Kansas State living up to lofty expectations as Big 12 women’s basketball favorite
Every women’s basketball team in the Big 12 is starting to treat Kansas State the same way they used to treat Oklahoma and Texas.
The Wildcats have become the marquee opponent that everyone else wants to beat.
“I’m sure of that,” K-State senior center Ayoka Lee said. “We are getting every team’s best shot, regardless of the night. We definitely have a target on our back right now.”
This is a new reality for K-State, but Jeff Mittie’s team handles it beautifully.
For the first time in school history, the Wildcats were picked to win the conference heading into this season, and they have lived up to that lofty expectation by starting 17-1 with a perfect 5-0 mark in league games. They are also the highest-ranked team in the Big 12, at No. 10 in the latest coaches poll.
Some teams struggle as favorites. Not this group. The Wildcats aren’t just undefeated in conference play, they are are annihilating conference opponents by an average of 21.4 points per game.
Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise. K-State guard Serena Sundell leads the nation with 137 assists, Tulsa transfer Temira Poindexter is making an immediate impact as a scorer and Lee is averaging 17.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.
So far, all of the Wildcats’ Big 12 games have been mismatches. It doesn’t matter that teams are motivated to play them.
“Last year, we got all the way up to No. 2 in the polls and that brought a lot of attention. So this year it’s not as big of a deal,” Sundell said. “We are kind of used to it by now. We know people are out to get us this year but that’s OK. It’s not hyped as much and we aren’t talking about it as much. We just take it one game at a time and give everybody our best shot, too.”
That approach has put K-State in an enviable position.
College basketball statistician Bart Torvik projects the Wildcats as favorites in all of their remaining 13 games. And they are heavy favorites of 14 or more in all but two of those contests.
A home game against TCU and road trip to West Virginia serve as the two toughest tests left on the schedule.
If K-State can take care of business, it can hoist its first conference championship trophy since 2008.
“Everybody wants a Big 12 championship,” Mittie said. “We felt like that was a possibility for this team, so that was the goal that the players set ... but we really haven’t talked about any of those things since maybe November. Our focus has been on making sure that our standards were being met every day.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 10:34 AM with the headline "Kansas State living up to lofty expectations as Big 12 women’s basketball favorite."