Excited About Expectations

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Kansas State women's basketball head coach Jeff Mittie doesn't step back and ponder the status of his Wildcats on a national scale, but Mittie, who will guide K-State for an 11^th season in 2024-25, has an idea that the respect for his program in the Little Apple is probably the highest it's been in two decades.

The Wildcats come off a 26-8 season in which they rose to No. 2 in the AP Top 25 and finished at No. 19. They return arguably the most experience among senior starters in the country in All-American Ayoka Lee along with Serena Sundell, Jaelyn Glenn and Brylee Glenn. And the Wildcats feature two standout sophomores in Zyanna Walker and Taryn Sides with 6-foot-2 senior transfer guard Temira Poindexter poised to take over where fifth-year senior Gabby Gregory left off.

K-State was slated at No. 14 in ESPN's Way-Too-Early Top 25 for the 2024-25 season.

"This is a good opportunity for us," Mittie said following his team's first official practice on Tuesday. "We feel like we'll start higher than in the past because of our success a year ago. Does that guarantee you success this year? No. But starting higher, there's certainly more respect out there, and there are people talking about us in a good way, and there are expectations for our program, and that's a good thing."

Another good thing? The 6-foot-6 Lee, one of the premier centers in the country, is the healthiest she's been in her time at K-State. As a redshirt senior last season, Lee became the third player in Big 12 history to reach 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 300 blocks in a career, but it appeared that she wasn't always at 100% health. This came, of course, after the two-time All-American missed the entire 2022-23 season while recovering from offseason surgery. Lee also missed her true freshman season in 2018-19 due to injury.

"She had a really good offseason," Mittie said. "She's been in the gym more than ever. (Previous years) most of the time she spent her time in the training room. It's really nice just to see her in the gym and able to get shots up and spend time with her teammates. It's a lonely spot to be in that training room rehabbing and just trying to get as pain free as you can. It's been good to see her out there."

She has three longtime teammates — Sundell and the Glenn twins, who have combined for 295 career starts — around her as well. In this age of the transfer portal, that's somewhat rare.

"It's a really cool thing for them to care so much about Kansas State and have such a great experience in Manhattan that they want to play together, and they want to stay," Mittie said. "Their paths have been filled with the same adversity that a lot of college students face, whether it be an injury path, or maybe not being as successful one of the years, but to see them stick together, I just think they've had a really good experience here. Manhattan embraces them. That's really important toward keeping players all four years."

Mittie said that Sides "has had as good of a shooting summer as I've ever had a player have," while Walker "had as good of a summer as any player on our roster."

"(Sides) is making a lot of shots, and I want her to be aggressive there. She's had those 'wow' moments where she can draw all the attention to her. Yokie draws a lot of attention. We need more players to draw attention. Taryn has that ability.

"Zy's midrange jumper has been very, very good. Defensively, she's continued to have that dog mentality. She has continued to grow in that area."

Although Mittie has his most veteran team ever at K-State, he is looking for the players — veterans and newcomers — to battle during practice.

K-State plays its lone exhibition game against Washburn on October 30 at Bramlage Coliseum.

"I told (the players) a week ago, I don't want them to like each other too much," Mittie said. "Certainly, you want a close team, but you want a team so close that you can go to war for 2 ½ hours and still be close afterward and you can have an appreciation that the player across from you just went to war with you for 2 ½ hours and made you better. I hope we're that close.

"Today's practice was as much as we'd played all fall. It was good to see them compete. It got better as practice went on. There were some hard falls, competitive elbows, bumps and bruises, and afterward everybody was talking about how good practice ended. If they can compete like that, that'll be good."

Mittie has been impressed with the squad.

"I like this group," he said. "This group is a self-starter group, a hard-working group. They get into 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. That part of their DNA has remained throughout the summer and into fall.

"I feel pretty good about where we're at."

Here are some other things that Mittie mentioned following K-State's second practice on Tuesday:

Temira, Temira, Temira

Get used to seeing and hearing the name Temira Poindexter. The 6-foot-2 Poindexter, an All-American from Tulsa and the seventh leading scorer in Division I hoops, committed to K-State on April 21 just two days after her visit to Manhattan. With her length and athleticism, Poindexter averaged 21.0 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.5 blocks a year ago, joining USC's JuJu Watkins and UConn's Paige Bueckers as the only players in the nation with 700 points and 50 blocks last season.

"I didn't know (Poindexter) very well, but I got to know her very quickly in the recruiting process and I loved her attitude," Mittie said. "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 (Gregory) leaving."

Asked if Poindexter has experienced any of those "wow" moments yet in a K-State uniform, Mittie replied, "I don't know if there's been a 'wow' moment. One of the things she did coming in was she just wanted to fit in, and maybe a little bit too much. It's a positive that she has that attitude, but we need her to be aggressive now. What I've liked in the last two weeks has been her aggressiveness at both ends of the floor. She can be a really good defender and can really add to that piece. This is a player who had over 50 blocks and was very, very active defensively.

"She can be a more efficient 3-point shooter. She took some tough 3s last year. We want her to have the ability to knock those tough ones down but also get some easier ones. We're still in the early stages of seeing her more comfortable. She gets more comfortable every day. When you really see the 'wow' moments are when the game breaks down and her natural instincts take over, and that's where we see it right now."

Poindexter is from the same state as Gregory, virtually the same height, and apparently carries a healthy attitude akin to what K-State fans witnessed from Gregory as an indomitable force for the Wildcats.

"On the floor, Poindexter does some things similar to Gabby and has that kind of swagger," Mittie said. "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."

Spreading minutes will be interesting

On a veteran team, everybody seemingly battles for playing time. Throw in a few newcomers, and things can really get interesting.

Asked if playing time stresses him out, Mittie replied, "That is not one of the things that stresses me, no. That tends to work itself out. I do think we'll need to play a deep bench to be our very best. I'd like to play a deep roster and that depends on them. I'll play the players that are ready and who are playing the role we need them to play. 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'd say I'm defining roles right now. We're still looking at some things, but we'll cinch that in here. Obviously, because of the number of returners we have, we have some good defined roles, but we'll cinch that in here in the coming weeks as we become more familiar."

Where can K-State be better than a year ago?

K-State ranked sixth in the Big 12 last year by averaging 71.7 points per game but ranked fourth with an average margin of victory of 13.7 points. The Wildcats ranked third at 45.6% shooting from the floor, trailing Texas (49.1%) and Iowa State (46.8%).

Mittie would like to see even better efficiency from the floor this year.

"Offensively, we need to shoot the ball better," Mittie said. "Our group has worked extremely hard. Part of that is not just shooting the ball, it's about passing efficiently and shot selection. Those are critical to shooting the ball well. Taryn Sides can make a big difference there, and Poindexter can make a big difference."

Defensively, K-State ranked third by allowing 57.9 points, trailing only Texas (57.7) and West Virginia (57.8). K-State possessed the best field-goal percentage defense in the league, as opponents shot just 36.2% (716-of-1,977) from the floor. The Wildcats also held opponents to just 26.6% (159-of-598) on 3-point attempts, which ranked second in the league.

K-State averaged 28.8 defensive rebounds (third in the Big 12) and forced 16.3 turnovers (sixth).

"We were a good defensive team last year, but I didn't feel like we turned the other team over enough," Mittie said. "Our strengths last year, our field-goal percentage defense was really good. The two areas I'd like to see improved is to take it away from the opponents more and I'd like to defensive rebound better. Those two areas are areas that we could see really good improvements in."

Just how talented is the new Big 12 in women's hoops?

If you're using ESPN's Way-Too-Early Top 25 as a barometer, the Big 12 Conference should be tough again in 2024-25 — led by some regulars in the polls.

Baylor (ninth), Iowa State (10^th), K-State (14^th) and West Virginia (16^th) all are projected to be top-20 teams for a league that welcomes Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah. Only one newcomer to the league is projected to be a preseason top-25 team — Utah at 22^nd.

"The league is in good hands with a lot of depth this year of quality, quality teams," Mittie said. "There certainly is going to be heavy competition this year. A lot of the teams that had good years last year added some good pieces and didn't graduate a whole lot. The teams that finished at the top of the league, us, Iowa State, West Virginia, Baylor, we all return our top players, and we all added good additions in the portal. There's an opportunity there like there is every year, but the depth of this league is pretty impressive on paper. You have to do it on the court, but on paper, the league looks really strong."

Kansas State University Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Brylee Glenn

Jaelyn Glenn

Gabby Gregory

Ayoka Lee

Temira Poindexter

Taryn Sides

Serena Sundell

Zyanna Walker

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