‘She is an Elite Player’
Jan 20, 2025 | Women's Basketball, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Temira Poindexter is on fire. Those are Jeff Mittie's words. The head coach of No. 11 Kansas State just saw his team win its 14th straight game and improve to 19-1 with an 81-69 win over Arizona State. The Sun Devils were feisty. They gave the Wildcats, who had been winning their home games by 20-plus points, a fight. Yet time and time again, the 6-foot-2 Poindexter proved hotter than the Tempe sun at noon.
She doused the Sun Devils, cooled them off, shattered their dreams of a top-25 road win, and brought the crowd at Bramlage Coliseum to its feet again…and again.
Splash. She drained a 3-pointer for the final points of the first half as the Wildcats took a 36-30 lead into the locker room.
Splash. She sank a 3-pointer to start the second half.
"She is an elite player," Arizona State head coach Natasha Adair says. "She's a four-level scorer. She can pretty much score from anywhere on the floor."
Poindexter, a Cheryl Miller Award candidate, finished with a game-high 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting, including 5-for-7 shooting from beyond the arc, to go along with five rebounds and four assists.
It marked the third-straight game that Poindexter, the Tulsa transfer, emphatically appeared to be right at home — even if the first game of this key three-game stretch was at BYU. Yes, she made BYU her home by scoring 24 points, her most points as a Wildcat, and she hit 9-of-10 shots, and 5-of-10 3-pointers in a 92-65 win. Last Thursday, she had 14 points, made 5-of-11 shots, and made 4-of-8 3-pointers in a 62-47 win over Arizona.
Over this three-game stretch of BYU, Arizona and Arizona State, Poindexter has scored 57 points on 22-of-35 shooting and has made 14-of-25 3-point attempts.
"I feel pretty comfortable to take the shots that are open, and I feel like my teammates do a good job in giving me confidence, too," Poindexter says. "I'm very comfortable."
Poindexter's outing against Arizona State improved her scoring average to 12.9 points per game. She sits in third place in scoring, just behind All-America candidates Serena Sundell (13.0) and Ayoka Lee (16.0). Her 49.5% field goal percentage ranks second behind Lee's 65.4% — and that's with Poindexter attempting 123 3-pointers (she made 49 of those). She also ranks second on the team with 20 blocks.
So much time has passed since Poindexter sat in her bedroom in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, on a Zoom call one day last April soon after signing with K-State to play her final season. She talked about life. She talked about how "everybody's journey is different," and how "your story is your story." She talked fondly of her time at Tulsa, where she earned 2024 American Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors and joined USC's JuJu Watkins and UConn's Paige Bueckers as the only players in the nation with 700 points and 50 blocks in 2023-24.
She was eager to write her next chapter.
And now it's here. And she's living it. Her journey is a living thing. And it only continues to grow with each trip down the court. Late in the third quarter against Arizona State, her journey included back-to-back assists to Jaelyn Glenn for 3-pointers as the Wildcats pushed ahead 54-41 and then 57-43. Her unselfishness is uncanny.
"That's just the type of player I always strive to be, just a team player, and Coach Mittie talks about that a lot, our gravity," she says. "I know I have somebody to my left who can knock it down just as much as I can."
Poindexter is on a three-game 3-point tear unlike any that she experienced during her 93 games at Tulsa. She never made 14 3-pointers in a three-game stretch during her decorated career at Tulsa. For as willing as Poindexter is to make the extra pass, when her time comes, she makes the most of her opportunities in this deadly K-State offense.
Mittie, who needed a big, athletic playmaker to replace departed Gabby Gregory, struck gold in landing Poindexter.
"We saw it on film with Tulsa," he says. "I think she had 39 points against Arkansas in the WNIT. We definitely saw it. She has the capabilities to really catch fire and catch it and be hard to cool off. She's one of those players that when she gets it going, there's very little you can do to cool her off. We have to continue to get her the ball in those stretches because she's pretty special."
And these times are special.
Poindexter came to K-State because it was an established program and one capable of journeying deeper into March with the right pieces. Poindexter wanted to be one of those key players that Mittie could rely on to help the Wildcats reach their potential this season.
Now she's here, after scoring 57 points in three games, and with a date at Colorado looming on Saturday. K-State is 19-1 and has won 14 straight games and continues to creep closer to surpassing the 21-1 start from a year ago — the greatest start to a season in school history.
Just one game at a time. One step at a time.
"This definitely doesn't feel real," she says. "I'm grateful."
The story is just getting good.
Temira Poindexter is on fire. Those are Jeff Mittie's words. The head coach of No. 11 Kansas State just saw his team win its 14th straight game and improve to 19-1 with an 81-69 win over Arizona State. The Sun Devils were feisty. They gave the Wildcats, who had been winning their home games by 20-plus points, a fight. Yet time and time again, the 6-foot-2 Poindexter proved hotter than the Tempe sun at noon.
She doused the Sun Devils, cooled them off, shattered their dreams of a top-25 road win, and brought the crowd at Bramlage Coliseum to its feet again…and again.
Splash. She drained a 3-pointer for the final points of the first half as the Wildcats took a 36-30 lead into the locker room.
Splash. She sank a 3-pointer to start the second half.
"She is an elite player," Arizona State head coach Natasha Adair says. "She's a four-level scorer. She can pretty much score from anywhere on the floor."
Poindexter, a Cheryl Miller Award candidate, finished with a game-high 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting, including 5-for-7 shooting from beyond the arc, to go along with five rebounds and four assists.
It marked the third-straight game that Poindexter, the Tulsa transfer, emphatically appeared to be right at home — even if the first game of this key three-game stretch was at BYU. Yes, she made BYU her home by scoring 24 points, her most points as a Wildcat, and she hit 9-of-10 shots, and 5-of-10 3-pointers in a 92-65 win. Last Thursday, she had 14 points, made 5-of-11 shots, and made 4-of-8 3-pointers in a 62-47 win over Arizona.
Over this three-game stretch of BYU, Arizona and Arizona State, Poindexter has scored 57 points on 22-of-35 shooting and has made 14-of-25 3-point attempts.
"I feel pretty comfortable to take the shots that are open, and I feel like my teammates do a good job in giving me confidence, too," Poindexter says. "I'm very comfortable."
Poindexter's outing against Arizona State improved her scoring average to 12.9 points per game. She sits in third place in scoring, just behind All-America candidates Serena Sundell (13.0) and Ayoka Lee (16.0). Her 49.5% field goal percentage ranks second behind Lee's 65.4% — and that's with Poindexter attempting 123 3-pointers (she made 49 of those). She also ranks second on the team with 20 blocks.
So much time has passed since Poindexter sat in her bedroom in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, on a Zoom call one day last April soon after signing with K-State to play her final season. She talked about life. She talked about how "everybody's journey is different," and how "your story is your story." She talked fondly of her time at Tulsa, where she earned 2024 American Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors and joined USC's JuJu Watkins and UConn's Paige Bueckers as the only players in the nation with 700 points and 50 blocks in 2023-24.
She was eager to write her next chapter.
And now it's here. And she's living it. Her journey is a living thing. And it only continues to grow with each trip down the court. Late in the third quarter against Arizona State, her journey included back-to-back assists to Jaelyn Glenn for 3-pointers as the Wildcats pushed ahead 54-41 and then 57-43. Her unselfishness is uncanny.
"That's just the type of player I always strive to be, just a team player, and Coach Mittie talks about that a lot, our gravity," she says. "I know I have somebody to my left who can knock it down just as much as I can."
Poindexter is on a three-game 3-point tear unlike any that she experienced during her 93 games at Tulsa. She never made 14 3-pointers in a three-game stretch during her decorated career at Tulsa. For as willing as Poindexter is to make the extra pass, when her time comes, she makes the most of her opportunities in this deadly K-State offense.
Mittie, who needed a big, athletic playmaker to replace departed Gabby Gregory, struck gold in landing Poindexter.
"We saw it on film with Tulsa," he says. "I think she had 39 points against Arkansas in the WNIT. We definitely saw it. She has the capabilities to really catch fire and catch it and be hard to cool off. She's one of those players that when she gets it going, there's very little you can do to cool her off. We have to continue to get her the ball in those stretches because she's pretty special."
And these times are special.
Poindexter came to K-State because it was an established program and one capable of journeying deeper into March with the right pieces. Poindexter wanted to be one of those key players that Mittie could rely on to help the Wildcats reach their potential this season.
Now she's here, after scoring 57 points in three games, and with a date at Colorado looming on Saturday. K-State is 19-1 and has won 14 straight games and continues to creep closer to surpassing the 21-1 start from a year ago — the greatest start to a season in school history.
Just one game at a time. One step at a time.
"This definitely doesn't feel real," she says. "I'm grateful."
The story is just getting good.
Players Mentioned
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