KU freshman Lauren Aldridge (3) leads a break on Baylor's Baylor's Niya Johnson (2) on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015, in Allen Fieldhouse.

Kansas University sophomore Lauren Aldridge is educated enough to know that Becky Hammon being named the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs summer-league team in Las Vegas is not the most groundbreaking moment in her sport’s history.

Even still, Aldridge, a point guard who will play the final few seasons of her college career a few hundred feet from where James Naismith’s original rules of basketball will be housed, can’t help but wonder what such a move by someone of her gender could mean for the future of women in coaching at the highest level.

“I haven’t seen her coach a game yet,” the KU point guard said of Hammon. “But I do follow the story and what’s going on because I think it’s paving the way for people like me.”

By people like her, Aldridge is talking about future coaches. She says today that she would be happy coaching any gender at any level. As she puts it, she just wants to continue to share and teach the game she has loved since the day she could walk. But a closer look at the sparkle in her eye or the way she leans forward when talking about coaching does not leave anything to the imagination. Aldridge, who started all 32 games last season as a true freshman and earned Big 12 All-Freshman honors, wants to be the next Becky Hammon. And she wants to prove to anyone who will take notice that she has what it takes to coach the best male basketball players on the planet.

“I do think that the men’s game presents challenges and it is tougher to get your foot in the door,” Aldridge said. “I think it’s a different level. You have to know your stuff at that level.”

Her father, Steve, a summer basketball coach himself, said the knowledge part of it will not be a challenge for his oldest daughter.

“She’s a sponge,” Steve Aldridge said. “Her IQ is extremely high. And when she started mentioning coaching on the men’s side, I told her you’re gonna have to know even more than you think you know, because you’ll have to prove you belong.”

That’s all Aldridge needed to hear. And she’s been working toward that ever since. In many ways, her quest actually started way before that conversation ever took place.

In third grade, the KU point guard routinely set her alarm for 6 a.m. so she could do ball-handling and shooting drills before school in her hometown of Marshfield, Missouri. No one suggested she do it. Her father did not demand that she practice around the clock. It all came from within.

“I knew even then where I wanted to be headed in life,” Aldridge said. “And I was gonna do whatever it took to get there.”

Added her father: “She is the most disciplined kid I’ve ever seen. It’s just kind of the person that she is and she’s always been that way. Whether it’s school, basketball, faith, it doesn’t matter. She’d kill herself and do whatever it takes to accomplish what she sets out to accomplish.”

For now, Aldridge is well on her way to doing just that between the lines. Told for years that she was too small or slow to hold onto dreams of playing big-time Division I basketball, the 5-foot-7 point guard already has proven those doubters wrong by having a standout debut season with the Jayhawks. And although she said she sometimes struggles to maintain the balance between having fun playing the game and trying to learn every minute detail about it for her coaching future, Aldrdidge admits her hardwood road has been just about perfect thus far.

“I often think about the first time I ran out of the tunnel at Kansas and I teared up,” she said. “I’ll never forget that moment. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s why I did all this.’ I take pride in what I do and where I’m going and I don’t think I would choose to do it any other way.”

Three years remain in Aldridge’s college — and playing — career. And although many students her age, no matter how close they are to graduation, still walk through life with that vague idea of “someday I want to be this or want to do that,” Aldrdige is way ahead of the game in that respect.

“It is what I’m going to do,” she said of coaching in the men’s game.

Added her father: “It may take her awhile and she’s not afraid to take the road less traveled, but with the kind of traits she has, there’s not a doubt in my mind she’ll be a men’s coach someday.”

When she is, whether that’s 10, 20 or even 50 years down the road, Aldridge said she would not lose sight of the fact that she would have Hammon to thank.

“She put her foot in the door for all the women following her and I just think that’s so cool,” Aldridge said. “She’s kind of like an idol to me. When you’re a kid playing, it’s ‘I want to work hard so I can play just like so and so.’ Now it’s ‘I want to work hard because I want to be just like Becky Hammon.'”