photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas guard Brittany Harshaw acknowledges an assist by a teammate against Washburn Friday, Nov. 1, 2024 in Allen Fieldhouse.

The new-look Kansas women’s basketball team suited up for the first time in a renovated Allen Fieldhouse for an exhibition game against Washburn — the Ichabods’ first game in Lawrence since 2018. After Washburn hung tight through the first half due to the Jayhawks’ miscues and an 0-for-15 start on 3-pointers, KU pulled ahead with a 25-point third quarter before sealing an 81-54 win on Friday night.

“I thought it was beneficial for us just to be in Allen Fieldhouse. We’ve had 25 practices and three of those have been in the Fieldhouse,” head coach Brandon Schneider said. “So whether it’s a practice or an exhibition game, it’s really valuable time, not only for our newcomers but for our returners.”

After losing their defensive centerpiece in Taiyanna Jackson to graduation, the Jayhawks will have to switch things up to stay competitive in a large Big 12 Conference. Schneider gave a glimpse into how this may look with the year’s first starting lineup featuring four guards and freshman forward Regan Williams. Transfers Elle Evans and Brittany Harshaw joined S’Mya Nichols and Wyvette Mayberry to round it out. With no true center, Kansas’ lineup is notably smaller than in the past few years, but with Evans and Williams both coming in at 6-foot-3, Schneider established the length on the perimeter that he’d been emphasizing all offseason straight into the starting rotation.

“We stayed really vanilla in terms of how we guarded the post,” Schneider said after the game. “There were some things I thought we did a good job of and some things we need to clean up … and they’ll have to fill that role by committee.”

Both teams came out slow to start things out, as Evans scored Kansas’ first four points on a layup and pair of free throws for the Jayhawks’ only points in the first three minutes. Kansas took an 8-2 lead before starting a four-minute field goal drought. Nichols and Evans sank four free throws late thanks to Kansas being in the double-bonus, giving the Jayhawks an 18-11 lead after 10 minutes of play. Sania Copeland and Regan Williams stood out on defense, as Williams stepped in as a faux center for most of Washburn’s possessions and Copeland caused some immediate disruption up top.

The second quarter opened at a much quicker pace with the Jayhawks and Ichabods trading off layups and free throws before a 6-1 run by Washburn made it a four-point game.

A little less than halfway through the second quarter, both teams embarked on a three-minute field goal drought to keep Kansas at a 25-21 lead. This drought included four misses from beyond the arc for the Jayhawks, putting them at 0-for-12 to start the game. Laia Conesa ended this period with a crafty lay-in through a few defenders before Nichols embarked on a six-point run all her own to put Kansas up 33-23, its first double-digit lead of the game.

Then Evans ended the missed-3 streak at 14 as she sank the Jayhawks’ 15th attempt of the night for its first make of the game. An acrobatic shot by Mayberry from the block gave Kansas a 39-27 lead heading into halftime.

Kansas’ defense stepped up in the last five minutes of the second quarter to hold the Ichabods to six points for a much more palatable lead at the break.

An early layup would get the Ichabods their only points of the first four minutes of the third, as a seven-point Jayhawk run quickly made it 46-29. Kansas brought out a completely different offense out of the break, as the Jayhawks went 5-for-12 from beyond the arc with Harshaw scoring eight of their 25 points on her own.

“We got enough stops that they couldn’t set their defense and we did a better job of … playing inside-out,” Schneider said of the second-half adjustments. “And you make 3s in our game, I think on the men’s side it’s like a lob dunk: it just kind of energizes everybody.”

They backed this up on the other end of the floor too, holding Washburn to a nine-point quarter while grabbing 15 rebounds and matching their total in steals thus far with five. After battling for the whole first half, Kansas righted the ship in the third to take a 64-36 lead.

“We have many great shooters. So at the end of the day we knew one was going to go in, and we only needed one to break the seal on the basket,” Nichols said. “And then as soon as we start making 3s, then the paint is open more so that’s when we start attacking more. So it really goes hand in hand.”

The Ichabods scored five quick points before a 10-point Kansas run, and from there they stayed even throughout the quarter. With every available player seeing the floor, Schneider rolled out plenty of rotation combinations in the Jayhawks’ 81-54 win.

“I think what worked well for us was our trust,” Copeland said. “I feel like we all trust each other very much, we can make a pass and just trust them to shoot it, and then even if it doesn’t go in we trust that it will go in, and that’s one of our key concepts of success for our team.”

She and Nichols both mentioned how the team is currently trying to find its identity for the year, and this exhibition game is a way to funnel things out early.

“You can really see what we need to work on and you can really see what we’re good at (in-game), and to consistently do what we’re good at,” Nichols said.

The Jayhawks will continue to identify this identity with their season opener against Lindenwood on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in Allen Fieldhouse as they get into nonconference play.