photo by: Chance Parker/Journal-World photo

Kansas senior Zakiyah Franklin losses possesion of the ball against West Virginia on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.

It’s been an interesting season for the Kansas women’s basketball program, with high-profile wins, a temporary return to the national rankings and a breakout performance from senior center Taiyanna Jackson highlighting the first three months of the season.

But a somewhat overlooked element has played as big of a role as anything and led the Jayhawks to where they sit today — in the middle of the pack in the Big 12 Conference, hoping to use the next few weeks to bolster their NCAA Tournament resumé and seeding.

When the season began, Kansas coach Brandon Schneider’s team was intent on contending for a Big 12 title. And they had the pieces to do it. But achieving a goal like that becomes much more difficult when you have to do it without one of your key players. That’s the hand the Jayhawks have been dealt for much of the 2022-23 season.

Three-year starter Ioanna Chatzileonti has played in just half of the Jayhawks 22 games this season and has not played at all since Jan. 14.

A foot injury that had her confined to a scooter on Wednesday night, when the Jayhawks defeated TCU 73-55 for just their second victory in the past five games, has left her availability up in the air and Kansas having to play without her.

Asked after Wednesday’s win if he had an update on her status, Schneider said simply, “I wish there was.”

“Right now it’s pretty obvious she’s in a scooter,” Schneider said. “So, I think the progression would probably be scooter to boot to (whatever’s next). Right now, I see scooter. So that’s a hard timeline.”

It’s also not one that Schneider is blindly holding out hope will go the Jayhawks way.

“In that regard, I think you hope for the best and plan for the worst,” he said.

Kansas also played Wednesday’s game without point guard Wyvette Mayberry, but Schneider said he expected Mayberry to be back for Saturday’s game at Texas Tech.

Although Jackson, Holly Kersgieter and Zakiyah Franklin have been viewed as the Jayhawks’ big three of sorts during the past couple of seasons, Chatzileonti was always a critical fourth piece of the puzzle.

In 29 games last season, the 6-foot-3 forward from Greece averaged 10 points and 5.6 rebounds per game from her spot in the middle of the floor on offense. As a true freshman, she averaged 8.1 points and 7.1 rebounds per game.

Without her, the Jayhawks have had to change the way they’ve played, spreading the floor more and relying on shooters on the perimeter and Jackson in the paint. While that has been beneficial for Jackson, who entered Wednesday leading the team with 15.2 and 12.4 rebounds per game, it also has limited the way KU can attack opposing defenses.

The Jayhawks have figured out how to play that way, but doing so has left them just short against the top-tier teams in the Big 12, a group they firmly believed they belonged in at the start of the season.

Last week, KU dropped one-possession games to two of the four teams that received first-place votes in the preseason coaches poll.

“Those sting,” Schneider said of the close-call defeats.

If there’s good news there, it’s that KU already has played all four of those teams (Baylor, Iowa State, Oklahoma and Texas) on the road and played two of them twice.

“There’s opportunities out there that we have to take advantage of,” Schneider said of the remaining seven games on the schedule. “But I think it’s pretty evident that there’s a lot of teams in this league that can beat anybody and can lose to anybody.”

So, now it’s all about building momentum for a stretch run, that may or may not include Chatzileonti.

Asked Wednesday if his team was as confident today as it was when the season began, Schneider said: “Oh, I wouldn’t think so just because I think there’s got to be some momentum to get that back. It doesn’t mean there can’t be.”

Momentum started with the TCU win, which featured a few bench players stepping up and hope for this team’s depth. And the Jayhawks want to see it continue this Saturday in Lubbock, Texas.

“You can’t build momentum without winning the next game,” Schneider said. “We know that there’s a lot of ball left and we have to take advantage of each opportunity.”

Franklin said after Wednesday’s game that this team is not looking beyond what’s directly in front of them. They’re not worrying about the Big 12 standings or the projections for the postseason. Instead, they’re focused daily on trying to get better with the pieces they have in hopes of stringing together a little run that can serve as a springboard to attacking some of those preseason goals.

And Franklin believes nearly all of those goals are still attainable.

“Yeah, most definitely,” she said. “It’s just going to be one game at a time, one practice at a time and take it day by day.”

Saturday’s tipoff at Texas Tech is slated for 2 p.m. on Big 12 Now via ESPN+.