The Kansas women’s basketball team continues to flesh out its roster and to attract local players in the transfer portal.
Three days after luring Kansas City, Kansas, product Sania Copeland, formerly of Wisconsin, the Jayhawks earned the commitment of Andover native and Creighton transfer Brittany Harshaw on Thursday morning.
Harshaw, who played three sports at Andover Central High School, spent the 2023-24 season coming off the bench for the Bluejays as a redshirt freshman and will have three years of eligibility remaining.
Listed as a 6-foot-1 guard, she played in 27 of a possible 32 games and averaged 1.9 points and 0.6 rebounds. Most notably, she tallied 14 points on 5-for-5 shooting (including 3-for-3 from beyond the arc) in 12 minutes against Northern Iowa on Dec. 3, a performance that got her named Big East Conference freshman of the week. She later scored eight points in five minutes against Georgetown in Creighton’s penultimate game of the year.
Adding Harshaw gives the Jayhawks some more size, particularly as compared to the prior addition Copeland, who is 5-foot-7.
Also, nearly half of Harshaw’s attempts from the field were 3-pointers. KU will have to work next season to offset the loss of more than 60% of its 3-point attempts from last season (particularly from Zakiyah Franklin and Holly Kersgieter).
The Jayhawks now have two transfers and three freshmen committed to join for the 2024-25 season. Given that they have three projected portal departures and had four graduating super-seniors, they still have room to work under their three-scholarship limit to flesh out the roster for next season. Guards Wyvette Mayberry and S’Mya Nichols will provide the primary returning experience.
In other women’s basketball news, KU was named to the “Island Tournament” field at the Paradise Jam, a basketball tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Jayhawks will play Pittsburgh on Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving), Northern Iowa on Nov. 29 and Auburn on Nov. 30. The Jayhawks’ schedule already includes a neutral-site game against Iowa in South Dakota on Nov. 20.
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
