The Kansas women’s basketball team has locked in its first commitment out of the transfer portal.
Mariyah Noel, a 5-foot-11 guard who most recently played at Xavier, signed with the Jayhawks on Wednesday, the team announced.
She is coming off a highly productive season with the Musketeers in which she served as their leading scorer with 14.9 points per game and second-leading rebounder with 6.3 boards.
Like many of KU’s transfer additions in recent years, Noel has a regional connection to the Jayhawks. She is from Kansas City and played at Bonner Springs High School, where she lettered in basketball, track and volleyball.
She played her first two years of college basketball at Ole Miss, where she served as a reserve, appearing in 39 total games without a start, averaging 7.7 minutes as a freshman and 8.5 as a sophomore. The move to Xavier resulted in significantly greater usage as she started in 28 of her 30 games with 33.5 minutes per game, which was second on the team. Her best game came against St. John’s on Jan. 17, when she racked up 30 points, nine rebounds and five assists on 60% shooting in a 66-64 loss. The Musketeers went 11-19 on the year and 4-16 in the Big East.
Noel is a capable 3-point shooter at 31.6% on 98 attempts last year, though it accounts for a small proportion of her overall scoring (she put up 424 shots on the season and converted them at 37.3%).
She joins a large Kansas City-area contingent on the roster that also includes stars Jaliya Davis and S’Mya Nichols, who are both from Overland Park, as well as Regan Williams, who is from Kansas City, Missouri. KU also has an Andover native in guard Brittany Harshaw.
The Jayhawks still have spots left to fill. Their projected 2026-27 roster includes incoming freshman signees Cydnee Bryant, Mollie Ernstes and Brooklynn Renn along with returners Davis, Nichols, Harshaw, Williams, Tatyonna Brown and Libby Fandel. Laia Conesa transferred to Utah and Keeley Parks to Oklahoma.
That means that with the addition of Noel, KU now has 10 players in the fold. It could theoretically get as many as 15, although it played last season with just 12.
KU is now operating with a coaching staff below full capacity after associate head coach Morgan Paige took the head-coaching job at Loyola-Chicago on Sunday.
