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

Kansas guard S'Mya Nichols celebrates making a basket while being fouled against West Virginia in Allen Fieldhouse on Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026, in Lawrence.

Kansas guard S’Mya Nichols left the court in a wheelchair due to an ankle injury suffered in a loss at Arizona State last season; three days later she was back in the starting lineup scoring 18 points in 22 minutes in a win at Arizona.

That may demonstrate the toughness Nichols has displayed during her time as a Jayhawk — she has started all 99 possible games since her arrival on campus, averaging 29.9 minutes — but it also attests to just how common it is for her, and especially her ankles, to get battered and bruised over the course of the season.

Less than a week before the ASU game, she had left a road matchup at Baylor due to injury, four days after saying she had played through another ankle issue at home against Utah. Later in the season, she missed most of the third quarter of a WBIT game against SDSU when she hurt her ankle by landing on a cameraperson behind the basket, but returned and contributed key buckets late.

Now entering another season, the star guard declares without hesitation that her ankles are the parts of her body that take on the most wear and tear. But how does she deal with that?

“Recovery and a lot of rehab,” she said.

Quite a lot, and across the rest of her, too: “I’m always in the training room doing some type of recovery piece after and before every single practice,” Nichols added. “If we have an off day, I am doing recovery. At home, I’ll be watching TV and I’m in Normatec boots.” (Those are a tool for athletes that uses air compression to massage the legs and improve circulation.)

This season, head coach Brandon Schneider said, Nichols recently told him that she feels the best she has in a long time. It may have helped that she took three months after the season without any physical contact as part of her basketball training.

“I think that was really, really smart on her behalf,” Schneider said. “Obviously we have an incredible medical team, and she spends a ton of time with Regan (Croff), our athletic trainer. And they’re in constant communication, they’re in contact daily with all that stuff.”

Recovery is key, but nutrition is another important piece of the puzzle for Nichols at this stage in her career, as she looks ahead to a potential professional future. She said her diet has become “very insane” and that she has become “kind of a health freak.”

“Everything I eat, whole foods, nothing processed, just trying to stay up with my own body and continue playing basketball as long as I can,” she said.

That translates directly to on-court results, as she said it makes her feel vastly better.

“I think it makes me a lot more consistent within my body as well,” she added. “And then just the moving aspect, I am considered a big guard and I move and I change sides laterally so many times a game, so being able to do that at sharpness and in that pace as well is important for this level and the next.”

The Jayhawks will hope to have Nichols available for perhaps the highest quantity of minutes and games yet this season as they look to make a run back to the NCAA Tournament.

‘TEN TIMES MORE STERN’

Nichols has been a team leader essentially since her sophomore season, when the large class of veteran Jayhawks above her had graduated. But for a player who has often spoken about how she always plays with a smile, she said she has had to alter her leadership style somewhat ahead of what she hopes will be her last collegiate season.

“I like to say last year I tried to be a lot more mouthy with my voice, but this year I would say I’m 10 times more stern,” she said. “To the point where it’s like you’re not so (concerned) about their feelings at that time. No one is, on the court. We’re really trying to figure out our common goal and find our common goal, and if that takes a stern voice to do so, then I will be that.”

Schneider said that her leadership has been impactful for both KU’s returning players and its newcomers, a mix of freshmen and transfers.

“I think there’s things that she understands that are maybe some of the nonnegotiables, whether that’s a coach thing or maybe those are some things that the players have decided,” Schneider said, “that those are the areas where you have to be assertive.”

Entering her fourth season, Nichols is the longest-tenured player on the roster; her fellow seniors and fifth-year Brittany Harshaw all transferred into KU at various times.