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

Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider laughs off a foul called on one of his players versus TCU Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Lawrence.

With just one key transfer addition in the fold, head coach Brandon Schneider says the Kansas women’s basketball staff will be “very, very picky at this point” when it comes to considering any additional acquisitions.

That’s because of KU’s high level of returning talent, with nearly every significant contributor returning from last season; its highly touted group of freshmen that ranks among the best classes in the country; the status of its revenue-sharing budget; and its confidence in its lone transfer addition so far, 6-foot-3 former Indiana forward Lilly Meister.

“We feel really, really good about Lilly,” Schneider said on his “Hawk Talk” radio show on Monday. “We recruited her the first time around (out of high school), felt like that when she told us she was going to Indiana, we were disappointed but I think we handled it in the right way, and I think she remembered that to be quite honest, just in terms of how we took the news and how we were going to be supportive of her. ”

Schneider described Meister as “exactly what we needed.” KU did not have a true power post player during the 2024-25 season and now has a contender to supplement its existing options.

“She pairs really, really well with not only our returners like Regan (Williams) and Nadira (Eltayeb), but also when you look at the front-line incoming players with Jaliya Davis and Tatyonna Brown, I think she’s just going to be a really, really good fit there,” Schneider said.

It was a quiet and early start to the offseason for the KU women’s program.

Besides honing in on that one key transfer addition to this point, the Jayhawks had less going on than usual, since they didn’t play in a postseason tournament. Schneider traveled to several high school state tournaments, both for recruiting purposes and to support the likes of incoming freshmen Davis and Libby Fandel.

He said his staff complained about the long duration of the offseason — with six weeks of offseason workouts — and his response was, “Then play in the postseason, play as long as you can, and then we’ll have a very short offseason, possibly even not do anything.

“But when you’re not playing deep into March, I’m sorry, but everybody here’s getting paid, and we’re going to earn our money, and that includes the players, so they’re going to come in and get work done,” he continued. “Otherwise we’re not teaching them the right kind of values of doing anything and still getting a paycheck and a scholarship and all the other things that go with it.”

KU had so much idle time because it withdrew from consideration from the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament. Schneider said he felt like it was wise to forgo such a postseason opportunity because of late-season injuries to key players S’Mya Nichols and Elle Evans — which were also, he said, a big reason why KU exited in the first round of the Big 12 tournament against Texas Tech. The Jayhawks finished with a 16-14 record, including 6-12 in Big 12 Conference action.

“We felt like (it) was in the best interest of the program moving forward,” he said, “making sure that we could bring S’Mya and Elle and Regan back as healthy as possible going into the next year.”

The roster for next year consists of forwards Brown, Davis, Eltayeb, Meister and Williams, and guards Laia Conesa, Sania Copeland, Evans, Fandel, Brittany Harshaw, Nichols and Keeley Parks.

Schneider said all will be available for summer practices that start June 2, although Conesa will be absent for a portion of them due to obligations to the Spanish national team.

After that, the Jayhawks will embark on a schedule that is almost fully assembled at this juncture.

Nonconference schedule preview

The preseason will include a scrimmage at Wichita State and home exhibition with Fort Hays State.

Other highlights include the first installments of home-and-home series with Minnesota (in Lawrence this year) and Northwestern (in Evanston, Illinois, this year), a Thanksgiving-week tournament in Fort Myers, Florida, with a “stacked field,” and the return of the Border Showdown.

Schneider said he believes KU and Missouri, which has a new head coach in former Tennessee coach Kellie Harper, will face off at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri, on Nov. 15.

The most recent matchup between the storied rivals was in the 2023 WNIT, and KU won 75-47 at Allen Fieldhouse.