Prices start at just $75 with a Wildcat 4-Pack to see every game in Bramlage, including matchups against conference opponents KU, Iowa State, Baylor, and TCU. Order now by visiting kstatesports.com/tickets or calling 1-800-221-CATS.
The following is a transcript from the session.
On the start of practice...
Mittie: "It feels awful, awful early. Obviously, September 23 is the earliest I can ever remember starting, so it feels early to me. I think the one thing is we've got a lot of returners, a lot of veterans with this team. I thought we had a solid summer. I thought we had a good early part of the fall here. And I think that just for us, we've implemented a lot of new things offensively. So we're probably going maybe slower than you would think, but we're also further ahead than we've ever been. I was looking back at some drill work, and I'm like, 'you know, we're so much further ahead at the simple things.' Our habits are better. Our practice pace is better, and so we're able to do things a little differently with only a couple newcomers. And so, yeah, I've liked this group. This group has always been a self-starter group, hard-working group. They get in the gym. I catch them doing a lot of right things. I catch a lot of players in here on the weekends on their own, getting shots up, and that part of their DNA has remained throughout the summer and the early part of this fall. So I feel pretty good about where we're at."
On how the transfers have fit into the program...
Mittie: "I think that's the one thing that early I was almost like they were way behind our pace. And then I thought, well, it's probably to be expected, quite frankly, because we have so many returners, but Temira (Poindexter) really picked it up quickly. Kennedy (Taylor), not as quick as Temira, but I like the pace that she's working at now. And Finley (Ohnstad), like a lot of high school players, it's difficult for a high school player with this many veterans, and not just veterans. I mean, we're talking about four- and five-year players, you know. So the pace of practice is much different. But Finley is doing better, certainly, than she was a month ago."
On the strength of the Big 12...
Mittie: "I think every year is an opportunity. I mean we have good teams in the league. You've got Iowa State, you've got Baylor, you've got us, you've got TCU, West Virginia, we add Arizona, Colorado, we got to see them. So I think the league's in good hands, with a lot of depth this year, of quality, quality teams. I think there certainly is going to be heavy competition this year there. I thought a lot of the teams that had good years last year added some good pieces and didn't graduate a whole lot. So you look at the teams that finished at the top of the league, us, Iowa State, West Virginia, Baylor, we all return our top players, and we were able to add some good additions in the portal. So I think there's an opportunity there, like I do every year. But I think the depth of this league is pretty impressive on paper, on paper, you know, you have to do it on the court and not on paper. The league looks very strong."
On the success K-State has had in recruiting and player retention...
Mittie: "I think we got a good bounce off the Caitlin Clark effect. I mean, we got two big wins against Iowa the last two seasons and certainly got a lot of attention from that. We ran all the way to number two in the country last season. I think when you do those kind of things, you open up recruits eyes to take a look at you more, you know. You look at Ayoka Lee's 61 points. Go back to those kind of things. These are national stories. So I think part of it's been that you just keep doing things the right way, having success, and people will look at you. I also think that the success of our athletic department overall has been a positive for everybody."
On what K-State looks for in the transfer portal...
Mittie: "I think the first thing you look for is just, do they do they fill the needs that you have? Okay? So let's just look at this year. Okay, I felt like going into the transfer portal that we needed to add a three-point shooter and a scorer since we lost Gabby Gregory. I felt like the depth at the center position was in physicality, at the center position, so we identified Kennedy as someone that could do that. She's big, strong, physical and had success at Missouri State. I think that it's a positive if they come from winning programs whichth both of those did. I think that's a positive, if you get it. I don't think that's necessary. I think in most cases, we've known the players. About 80% of the portal players we've signed, we knew them prior. We either recruited them prior, we followed them in high school, et cetera, so we had a good idea of the growth that they'd made. We had a good idea of how they would fit with the culture of our program. That's most cases. In Temira's case, I didn't know her very well. I got to know her very quickly in the recruiting process, and just loved her attitude, loved she wanted to be at a place like Kansas State that was going to compete for championships and play at the highest level, and she saw that opportunity at her position with Gabby graduating."
On meshing the returners with the newcomers...
Mittie: "I always feel that if your team is able to coach the drills, hold each other to a high standard, do those things without the coaches, then you can get something special. And we've got a group that understands the expectations. You understand the standard that we expect. They understand how to do things in the weight room. They understand how to do things in the training room. They understand how to do things in preparation for games, practices, all of the above. I think the more players you have that understand that, the better. Now, in today's world of a lot of transfers, right, we may not see another roster like this, where we retain 90% of our roster. I mean, that's hard to do in today's world of college athletics, but I think that no matter how many you return, it's important that your returners pass that baton to your new players, and obviously, the more you have, the better chance you have to do that quickly, certainly."
On the return of Lee, Sundell and the Glenns...
Mittie: "That's kind of really neat. It's a really cool thing for them to care so much about Kansas State and to have such a great experience in Manhattan that they want to play together. But they want to stay. Their paths have been filled with the same adversity that a lot of college student-athletes face, whether it be an injury path, whether it may be not as successful one of the years as you wanted it to be, but to see them stick together, and I just think they've had a really good experience here, and I think that a lot of our student-athletes have a good experience here. Manhattan embraces them. The culture here in our athletic department is really, really good. All those things are really important to keeping players like that for all four years."
On the K-State women's basketball brand on the national landscape...
Mittie: "I don't really, necessarily step back. I think that you've got to fight for that every year. And I think this is a good opportunity for us, because we feel like we'll start higher than we have in the past because of success we had a year ago. Does that guarantee you success this year? No, of course, not, but starting higher, there's certainly more respect out there. There's people talking about us. That's a good thing. And there are expectations for our program, and that's a good thing. I mean, you know, it's one of the things. When I was recruiting Temira in talking to her about coming here, she wanted to go somewhere where there were high expectations. She wanted to go somewhere where she ran out of that tunnel and there was 7,000, 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 people expecting good things to happen. And I think that's a real positive for our program."
On the closeness of the roster off the court as well as on...
Mittie: "I think it's always important. I think the one thing that I want for them is to like each other. But I told him about a week ago that I don't want you to like each other too much. You have got to compete, and sometimes I did feel like that we weren't maybe going at each other hard enough. So it's interesting that you say that, because it can be an advantage. Certainly you want a close team, but you want a team so close that you can go to war for two and a half hours and still be close afterwards, and you can have an appreciation that that player across from you just went to war with you for two and a half hours and made you better, and you're grateful and thankful for it. I hope we're that close. I hope we're that close. We're getting there in terms of today's practice was as much as we've played all fall, and it was good to see them compete. It got better as the practice went on. It got to the points there where we some hard falls out there, there were some competitive elbows out there, there were some bumps and bruises. And I think what you mentioned is, what I liked is, afterwards, everybody was talking about how good practice ended, and if they can compete like that, that'll be good, and those moments off the court will be really, really positive."
On Temira Poindexter...
Mittie: "I don't know that there's been a wow moment. I think that one of the things she did coming in, Mitch, was she just wanted to fit in, and maybe a little bit too much, you know? I remember telling her, 'hey, I want you to go score. I want you to look for your opportunities.' I think she spent a lot of time trying to figure out, where can I fit in the best? And I think that's a positive, that she has that attitude. But we need her to be aggressive. Now, what I've liked in the last probably two weeks, has been her aggressiveness at both ends of the floor. I think she can be a really good defender. I think she can really add to that piece. This is a player that had over 50 blocks. It's a player that was very, very active defensively. I think she can be a more efficient three-point shooter. I think she took some tough threes last year. We want her to have the ability to knock those tough ones down, but also get more easy ones for her. We're still in the very early stages of seeing her more comfortable, but she gets more comfortable every day, and where you really see the wow moments is when the game breaks down, her natural instincts take over, and that's where you see it. That's where we're seeing it right now."
On returning all the primary bench pieces...
Mittie: "I thought Taryn (Sides) has had as good a week of practice last week, and we were only in our four hours, so it was limited, but, she had as good a shooting summer as I've ever had a player. She is making a lot of shots, and I want her to be aggressive there. She's had those wow moments of where she can draw all the attention to her. And we know that Yokie draws a lot of attention, but we've got to have more players draw attention. And Taryn has that ability. Zy Walker has had as good a summer as any player on our roster. Her mid-range jumper has been very, very good. Defensively, she's continued to have that, I think the young people call it that "dog" mentality. She has continued to grow in that area. I thought that group coming off the bench: Imani Lester, Gisella Sanchez, Eliza Maupin, were huge keys to the growth. I still felt like they had so much upside to them. So many times, when you have an older team, you're not going to get 20% better. You know, you're going to get incrementally better, right? That group that I just mentioned, and you mentioned coming off the bench, they have another jump in them, and we've seen moments of all of them having big jumps. Sanchez had a really good day today. Eliza Maupin continues to do more things offensively for us, and then we felt all along that Lester, you know, last year, she really battled the health at the end of the year, and that set her back, because she is a player that really knows how to play the game. So I really feel good about that group and their growth."
On the departure of Gabby Gregory's personality within the locker room...
Mittie: "We've been really glad that nobody's had her personality (laughing). Gabby's awesome. We will miss that fire and that competitiveness every day and just kind of that confidence, swagger, however you want to label it is just it was a lot of fun to coach, but her legacy continues with GAP goat. So it will continue in that way as well. And I think like any great player and great competitor, she's rubbed off. You see moments of our team having that swagger, and maybe it's not in their personality like it is in Gabby's, but in their own way, they have gotten more confidence, more swagger, because of Gabby passing that baton. You lose really good players every year, and while you miss them, that's what good programs do. They lose really good players, they replace them with really good players, and you just keep repeating that. And you know, on the floor, I think Poindexter does some things very similar to Gabby. She has that kind of swagger. And then I think defensively, Poindexter is going to be a more aggressive perimeter defender than Gabby, and that's where Poindexter can really make a difference for us."
On managing the playing time and if there is a stress level to that...
Mittie: "That is not one of the things that stresses me. No, no, no. I think that tends to work itself out. And I do think that we'll need to play a deep bench to be our very best. And the plan is to play a deep bench. And the plan is to, well, let me rephrase that. I'd like to play a deep roster, that depends on them. I'll play the players that are ready. I'll play the players that are playing the role that we need them to play, and how deep that is, that depends on them. But I like our depth. I feel like our players are bought in. We're not to the point of where I would say I am defining roles right now. We're still looking at some things, but we'll cinch that in here. We'll cinch that in because of the amount of returners we have, we had some good defined roles, but we'll start to cinch that in here in a couple weeks, as we get more familiar. You know, offensively, we switched offenses last year. We probably only put about 25% of the offense in last year, and we're probably creeping more towards 75% here. And there's going to be some growing pains in that, and we've seen growing pains, but I think after we get a couple weeks of practice here, then we'll start defining roles more."
On areas of improvement from last season heading into this season...
Mittie: "Offensively, I still think we need to shoot the basketball better. And our returning group has worked extremely hard. You know, part of that it's always in shooting the basketball better. It's not all just shooting the ball. It's about passing the basketball efficiently. It's about shot selection. Those things are critical to shooting the ball well. We already talked about Taryn Sides. I think Taryn Sides can make a big difference there. I think Poindexter can make a big difference defensively. We were a good defensive team last year, but I didn't feel like we turned the other team over enough. I thought our strengths last year were our field goal percentage defense was really good. The two areas I'd like to see improved is, is one - I'd like to take it away from the opponents more, and I'd like to defensive rebound better. Those two areas were areas that we could see really good improvements in."
On Ayoka Lee's summer...
Mittie: "Yokie's always been a lifelong learner in her young career, and not young in terms of college, but just in life. She likes to learn and she likes to get better, and she likes to challenge herself. So it is absolutely in her character to work hard. It's absolutely in her character to like new challenges, and she had a really good offseason, and she's been in the gym more than ever because of what you mentioned. I mean, most of the time she would spend her time in the training room. It's been really nice just to see her in the gym, able to get shots up, able to spend more time with her teammates, because that is a lonely spot to be in that training room rehab and in that training room just trying to get ready to be as pain free as you can. That's been good to see her out there."
On the senior leadership of Sundell and the Glenns...
Mittie: "They understand the expectation. They understand how we do things. They have that maturity to understand that the first 10 minutes of a bad practice isn't going to dictate the rest of practice. You know, sometimes young players get caught up in their own thoughts, and they can't get out of that. And this veteran team, that group in particular, understands that we control that, and we can get ourselves out of that. Maybe as young players, they couldn't, but as veterans, they can. And not only can they do it individually, but they can help others do it as veterans."
The Wildcats enter the 2024-25 season with the return of 10 letter winners, including four starters from last season's 2024 NCAA Tournament squad. The Wildcats will be led by 2024 All-American senior center Ayoka Lee, senior guard and 2023 All-Big 12 First Team selection Serena Sundell, and the senior duo of Brylee Glenn and Jaelyn Glenn.
The 10 returning letter winners were responsible for 85 percent of K-State's scoring, 87 percent of the team's rebounds and 81 percent of the team's rebounding in the 2023-24 season. The Wildcats will also welcome transfers Temira Poindexter and Kennedy Taylor and redshirts Mikayla Parks and Alexis Hess and freshman Finley Ohnstad.
K-State women's basketball season tickets are available now. Prices start at just $75 with a Wildcat 4-Pack to see every game in Bramlage, including matchups against conference opponents KU, Iowa State, Baylor, and TCU. Order now by visiting kstatesports.com/tickets or calling 1-800-221-CATS.
How to follow the Cats: For complete information on K-State Women's Basketball, visit www.kstatesports.com and follow the team's social media channels on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram.
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/ Women's BasketballK-State Women's Basketball | Tess Heal Senior Video
Sunday, February 22
K-State Women's Basketball | Mikayla Parks Senior Video
Sunday, February 22
K-State Women's Basketball | Senior Night Ceremony 2025 - 2026 Season
Sunday, February 22
K-State Women's Basketball | Coach Mittie Press Conference vs Kansas
Sunday, February 22
