Usually, Serena Sundell hits a point in the season where it starts to feel long. It often comes around this time, in February, where the finish line is close but not close enough. Not this year, however. This year, Sundell wishes the finish line would evade her for a bit longer.
“It has absolutely flown by,” she said. “I’ve enjoyed every second of it and I wish time would just slow down. After every game I can’t believe how little time we have left.”
That’s because Sundell is in the midst of the best Kansas State season since she came to campus as a freshman in 2021. The Wildcats are 22-3 with a win over then-No. 9 TCU and are on pace to have the best record since coach Jeff Mittie took over in 2014, maybe even in program history. And the Wildcats are doing it without 6-foot-6 center Ayoka Lee, the Big 12 preseason Player of the Year, who fractured her foot during a game against Arizona State on Jan. 19. She is expected to return by the end of the month.
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When Lee is on the court, she’s a dominant force. She’s the first player in program history to record 2,000 or more points, 1,000 or more rebounds and 300 or more blocks over her college career. Lee even owns the NCAA Division I record for most points in a single game with 61. But her career has been riddled with injuries. Lee first came to campus in 2018 but ultimately redshirted for the 2018-19 season due to a knee injury. The same thing happened during the 2022-23 season. Then Lee missed a month last year during Big 12 play because of an ankle injury. It has become a frustrating reality for the Wildcats, but last season Mittie realized the team would need to strategize how to play without its injury-prone star.
“I’ve seen really great growth in our offensive schemes and we’ve grown defensively. We’ve really taken it on the chin,” Mittie said. “Last year we really struggled without her, so this year we wanted to make sure we weren’t so reliant on her.”
Mittie says Lee, who was named preseason Big 12 Player of the Year, is the best player and best leader he has coached during his 11-year tenure at Kansas State. “We are a top-10 team with Ayoka Lee,” Mittie said. “Without her, we are still a really good basketball team, but we are more like a top-20 team.”
When it comes to seeding, and winning in March Madness, those 10 spots make a difference. If all goes well, Lee will return for Kansas State’s rivalry game with Kansas on Feb. 22. During her month-long absence, the goal was simply to stay the course, but the Wildcats have done more than that. Individually, they’ve gotten better. “We are finding other ways to be good, which is going to be a strength when (Lee) gets back,” Mittie said.
Sundell has been the driving force of that development. In the win over TCU on Feb. 5, the 6-foot-2 senior point guard was the best player on the court in a game that featured the Horned Frogs’ star trio of Hailey Van Lith, Madison Conner and Sedona Prince. Sundell made the game look easy. She backed down opposing guards, acting more like a point forward than a point guard, initiating Kansas State’s offense in the post by using her length and savvy spin moves.
“She’s a smart player who has always been able to organize the offense and get everyone in the right place, but now the growth we’ve seen is that we are able to run offense through her,” Mittie said. “We’ve been able to isolate her. And we’ve seen her midrange game grow, which is something she really focused on during the offseason.”
Being the go-to scorer on her team isn’t something Sundell ever envisioned. She has been the starting point guard for Kansas State for the last four years, but even that came as a surprise. Kansas State was Sundell’s only Power Five offer. Before committing, her mom advised the guard to consider playing at the mid-major level because Sundell wasn’t sure she was good enough for the Big 12.
“I didn’t expect to start and I definitely didn’t think they were bringing me in to play point guard,” Sundell said. “I thought I would play the two or three spot, because there were four girls competing for the point guard position. Somehow, I got it.”
During that first season, Sundell squared off against a slew of talented guards, like South Carolina’s Zia Cooke, Iowa State’s Ashley Joens and Texas’ Rori Harmon. The next season was even more difficult, as the sophomore was forced to run the offense without Lee as a target in the paint for the first time. It was an intense two-season welcome to college basketball for someone who wasn’t even sure if they could play for a school like Kansas State, let alone head up its offense. Some days were good – like when she had a season-high 33 points to push No. 16 Oklahoma to overtime in March 2023. Other days were a struggle – like when she committed 6 turnovers and was held to just 10 points in an NIT loss to Washington less than a month later.
“Everyone thinks that improvement comes in a straight line, but there are peaks and valleys,” Mittie said. “Serena understands that some days you feel good about your game and you take some steps forward. Other days, you don’t feel so good and you take a step back.”
For Sundell, the chaos of her first two seasons was instrumental to her development. The freshman campaign allowed her to get a feel for college basketball, while also being able to lean on Lee as the team’s anchor. As a sophomore, it became more about learning to lean on herself. That made way for the fine-tuning that has taken place during the last two years.
“There are so many things in the college game that you don’t even think about in high school,” Sundell said. “There is so much more going on. But slowly I’ve been able to develop my confidence, my ability to create my own shot and my leadership.”
Kansas State is not a program that rakes in five-star recruits. It also isn’t a hotbed for transfer students. The Wildcats bring in a few each season – like sophomore Zyanna Walker out of Louisville and senior Temira Poindexter from Tulas – but overall the program has been built on careful, calculated development of players like Sundell, who come in as freshmen with obvious weaknesses in their games and don’t see the full fruits of their labor until their senior seasons. Even Lee, who has set almost every imaginable post record for the Wildcats, came in as just a three star recruit, according to ESPN’s Hoopgurlz.
The tortoise-rather-than-hare approach has allowed Kansas State to build chemistry among its core group. Sundell has played with fellow senior Jaelynn Glenn since the AAU circuit in high school. Junior Eliza Maupin has made the most of the 12 minutes she has averaged over the last three seasons, while sophomore Taryn Sides has seen a Sundell-like jump from her freshman to sophomore campaigns, going from 13.5 minutes and 3.5 points to 24.7 minutes and 9.8 points per game.
During the offseason, Mittie challenges his players to step up past the normal year-to-year progression, anticipating potential injuries to Lee. So when she fractured her foot in January, it felt like something they could overcome. “It was important to be consistent, so it’s not something I’m thinking about too much,” Sundell said. “I already wanted to be a better creator, a better leader, with or without Yokie (Lee).”
Even before Lee’s injury, Sundell started to see the kind of jump Mittie was hoping for. The Wildcats started the season averaging 88.5 points per game – one of the highest marks in the country – before stalling out in the first half of a game against Middle Tennessee State on Dec. 14. They went to the locker room down 26-25 while shooting just 38.9 percent from the field.
“We had been putting up so many points on people, so we were fully in shock,” Sundell said. “No one was really hitting anything, so we just kind of looked at each other and said. Okay, I guess we need to lock in on defense.’”
They went on to win 74-48 and Sundell said she felt a renewed sense of commitment to the system Kansas State had been working to perfect. In a moment of panic, they could have reverted to the old Kansas State, the team that would relentlessly feed Lee in the paint, whether she was open or not. Instead, Lee led the team with 16 points, but Glenn and Poindexter each had 15 and Sides scored eight off the bench. Their team defense was the star of the show, as the Wildcats limited Middle Tennessee to 28.3 percent shooting. Sundell, who only made one field goal, managed to contribute through her passing, finishing with 11 assists.
That is just two shy of her season-high 13 assists, something Sundell has done twice this season. The senior actually leads the country in total assists, with 187, ahead of players like Kentucky’s Georgia Amoore and Notre Dame’s Olivia Miles. Nationally, Sundell doesn’t get the same kind of attention as those two guards, but that’s not the case at home. “I feel like a little celebrity in Manhattan (Kansas),” she said with a laugh.
The Kansas State faithful know what they have with Sundell. That appreciation is one of the many things Sundell is savoring during her senior year. And though she wishes time as a whole would slow down, there is one aspect that she wouldn’t mind seeing sped up: Lee’s return. Mittie feels the same way. Because while Sundell has steadied the ship in Lee’s absence, the Wildcats will need their 6-foot-6 center to captain the vessel as it heads into March Madness. That’s one more thing that Sundell, Mittie and Kansas State would like to see progress on. During Mittie’s tenure, they’re yet to make it past the round of 32.
Mittie says he isn’t one for reflection, but the impending graduation of Lee, Sundell and Glenn, who have played their entire careers at Kansas State, isn’t lost on him. “I can hardly remember who we’ve played this season because I’m always looking forward,” he said. “And I’m really looking forward to having Ayoka back and seeing all of them play together again.”
This is their last chance. The Wildcats have put everything in place individually. Now it’s time to move forward together.
