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

Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider calls out a play against San Diego State during the quarterfinals of the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament on Thursday, March 26, 2026 in Allen Fieldhouse.

The Kansas women’s basketball team finished 11th in the Big 12 and missed the NCAA Tournament despite featuring two of the best players in the league and perhaps the nation.

Forward Jaliya Davis became the first power-conference player ever to win her league’s freshman of the week honor nine times in a row and in turn was quite unsurprisingly named freshman of the year before finishing the season averaging 19.8 points and 6.5 rebounds. Guard S’Mya Nichols continued her remarkably consistent start to her career with her third straight first-team all-league distinction and added 17.4 points per game.

But for a variety of reasons — inconsistent scoring elsewhere, poor late-game execution, turnover troubles, wear and tear that included a series of ankle injuries for Nichols and prolonged absences for Davis and Regan Williams — KU fell short of a return to March Madness and settled for a loss in the WBIT semifinals.

The Jayhawks lost several contributors from last year’s team with defensively inclined guard Sania Copeland, sharpshooter Elle Evans and starting center Lilly Meister graduating and Laia Conesa and Keeley Parks transferring. But they brought in another strong freshman class headlined by Cydnee Bryant in the post, and went in the portal looking for ball handling and defensive prowess and found Mykayla Cunningham (Southern), Anna Gooden (Colorado) and Mariyah Noel (Xavier).

Head coach Brandon Schneider has shown a willingness to tinker with lineups and even a propensity for doing so. Last year the Jayhawks came out 10 different ways. Here’s a look at some of the variations they might use this time around.

DEEP DIVE

The Jayhawks’ potential return to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in Schneider’s 12 seasons will rely on Davis and Nichols spending as many minutes on the floor as possible. Any good lineup will feature them both.

There’s always room to improve for young players in terms of foul trouble, and Davis can certainly grow in that realm, especially as opposing teams will do anything to target her and get off the court. But she still managed to play more than 30 minutes per game in league games last year.

As for Nichols, KU has at times struggled to run cohesive offense without her over the last several seasons. If one of Cunningham or Gooden could emerge as a reliable backup point guard, that would go a long way, especially in terms of lessening wear and tear on Nichols, whose physical, slashing play style causes her to take a lot of hits that add up over the course of a long season.

Gooden carved out a role at Colorado and didn’t put up impressive stats but played in every game. Considering that she had to work her way back from having her shoulder repaired over the course of her first offseason in college, a full summer and fall could go a long way for her at KU. As for Cunningham, who Schneider has said he envisions as a combo guard, she brings a lot more experience with 43 career starts in 91 games, albeit at the mid-major level. Known primarily for her defense, the Salina native could slide into a similar role to Copeland this season, but with somewhat better length at 5-foot-10.

Whenever available, Bryant will be a fixture at center. At 6-foot-4, she brings size the Jayhawks lack elsewhere on the roster, but besides her two-way paint skills she can also operate well on the perimeter. Like Davis, she was a McDonald’s All-American, an honor that speaks for itself considering how rarely the KU women’s program has brought in such players in its history.

With Bryant and Davis in the frontcourt and Williams rotating in — a role she filled adeptly as a sophomore with 8.9 points and 5.0 rebounds per game, primarily off the bench — KU could have one of the top sets of forwards in the Big 12.

The issue is that they may not always have Bryant, considering that she is a two-sport athlete who will also play volleyball, and the volleyball season overlaps with nearly the entirety of the women’s basketball nonconference slate. Then when she starts playing basketball full-time in the winter, she’ll undoubtedly need time to get acclimated.

Davis and Williams will still be a solid duo in her absence and should play off each other’s skill sets nicely, even if neither is a prototypical rim protector (and they didn’t start together last year at any point because Meister started all 36 games). Who gets minutes in the post off the bench in this sort of setup remains to be seen. Tatyonna Brown, a 6-foot-2 developmental forward, made the most of her garbage-time minutes last season and is a well-regarded rebounder; time will tell how much she grows entering her second year. But freshman Brooklynn Renn, who has a versatile offensive game for her size at 6-foot-3, might be the favorite.

So Davis, Nichols and Bryant or Williams, as the case may be, will be reliable selections in the starting lineup next season. The question then becomes which off-ball guards KU will slot in alongside Nichols to help space the floor, and the Jayhawks could go in several directions given that nearly all of last year’s options are gone.

Adding Noel seems like a no-brainer. The former Bonner Springs standout is already a proven high-volume scorer at the power-conference level with 14.9 points per game and an above-average rebounder at 5-foot-11 with 6.3 rebounds. The primary flaw in her Xavier stats is her efficiency — her shooting numbers aren’t stellar at 37.3% from the field and 31.6% from deep — but there’s reason to believe that when playing alongside Nichols she could pick her spots a bit better and, perhaps more importantly, avoid being first on opposing teams’ scouting reports like she must have been when they faced the lackluster Musketeers.

The incumbent, for whatever it’s worth, at the other wing spot would be 6-foot-1 sophomore Libby Fandel, who started 24 games last season, albeit playing just 18.1 minutes per game with 3.6 points and 2.4 rebounds. She can develop into a two-way standout but will need to find her shooting touch after she attempted 92 3s last season, second on the team, but made just 22 (23.9%).

Cunningham isn’t exactly a high-volume shooter, but she did make 17 of her 40 tries at Southern after just 13 of 69 her previous two years at Lindenwood. In any case, it’s easy to envision Schneider inserting her in place of Fandel for a somewhat less offensively proficient lineup but one with just a bit more defense, ball handling and veteran composure.

The remainder of the roster consists entirely of off-ball guards: freshman Mollie Ernstes, junior Tyara Davis (a Harris-Stowe transfer and sister of Jaliya) and senior Brittany Harshaw.

photo by: AP Photo/Mike Buscher

Xavier guard Mariyah Noel (13) in action during an NCAA basketball game against Georgetown on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Xavier won 52-51.

photo by: AP Photo/Nell Redmond

Southern University guard Mykayla Cunningham passes away from Samford guard Sierra Godbolt (22) during the second half of a First Four college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Columbia, S.C.