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.

When Kansas women’s basketball coach Brandon Schneider met with his team on Monday, one of the first things he told them was that the staff had been looking forward to that day for about 89 days — that is, since the Jayhawks’ unceremonious first-round Big 12 tournament loss to Texas Tech on March 5.

In reality, though, the arrival of KU’s four incoming freshmen and one transfer was many years in the making.

Schneider and his assistants had been recruiting top prospects Jaliya Davis and Keeley Parks since the players were in middle school; they had a relationship with senior Indiana transfer forward Lilly Meister dating back to around the same time, when she was in high school. Libby Fandel was the first player to commit back in July and, to hear Schneider tell it, has improved the most since then; Tatyonna Brown followed suit a couple months later.

All the signees made it to campus in time for Monday’s meeting — and that’ll likely be it, with the roster essentially done at 12 players, a few below either the new projected scholarship limit of 15.

“I think, you know, there’s a big difference in today’s world in having scholarships and being out of money,” Schneider said.

Even a dozen players, though, is a luxury compared to what KU experienced last season. When senior wing Elle Evans was asked about what it would be like to have depth this year, she started her answer by saying, “Oh, wow.”

By the time the Jayhawks made it to that postseason matchup with Texas Tech, they were down to nine players; by the end of the game, even as they rallied, they had just eight and were lacking their two best, Evans and then-sophomore star S’Mya Nichols. Rotational piece Brittany Harshaw missed a month early in the year; Wyvette Mayberry barely played due to injury and transferred to Arkansas; projected starter Jordan Webster sat out the entire season with a hip injury and transferred to Texas A&M.

Everyone who came back is doing better health-wise, Schneider said, and Evans said she’s back to 100%. Plus, reinforcements have arrived.

“Yes, I’m very excited,” Evans said. “Obviously, it’s really comforting to know that when people off the bench can come in or people get in foul trouble, the team and the game won’t filter down in competition.”

On the bright side, the severe circumstances of last season allowed several players to gain considerably more and wider-ranging experience than they might have expected. Evans pointed to Sania Copeland, a 5-foot-7 guard, playing four positions.

“I really think it was a terrific year for players like Sania Copeland and Laia Conesa and Brittney Harshaw who really we probably weren’t expecting to play the amount of minutes that they did, and I think it really sets them up in a position to compete going into this next year,” Schneider said. “They’ll be more prepared for whatever their role turns out to be.”

The roles may look a bit different for everyone (at least besides the entrenched stars in Nichols and Evans) with KU’s best recruiting class in recent memory joining the fold.

“I’ve seen that we were ranked No. 7 in our recruiting class, and I thought that was super cool,” Davis said. “I mean, that hasn’t really happened here for a while, and I think that’s something that kind of puts weight on our shoulders but I think we can all work through it.”

KU also may take on a different appearance because the Jayhawks are going to use more lineups that contain three guards and two forwards as opposed to four guards around one center. That could provide an opportunity, for example, to put Davis and Meister on the floor at once.

“I think what we do have is multiple players that have some versatility at what we’re probably going to call a forward spot,” Schneider said.

Schneider said the group has high expectations for next season.

“I think our administration has continued to invest and increase investment in the program,” he said, “which has allowed us in this new climate to recruit perhaps as well as we ever have.”

The Jayhawks’ full nonconference schedule hasn’t been released, but Schneider has previously said they will play Missouri at the T-Mobile Center on Nov. 15 and host Minnesota and travel to Northwestern as part of home-and-home series. They will also play in a Thanksgiving week tournament in Fort Myers, Florida, and host local NAIA foe Haskell Indian Nations University on Dec. 17.