KU women’s basketball coach Marian Washington has announced the signing of four players who will join the team for the 2003-04 season.
Kandis Bonner (Wabash Valley College), Kaylee Brown (Northern Oklahoma College at Enid), Syretta Coleman (Los Angeles Valley Community College) and LaRisha Graves (Southwest Tennessee Community College) join early high-school signees Lauren Ervin and Sharita Smith in KU’s class of 2003.
“We feel we have taken a strong step as we work to reestablish our proud women’s basketball tradition at KU with the signing of these four young women, in addition to early signing class,” Washington said in a statement.
“We’ve found some very strong, very motivated individuals who have the ability and the desire to help Kansas get back to the level that it was for so many years.”
Bonner, a 6-foot-1 power forward, has played a season at both Bradley University and Wabash Valley College. She was a two-time first-team All-Mid-State Six Conference selection by the Illinois Basketball Coaches Assn. while playing at Peoria (Ill.) Manual High School.
Brown averaged 18.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game in her one season at Northern Oklahoma College. The 5-7 guard earned all-region honors and was named the Bi-State West Conference MVP. Brown hit 42.6 percent of her shots from the field, including 38.6 percent of her three-point attempts.
Coleman has played at UC Santa Barbara and Los Angeles Valley College, where she averaged 18.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 4 steals per game. She was named to the California Community Colleges All-State team and MVP of the Western State Conference, as well as MVP of two tournaments. The 5-9 guard was the Arizona player of the year her senior season at Chandler (Ariz.) High School.
Graves averaged 15.7 points and 4.1 assists last year, her second season playing at Southwest Tennessee Community College. She also had a team-leading 63 steals while earned TJCCAA All-Conference and All-TJCCAA West Division honors. The 5-8 guard averaged 16 points and seven rebounds her senior year at Yazoo County (Miss.) High School, where she led the team to its second straight state title and earned a spot on USA Today’s honorable mention All-USA team.
“All four of these players are highly talented individuals and will impact our team at every position,” Washington said. “Kandis is a strong, physical player who will provide help in the paint, Kaylee will help with our long range shooting, Syretta will have an impact at the point guard position and LaRisha is a very versatile player who could play any guard position.”
