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

Kansas guards Wyvette Mayberry and S'Mya Nichols high-five after a basket Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024, against Houston.

Kansas City, Mo. — The choice to install then-freshman S’Mya Nichols as Kansas’ primary offensive decision-maker — one that in many ways revitalized KU’s 2023-24 season and helped get the Jayhawks to the NCAA Tournament — did not occur in a vacuum.

Moving Nichols into that role inevitably resulted in more time spent off the ball for the longtime point guard Wyvette Mayberry.

With her and Nichols serving as the bridge to a new-look roster for the Jayhawks this season, following the departure of three fifth-year senior starters, the positional combination that once served as a deviation from the norm has turned into a core around which KU can develop its new style of basketball.

“It’s been a great experience,” Mayberry said on Tuesday. “I like playing off the ball. It gives me a lot of opportunities, especially in transition, to just be more aggressive, and also, not having the ball in my hands, being able to move off the ball.”

Head coach Brandon Schneider said Mayberry serves as a great “complement” for the rising star Nichols. Nichols herself said, “As soon as I get the ball, I know exactly where she’s going.” Mayberry added, “Especially from playing together last year, we definitely know each other a lot better. I definitely feel like the game has slowed down a little bit.”

“I think it would have been hard, had Wyvette not returned, for S’Mya to be the only starter,” Schneider said. “They’ve really worked well off of each other. They understand how to play off of each other. We play them both as kind of combo guards, point guards if you will, with the understanding they can both make plays and they can both score.”

Schneider’s stated goal when he signed Mayberry as a transfer from Tulsa in April 2022 was acquiring a player “who could play some point guard, but also play off the ball a little bit.” In the years since, serving primarily as the point guard, Mayberry has been the “point of attack” for KU’s defense, as Schneider puts it, taking on the other team’s best guard.

“She’s a player that can make life difficult for opponents on that end,” Schneider said, “but then I think has really grown her game, and her ability to stretch it and shoot the 3, and obviously we all know her as an explosive downhill driver.”

Beyond that, she’s become “a lot more vocal than when she stepped on campus.”

“I think her work ethic and the energy she brings every day kind of sets the tone,” he added.

That is especially valuable given that her experience outstrips the vast majority of her teammates, particular with eight newcomers on this year’s roster. The only players besides Mayberry who were on the 2022-23 team are backup centers Danai Papadopoulou and Nadira Eltayeb.

“Just knowing that we do have eight new faces, (I’m) really just being a voice,” Mayberry said, “and then also just being an example, because I’ve been here for three years, so I already know what to expect.”

She said she learned “tactics and ways” from those departed seniors — Zakiyah Franklin, Holly Kersgieter and Taiyanna Jackson — that she channels in her own leadership.

She and Nichols will anchor a lineup that could end up featuring freshman post player Regan Williams and the likes of newcomer wings Elle Evans and Brittany Harshaw as the Jayhawks look to space the floor.

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas’ Wyvette Mayberry addresses the media during the NCAA college Big 12 women’s basketball media day, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo.

photo by: Big 12 Conference

Kansas guard Wyvette Mayberry shoots a jumper against Texas on Saturday, March 9, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo.