(BY GLEN GRUNWALD)
(HUTCHPOST SPORTS)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Big 12 Basketball Media Days kicked off in Kansas City on Tuesday with the Women of the Big 12 being featured. The defending National Champion Baylor Lady Bears are again picked to win the Big 12. Also announced was that the Phillips 66 Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship returns to Kansas City, MO, at the Municipal Arena on March 12, 2020.
Jeff Mittie might be the happiest about the Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship returning to Kansas City in March.
The Kansas State University women’s coach is a Blue Springs, Missouri, native and grew up watching games at Municipal Auditorium, site of the tournament and of Tuesday’s Media Day.
Mittie also is excited about his senior forward Peyton Williams, an All-Big 12 First Team player and member of Team USA’s Pan-American Games silver medal squad this offseason.
“Her experience with USA Basketball this summer took her to another level,” Mittie said of Williams. “We’ve seen a confidence level in Peyton that we haven’t seen before.”
Kansas State is picked to finish fifth in the Big 12. The Wildcats open with Omaha in Manhattan, Kansas, on Nov. 8.
KU’s Brandon Schneider is in his fifth season leading the University of Kansas Jayhawks.
Schneider holds maybe the youngest roster in a league that houses the defending national champion Baylor University.
“Seven sophomores and freshmen,” Schneider said. “But we feel pretty good about some of our freshmen and their ability to come in and make an impact right away.”
KU is picked to finish 10th in the Big 12. The Jayhawks open with Indiana State on Nov. 7.
A total of 22 student-athletes and the league’s 10 head coaches attended the annual media event Tuesday, October 22, at Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium and Convention Center.
With six Big 12 teams earning postseason bids last season — four NCAA, two WNIT — finishing in that top six once again will be crucial for getting to play more games after the conference tournament. And with how some of these teams are looking going into this season, that top-six is, similarly, wide-open.
As not just the defending Big 12 champions, but also the defending nationalchampions, the target on the Baylor Lady Bears’ back is extra-big this season.
Preseason All-Big 12 Player of the Year Lauren Cox is expected to be back in playing shape after suffering a knee injury in the national championship game that, thankfully, didn’t require surgery. Starters Juicy Landrum and NaLyssa Smith also return; both, along with Cox, were voted to the Preseason All-Big 12 Team.
Despite the losses of Kalani Brown and Chloe Jackson to the WNBA, the Lady Bears have plenty of new firepower: graduate transfers Te’a Cooper (South Carolina) and Erin DeGrate (Texas Tech) as well as No. 12 freshman recruit Jordyn Oliver.
More newbies to watch:
-Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw (Iowa State): A five-star recruit who is already in line for some starts this season, if not winning the starting point guard position
-Angela Harris (Kansas State): A graduate transfer and former standout point guard at Houston; the “only NCAA Division I player entering 2019-20 with 1,000 or more points, 185 or more 3-point field goals made, 200 or more rebounds, 200 or more assists and 200 or more steals”
-Jaycee Bradley (TCU): A transfer from South Dakota in her first year of eligibility after sitting out last season; was a starter on the 2017-18 Yotes squad that went undefeated in Summit League play
-Alexis Tucker and Maka Jackson (Texas Tech): A four-star recruit and the No. 15 junior college transfer, respectively; both headline head coach Marlene Stollings’ first true recruiting class
The 2019-20 season opens on Tuesday, November 5 with three non-conference games. League action begins on Friday, January 3.
Long time former Seward County Coach Jim Littell, now head coach of Oklahoma State was also in attendance as well.
“We return eight players from last year’s squad and we add seven newcomers to this year’s team. We felt that last year was not the type of year we want to have, but we had lost three pros the year before and knew we were in a rebuilding session. We return a lot of players who gained valuable experience, led by All-American Vivian Gray who averaged over 20 a game for us last year.
We returned kids like Ja’mee Asberry, Kassidy De Lapp, Clitan de Sousa and Mariam Gnanou, who all gained a wealth of experience last year. We feel good about our recruiting class. We have added a lot of size and depth to our roster. If I had to go over our strengths, it would be our size, our athleticism and the ability to go pretty deep in the bench. Probably one of the top kids coming in is Natasha Mack from Angelina Community College. She was the NJCAA national player of the year and put up great numbers. We are expecting great things out of Mack.
We added Micah Dennis, the Canadian high school basketball player of the year, and she played both the point guard and off guard position. We really like Sara Rodrigues, the 6’4 young lady from Brazil. She is very raw right now, but when you see her you will see that she is a tremendous athlete who is going to be a really nice player before she graduates. Vivian Gray is nice to have back. She is a young lady who plays extremely hard every day in practice.
I talk about two of the best practice players I ever coached, one was Tiffany Bias and the other is Vivian Gray. It was no accident that she had a great year last year. She puts a lot of time into her game and is a great practice player. We hope with the experience that we gained last year and the pieces that we have added here, we are optimistic about having a great year.”