Entering an Important Window of Time
Dec 19, 2025 | Women's Basketball, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Kansas State head coach Jeff Mittie said that he loves this time of year. The university is on winter break, meaning academics aren't a part of the equation, which allows full concentration on practice. Mittie said that "this window is pretty important," particularly as the youngest roster of Mittie's last seven years at K-State embarks upon the grueling Big 12 Conference schedule.
K-State put together a 7-6 record in the non-conference season, including a 3-3 mark at Bramlage Coliseum. The Wildcats have suffered back-to-back losses just once — an 85-73 loss to No. 12 North Carolina followed by an 82-70 loss to South Dakota State in the Cancun Challenge in November — but concern rests on the team's inconsistencies. K-State followed a potentially season-turning 61-60 win over No. 13 Ole Miss in St. Joseph, Missouri on December 7 with a 64-53 home loss, as San Diego State captured its first win over a Power 4 team since 2005.
K-State closed out its non-conference season with a 75-71 win at Creighton on Sunday, perhaps providing a shot of momentum for the grinding road ahead.
But…
"I'm cautious," Mittie said. "We haven't handled success very well. We beat Ole Miss and came home and didn't handle that well. We're too inconsistent for me to know how I feel about that right now. I thought we had decent preparation before San Diego State, and I was clearly wrong. Going to Creighton, I felt pretty good about our work, but I was anxious to see that on the floor. We had a good solid week of practice.
"I'm excited about having a two-to-three-week span of time with just practice time. We've had a good week of finals practice, and we're a better team than a week ago. That's a positive."
K-State will need to bring its best game of the season to Fort Worth, Texas, when it faces No. 9 TCU, 12-0, for Saturday's 4:00 p.m. tipoff in the Big 12 opener for both teams.
TCU, the defending Big 12 Champion, rides a school-record 33-game home winning streak after a 109-54 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Tuesday, as Olivia Miles posted her third consecutive triple-double with a season-high 25 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. She leads Division I with nine triple-doubles in her career. Marta Suarez had the first triple-double of her career with 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
Three Big 12 teams are in the AP Top 25 in No. 9 TCU, No. 10 Iowa State and No. 15 Baylor. TCU, Iowa State, Arizona State and Texas Tech are all undefeated, and 13 of 16 teams have fewer than four losses.
"The league looks to be fairly strong again with really good teams," Mittie said. "TCU is the defending champions and look like they're similar to a year ago with a lot of good veteran pieces who've played in a lot of big games. We have a big challenge ahead of us."
K-State has one veteran presence on its roster. That's junior guard Taryn Sides, whose steady influence has at times helped lessen the blow of inconsistencies around the squad. She averaged 23.3 points on 60.0% (24-of-40) shooting from the floor, including 60.0% (15-of-25) from 3-point range while adding 2.7 assists, 3.7 assists and 2.3 steals in the three-game tournament in Cancun. She averages 14.5 points, a career-high 5.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game this season.
K-State has also gotten a lift so far from a pair of newcomers in senior point guard Tess Heal (Stanford) and junior Nastja Claessens (Belgium). Heal averages 14.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists in her career. Claessens averages 11.1 points and 4.3 rebounds this season. Claessens led K-State with a career high-tying 21 points and five rebounds at Creighton.
"They're pretty steady overall," Mittie said. "They're the ones that don't see too many highs or lows. They're steady. Certainly, with Claessens, you don't really know if she's playing great or poorly. She's just really steady the whole time. Tess is a little more emotional, but she's had a good string of games, and we've been able to utilize her later in games to get good looks for us, and that's been a big key for us."
Jordan Speiser leads a freshman class that ESPN ranked at No. 8 in the summer. Speiser, a McDonald's All-American and arguably the highest-rated high school signee in K-State history, already has two double-doubles and is third on the team with 9.6 points per game while making at least two 3-pointers in six games.
"We see how talented they are," Mittie said of the freshman class. "The next six weeks will be critical for them. This group has done a pretty good job. They improve every day. They've always been a hardworking group."
K-State also has a new addition to its roster — and she could play at TCU on Saturday.
Freshman center Ivona Scekic from Slovenia signed with K-State in November, arrived on campus on December 10, and is cleared to practice with the team for the first time on Friday — less than 24 hours before the Wildcats face the Horned Frogs.
With her 6-foot-3 height, the 18-year-old Scekic is crucial as the Wildcats reel from the heartbreaking departure of experienced and expected starter Kennedy Taylor, who was ruled ineligible by the NCAA just days before the start of the season.
K-State has one player on its roster taller than 6-foot-3. That's 6-foot-5 sophomore center Ramiya White, who averages 2.9 points and 2.5 rebounds in 10.0 minutes per game.
TCU has 6-foot-7 senior Kennedy Basham, 6-foot-8 freshman Sarah Portlock, 6-foot-7 sophomore Clara Silva and 6-foot-7 freshman Emily Hunter on its roster.
Cincinnati, which will visit K-State on New Year's Eve, has 6-foot-6 sophomore Mary Carden and 6-foot-5 junior Delaney Snyder.
"(Scekic) is able to start practice (Friday), and she'll dress on Saturday," Mittie said. "We'll just see. It'd be really hard for her to play on Saturday, but I wouldn't rule it out, either. We'll see in (Friday's) practice."
Scekic averaged 5.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists while playing in seven games with the 2025 FIBA U18 Women's Eurobasket. She had 13 points and nine rebounds in 19 minutes against Greece.
"Defensively, she can give us help with rim protection," Mittie said. "That's the first thing. Most realistic for us is she comes in and can do that and hopefully help our rebounding. Offensively, we haven't seen her. She shoots it OK, has a good touch around the rim. We'll just see how quickly she can acclimate."
Mittie indicated that Scekic will have a limited playbook due to her late arrival.
"She won't have the complete playbook responsibilities," he said. "That won't be realistic for her. Hopefully, we can put together a 5-10 play playbook that when she's in the game she can run effectively."
For now, Mittie is unsure if K-State might eventually adjust its starting lineup that currently features four guards.
"That'll be interesting to see where it goes," he said. "Our hope is that our bigs continue to improve and Ramiya continues to improve and Ivona gives us more depth there. I don't know how that's shake out lineup wise."
Kansas State head coach Jeff Mittie said that he loves this time of year. The university is on winter break, meaning academics aren't a part of the equation, which allows full concentration on practice. Mittie said that "this window is pretty important," particularly as the youngest roster of Mittie's last seven years at K-State embarks upon the grueling Big 12 Conference schedule.
K-State put together a 7-6 record in the non-conference season, including a 3-3 mark at Bramlage Coliseum. The Wildcats have suffered back-to-back losses just once — an 85-73 loss to No. 12 North Carolina followed by an 82-70 loss to South Dakota State in the Cancun Challenge in November — but concern rests on the team's inconsistencies. K-State followed a potentially season-turning 61-60 win over No. 13 Ole Miss in St. Joseph, Missouri on December 7 with a 64-53 home loss, as San Diego State captured its first win over a Power 4 team since 2005.
K-State closed out its non-conference season with a 75-71 win at Creighton on Sunday, perhaps providing a shot of momentum for the grinding road ahead.
But…
"I'm cautious," Mittie said. "We haven't handled success very well. We beat Ole Miss and came home and didn't handle that well. We're too inconsistent for me to know how I feel about that right now. I thought we had decent preparation before San Diego State, and I was clearly wrong. Going to Creighton, I felt pretty good about our work, but I was anxious to see that on the floor. We had a good solid week of practice.
"I'm excited about having a two-to-three-week span of time with just practice time. We've had a good week of finals practice, and we're a better team than a week ago. That's a positive."
K-State will need to bring its best game of the season to Fort Worth, Texas, when it faces No. 9 TCU, 12-0, for Saturday's 4:00 p.m. tipoff in the Big 12 opener for both teams.
TCU, the defending Big 12 Champion, rides a school-record 33-game home winning streak after a 109-54 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Tuesday, as Olivia Miles posted her third consecutive triple-double with a season-high 25 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. She leads Division I with nine triple-doubles in her career. Marta Suarez had the first triple-double of her career with 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
Three Big 12 teams are in the AP Top 25 in No. 9 TCU, No. 10 Iowa State and No. 15 Baylor. TCU, Iowa State, Arizona State and Texas Tech are all undefeated, and 13 of 16 teams have fewer than four losses.
"The league looks to be fairly strong again with really good teams," Mittie said. "TCU is the defending champions and look like they're similar to a year ago with a lot of good veteran pieces who've played in a lot of big games. We have a big challenge ahead of us."
K-State has one veteran presence on its roster. That's junior guard Taryn Sides, whose steady influence has at times helped lessen the blow of inconsistencies around the squad. She averaged 23.3 points on 60.0% (24-of-40) shooting from the floor, including 60.0% (15-of-25) from 3-point range while adding 2.7 assists, 3.7 assists and 2.3 steals in the three-game tournament in Cancun. She averages 14.5 points, a career-high 5.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game this season.
K-State has also gotten a lift so far from a pair of newcomers in senior point guard Tess Heal (Stanford) and junior Nastja Claessens (Belgium). Heal averages 14.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists in her career. Claessens averages 11.1 points and 4.3 rebounds this season. Claessens led K-State with a career high-tying 21 points and five rebounds at Creighton.
"They're pretty steady overall," Mittie said. "They're the ones that don't see too many highs or lows. They're steady. Certainly, with Claessens, you don't really know if she's playing great or poorly. She's just really steady the whole time. Tess is a little more emotional, but she's had a good string of games, and we've been able to utilize her later in games to get good looks for us, and that's been a big key for us."
Jordan Speiser leads a freshman class that ESPN ranked at No. 8 in the summer. Speiser, a McDonald's All-American and arguably the highest-rated high school signee in K-State history, already has two double-doubles and is third on the team with 9.6 points per game while making at least two 3-pointers in six games.
"We see how talented they are," Mittie said of the freshman class. "The next six weeks will be critical for them. This group has done a pretty good job. They improve every day. They've always been a hardworking group."
K-State also has a new addition to its roster — and she could play at TCU on Saturday.
Freshman center Ivona Scekic from Slovenia signed with K-State in November, arrived on campus on December 10, and is cleared to practice with the team for the first time on Friday — less than 24 hours before the Wildcats face the Horned Frogs.
With her 6-foot-3 height, the 18-year-old Scekic is crucial as the Wildcats reel from the heartbreaking departure of experienced and expected starter Kennedy Taylor, who was ruled ineligible by the NCAA just days before the start of the season.
K-State has one player on its roster taller than 6-foot-3. That's 6-foot-5 sophomore center Ramiya White, who averages 2.9 points and 2.5 rebounds in 10.0 minutes per game.
TCU has 6-foot-7 senior Kennedy Basham, 6-foot-8 freshman Sarah Portlock, 6-foot-7 sophomore Clara Silva and 6-foot-7 freshman Emily Hunter on its roster.
Cincinnati, which will visit K-State on New Year's Eve, has 6-foot-6 sophomore Mary Carden and 6-foot-5 junior Delaney Snyder.
"(Scekic) is able to start practice (Friday), and she'll dress on Saturday," Mittie said. "We'll just see. It'd be really hard for her to play on Saturday, but I wouldn't rule it out, either. We'll see in (Friday's) practice."
Scekic averaged 5.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists while playing in seven games with the 2025 FIBA U18 Women's Eurobasket. She had 13 points and nine rebounds in 19 minutes against Greece.
"Defensively, she can give us help with rim protection," Mittie said. "That's the first thing. Most realistic for us is she comes in and can do that and hopefully help our rebounding. Offensively, we haven't seen her. She shoots it OK, has a good touch around the rim. We'll just see how quickly she can acclimate."
Mittie indicated that Scekic will have a limited playbook due to her late arrival.
"She won't have the complete playbook responsibilities," he said. "That won't be realistic for her. Hopefully, we can put together a 5-10 play playbook that when she's in the game she can run effectively."
For now, Mittie is unsure if K-State might eventually adjust its starting lineup that currently features four guards.
"That'll be interesting to see where it goes," he said. "Our hope is that our bigs continue to improve and Ramiya continues to improve and Ivona gives us more depth there. I don't know how that's shake out lineup wise."
Players Mentioned
C
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's Basketball
F
/ Women's Basketball
C
/ Women's BasketballK-State Women's Basketball | Cinematic Highlights at Creighton
Thursday, December 18
K-State Volleyball | 2025 Season Recap
Thursday, December 18
K-State Men's Basketball | Cinematic Recap vs Creighton
Tuesday, December 16
K-State Men's Basketball | Postgame Highlights at Creighton
Sunday, December 14
