Jeff Mittie has never had an off-season like this.
The Kansas State coach is heading into his 12th season at the helm and coming off the most successful year in his tenure, with the team’s first Sweet Sixteen since 2002. Throughout his Wildcats’ run, which included a thrilling 80-79 victory over No. 4 seed Kentucky in the second round of the NCAA Tournament and a narrow loss to No. 1 seed USC in the Sweet Sixteen, Mittie was not interested in reflecting. Even when the Wildcats were eliminated, the idea of “What’s next?” was a daunting one. And Mittie was candid about the offseason.
“I have not enjoyed it,” he said matter-of-factly.
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That’s because the Wildcats had to do a total roster overhaul. For the first time in four years, Mittie doesn’t know what his main rotation will look like. The Wildcats graduated star 6-foot-6 center Ayoka Lee, who averaged 18.6 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game over a five-year career. She often battled injuries – which is why Lee opted not to pursue a professional basketball career – but Kansas State basketball was so important to Lee that she came back from a foot surgery that caused her to miss the Big 12 Tournament in order to make a March Madness run with her teammates. She and fellow starters Serena Sundell, Jaelyn Glenn and Temira Poindexter all graduated, while the Wildcats also lost their fifth starter, Zyanna Walker, to the transfer portal. Reserves Imani Lester, Gisela Sanchez and Eliza Maupin also transferred, along with Brylee Glenn, who played key minutes over her first three seasons before redshirting last year.
That left Kansas State with just three returners: 5-foot-7 junior guard Taryn Sides, 6-foot-1 redshirt sophomore forward Alexis Hess and 5-foot-10 redshirt junior guard Mikayla Parks. Both Parks and Hess missed the last two seasons with injuries.
“A year ago we knew where all of our points were going to come from,” Mittie said. “We knew where our post play would come from, we knew about our guards. And this year, we lost players (to the portal) that we really liked. Now we are trying to see how an entire roster fits together.”
Kansas State was lucky in previous seasons, with a core that opted to stay together. But this year, the portal hit hard. Because of that, Mittie and his staff had to take a different approach than in years past. There is no typical day during portal season, Mittie said, but the Kansas State coaching staff tried to start every morning the same way.
“We always started by breaking down who was in the portal,” Mittie said. “It moves so quickly and this year we have to evaluate way more players than we did in the past. I was constantly reminding my staff that we needed to get the right players for our program. We didn’t want to take shortcuts in the evaluations, on either end of the floor.”
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Despite doing limited work in the portal over the last few seasons, the Wildcats were helped by the success stories of players like Poindexter, who played the first three seasons of her career at Tulsa. She started all 36 games for the Wildcats and averaged 12.5 points, 2.9 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.2 steals per game. Poindexter also had the best three-point shooting season of her career, making 40 percent of her attempts (her previous high was 32.3 percent). That shooting ability was on full display during the March Madness contest against Kentucky, where Poindexter made eight three-pointers. That performance, along with her consistency throughout the season, earned Poindexter a training camp contract with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury.
“She proved to people that players can transfer here and have success,” Mittie said. “We can identify players that fit our program and if they choose to come here and work hard, they will have really good results.”
Mittie was able to sign four players out of the portal this offseason: Senior guard Tess Heal (Stanford), sophomore guard Izela Arenas (Louisville), sophomore forward Jenessa Cotton (Duke) and sophomore center Ramiya White (Virginia Tech). They join a four-player freshman class that is headed up by five-star guard Jordan Speiser, who averaged 20.9 points, 7.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists during her senior season at Lutheran High School in Warrenton, Missouri. Three other guards, four-stars Aniya Foy and Brandie Harrod and Spanish native Gina Garcia Safont, round out the roster.
As the Wildcats begin their summer workouts, Mittie is taking a hands off approach. “I’m just letting them play and seeing what they can do,” he said. “I’m not trying to over-coach them. I just want to see what comes naturally to them and when problems arise, I want them to problem-solve amongst each other.”
The team has spent just two weeks together so far this summer and despite the completely new roster, Mittie isn’t tempering expectations.
“Our standards haven’t changed,” Mittie said. “We want to be in the top 16 every year. I like our roster, so I don’t want to put any limitations on it.”
