‘We’re not satisfied’: Wichita State women’s basketball moves forward with new core
A new era of Wichita State women’s basketball is underway entering coach Keitha Adams’ sixth season.
Restoring the program to its previous status as an annual postseason team — WSU is still chasing their first postseason bid since 2015 — is taking time and the Shockers must move forward without their previous foundation of four players who combined for 300 career starts and more than 3,300 career points.
Seraphine Bastin, Carla Bremaud, Mariah McCully and Asia Strong were the core Adams hoped would make WSU a contender again, but the Shockers did not post a winning record in American Athletic Conference play for four straight seasons.
Now Adams will attempt to build a winner with a new cast of mostly returners stepping into larger roles, but also a handful of recruits she believes will give the Shockers a new look for the 2022-23 season.
“We definitely have not been satisfied and we’re hungry and we want to do more,” said Adams, who has a record of 62-78 at WSU. “I came here to accomplish something and it’s been a process that we’ve not yet achieved, but we’re extremely motivated and working hard.
“At the end of the day, when you’re not satisfied with where you’re at and you want more than what you’ve got, you’ve got to make decisions that are going to make things better and get you to where you need to be. We’ve been very particular in recruiting and I believe we’re bringing players in who are going to help our program and that’s exciting to me.”
The offense will certainly look different without its top two scorers in McCully (graduated) and Strong (graduate transfer at Syracuse), its starting point guard in Bastin (graduate transfer at Jacksonville) and its sharpshooter in Bremaud (professional).
A player who could thrive in a large role is 6-foot-1 senior forward Jane Asinde, who averaged 8.7 points, 8.4 rebounds, 1.6 steals and 0.9 blocks. In her first season on the Division I level, Asinde posted some of the best rebound (96th percentile offensively), steal (91st percentile) and block (87th percentile) rates in the country.
Joining Asinde in the frontcourt is veteran Trajata Colbert, a 6-2 fifth-year senior who averaged 7.7 points and 5.9 rebounds last season. Junior guard D.J. McCarty (8.1 points, 2.2 assists) is effective when healthy and Adams is high on the potential of sophomore guard Nhug Bosch Duran and sophomore center Ella Anciaux.
WSU has eight players returning from last season’s roster, a group that also includes a trio of sophomores in guard Shamaryah Duncan, guard Tanya Platonova and forward Carla Budane.
“I think the kids coming back are going to be a big part of the equation for us,” Adams said. “We’ve got kids coming back who are working hard to get better so they can bring more to the table for us next season.
“And then we’ve been working really hard in the recruiting process trying to find kids with experience who bring something to our team that we’ve been missing and can help us turn that corner next year where we have 20-plus wins and we’re better in conference. We haven’t been satisfied with where we’ve been. We want to be better.”
Outside shooting is one area where Adams was adamant on upgrading this offseason and she believes she has done that with her 2022 recruiting class.
Aniya Bell, a 5-9 senior transfer guard, is likely an immediate contributor. She averaged 11.4 points last season at Fairleigh Dickinson, where she posted a 106 offensive rating (only one player had a higher one on WSU last season) and made 41.7% of her 3-pointers on 3.1 attempts per game.
Another sharpshooter is on the way in Ambah Kowcun, a 5-10 junior wing signed from North Dakota State College of Science who averaged 19 points and 3.9 assists on top of draining three 3-pointers per game at 36.2% accuracy.
Adams is also bringing in a taller point guard in Raissa Nsabua, a 5-10 sophomore who averaged 8.7 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.4 assists as a pass-first lead guard for Mineral Area College last season. LaLa Niankan, a 6-1 sophomore, is another junior college transfer who averaged 16 points and 7.3 rebounds last season at Odessa College.
Another transfer portal pickup was Curtessia Dean, a 5-10 senior guard who averaged just 4.2 points returning from a significant knee injury last season at Seton Hall. Adams is hopeful Dean can regain her pre-injury form when she was a two-time NJCAA All-American at Trinity Valley, where she averaged 19.3 points and led her team to a 32-1 record in 2019-20.
The lone freshman in the recruiting class is Daniela Abies, a 6-foot forward from Spain. WSU will head to summer workouts with one more spot remaining before it hits the 15-scholarship roster limit.
But perhaps the most significant offseason movement was the addition of former Oklahoma State head coach Jim Littell as an assistant coach, replacing Chester Nichols, who left this offseason for an associate head coach role at Southern Illinois.
Littell and Adams have plenty of shared history that dates back to the 1980s in Oxford, where Littell coached Adams, who was a standout player in high school. Littell has remained a mentor to Adams through the years and the WSU coach was ecstatic about adding him to the staff.
Adams hopes he can help accelerate the rebuilding process at WSU, which is on a similar timeline as her rebuild at UTEP, where she broke through in her seventh year in charge and led UTEP to its first NCAA Tournament.
“I’m so excited because we’re a team again,” Adams said. “We’ve got a lot of history together and (Littell) is an excellent coach and a fantastic person that I know is going to help us and help our team continue to get better.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2022 at 6:14 AM.
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