Nichols was selected to the preseason all-conference team; The KU women placed 8th

Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal World

Kansas guards S'Mya Nichols and Wyvette Mayberry talk during free throws Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, against BYU.

After just one season at the collegiate level, incoming Kansas sophomore S'Mya Nichols made enough of an impression to earn a preseason all-conference selection ahead of the 2024-25 season.

The award, announced Thursday, follows the 6-foot-2 guard's first-team all-conference recognition at the end of her freshman year. Nichols was the leading scorer on an experienced team with 15.4 points per game and will now be a central figure on a new-look squad.

Perhaps because of the lost experience from a year ago, Big 12 coaches picked KU to finish eighth in the newly expanded 16-team league. While this beats the Jayhawks' 2021 last-place projection, it falls well short of the fifth-place pick in 2022 and the third-place pick in 2023.

Last year, the Jayhawks finished seventh despite being just a few games away from the league's top teams. They eventually reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament, defeating Michigan and falling to USC before losing longtime program members such as Zakiyah Franklin, Taiyanna Jackson and Holly Kersgieter to graduation.

Head coach Brandon Schneider received a contract extension in the offseason, and KU followed up by adding returning players like Nichols and guard Wyvette Mayberry with key transfers like wings Elle Evans (North Dakota State) and Jordan Webster (UC Riverside) and guard Sania Copeland (Wisconsin ) brought together).

One potential area of ​​concern is at the post, where KU will look to a combination of returning backups Nadira Eltayeb and Danai Papadopoulou, JUCO transfer Freddie Wallace and freshman Regan Williams to take up significant minutes .

Kansas State's Ayoka Lee was named preseason player of the year, Baylor's Aaronette Vonleh and TCU's Hailey Van Lith earned co-newcomer of the year honors and Colorado's Tabitha Betson is the preseason freshman of the year.

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Written by Henry Greenstein

Henry is a sports editor at the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com and serves as a KU beat writer while managing daily sports coverage. He previously worked as a sports reporter at The Bakersfield Californian and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (BA, Linguistics) and Arizona State University (MA, Sports Journalism). Despite being from Los Angeles, he's often been told that he doesn't give off “California vibes,” whatever that means.

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