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

Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider talks with guard S'Mya Nichols during a break in play against Texas Tech in Allen Fieldhouse, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025.

With a high level of returning production and the addition of arguably the best recruiting class in program history, the Kansas women’s basketball team was picked to finish sixth of 16 teams in the Big 12 Conference in a poll of league coaches released on Thursday morning.

The Jayhawks came in 11th in a disappointing, injury-plagued 2024-25 season that ended in the first round of the Big 12 tournament, after they had been projected in eighth to start the year. But they bring back nearly everyone who contributed last year, including wings Elle Evans and Brittany Harshaw, guards Laia Conesa and Sania Copeland, forward Regan Williams, center Nadira Eltayeb and perhaps most notably star guard S’Mya Nichols.

Nichols, a junior from Overland Park who has made the All-Big 12 first team each of the past two seasons, was again named preseason all-conference on Thursday by a unanimous vote. She is coming off a year in which she ranked fifth in the league in scoring at 18.6 points per game, set a school record for free throws and received an All-American honorable mention from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.

Entering head coach Brandon Schneider’s 11th season at the helm, KU has reloaded with the freshman class of Tatyonna Brown, Jaliya Davis (a McDonald’s All-American), Libby Fandel and Keeley Parks, as well as the addition of Indiana transfer Lilly Meister in the frontcourt. The result is a squad that despite featuring just a dozen players has significantly more depth than last year’s edition.

KU will make its first appearance at Late Night in the Phog on Oct. 17, host an exhibition against Fort Hays State on Oct. 29 and then open its season in earnest against Kansas City on Nov. 5.

TCU, Iowa State, Baylor, Oklahoma State and West Virginia, in order, were picked ahead of KU in the coaches’ poll, and the Jayhawks were followed by Kansas State, Utah, Colorado, BYU, Arizona State, Cincinnati, Texas Tech, Arizona, Houston and UCF. Iowa State’s Audi Crooks was named Big 12 preseason player of the year, while Cincinnati’s Dee Alexander was the freshman of the year.