‘Drinking from a firehose all year’: Big 12 play is new to BYU women’s basketball, but coaching staff isn’t

KANSAS CITY — Expectations are fairly low for the BYU women’s basketball team in its inaugural season in the Big 12, as the Cougars are picked to finish 11th in the 14-team league.

That’s not a surprise, considering BYU is joining one of the top women’s basketball conferences in the country after a final season that saw the Cougars go 16-17 overall, 9-9 in the West Coast Conference.

In short, nobody at the conference’s Women’s Basketball Tipoff at T-Mobile Center in downtown Kansas City on Tuesday was expressing any fear whatsoever about the Cougars.

That’s OK, second-year coach Amber Whiting said, because the Cougars have worked hard to ensure they have no fear themselves.

“I believe, and I try to talk to my women all the time, about faith over fear. And if we do all the preparation, there should not be any fear, right?” Whiting said of the way the Cougars are approaching what appears to be a really, really tall task. “You are just going into the games, going into battle, going into anything in life (with no fear), and so I try to have that instilled in them.”

Texas, which features former Cougar Shaylee Gonzales, is picked to win the league, having garnered 12 of 14 first-place votes last week when the preseason poll was released. Baylor is picked to finish second, followed by 2023 WNIT champion Kansas, picked third, and Kansas State fourth.

Coincidentally, The Associated Press Preseason Top 25 poll was released Tuesday and Texas is picked 13th. Baylor is No. 19 and Kansas State and Kansas received votes.

With the possible exception of men’s basketball, BYU’s women face a bigger uphill climb than perhaps any other sport at the Provo school.

The Cougars face Texas only once — on March 2 at Moody Arena in Austin. They host Baylor on Feb. 7 and Kansas on Feb. 17.

Before then, however, they will play a nonconference schedule that Whiting and her staff of former BYU greats Lee Cummard and Morgan Bailey and new addition John Wardenburg say was designed to get them as ready as possible for Big 12 play.

“I think we did a good job mixing it up between some really good challenges on the road, and then some really good challenges at home,” Whiting said. “Because you have to be prepared. We are going to play the best of the best every night in the Big 12. So we wanted to prepare our women for that and so that’s where we went with our schedule.”

By far BYU’s biggest nonconference test will be at Utah on Dec. 2. The Utes, who have added Jeff Judkins to their coaching staff, are No. 5 in the AP preseason poll after having won the Pac-12 regular-season title last year.

Whiting spoke at length about how much more prepared she will be for Year 2, after having been hired to replace the legendary Judkins on May 18, 2022, “kinda late in the recruiting season.”

“I feel like I was drinking from a firehose all year,” she said. “I feel like now everything is in place. Everything has been changed that we needed to (change). So now it is just about the details and bringing in what we need to to see our vision, and my vision (accomplished).”

She said BYU’s preparation level compared to last year is like night and day.

“My assistants have done a really good job this year of doing that. I just feel like we have become better this year, more chemistry, more everything on the court, off the court,” she said. “So it has been really good.”

What will the Cougars look like this season? A lot of new players dot Whiting’s roster, joining seven returners from last year, including all five starters. The most notable returner is national rebounding leader Lauren Gustin, now a graduate student.

Gustin led the Cougars in scoring (16.1), rebounding (16.7) and shooting percentage (49.6%) last year.

Why did she choose to come back after a brief foray into the transfer portal?

“Being a grad athlete at that point, I felt like I had the opportunity to go and explore another option. It was tough, but coming back to BYU was one of the best decisions I have made,” Gustin said. “Not only is there a great coaching staff, but there are great girls and it is a great culture. … So coming back I am very, very happy with it. It was a good decision.”

Asked about BYU’s tradition of success in women’s basketball and what the other 13 Big 12 teams can expect from the Cougars in their first year in the league, Whiting said it starts with defense.

“We are the type of team that (has) blue-collar kids. They just want to stick their noses in and do the work. So I feel like they are going to see us outwork a lot of people, just because that is who we are,” Whiting said. “Dive on the floor for balls. … Then off the court I feel like they are service-oriented, so they will see a lot of that.”

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Junior point guard Nani Falatea and senior guard Kaylee Smiler also represented the Cougars in Kansas City.

Falatea said the newcomers such as freshmen Amari Whiting and Kailey Woolston are going to surprise some people.

“They are the type of kids that want to work and want to participate and just want to do their job,” Falatea said. “The vibe has been good. It has been super intense. Like every single day we get after it. That has been such a huge thing, like, for all of us. Every single day we come to compete and get better.”

Smiler, from Australia, said the Cougars’ other athletic teams are doing well in the Big 12 this fall, and women’s basketball wants to continue that trend this winter.

“So I don’t feel like multitasking and going into the Big 12 (is too much),” she said. “We are prepared for it. Across all sports. If you have been watching the sports, with soccer, with volleyball, they are going great and we want to contribute to that as well.”

Using faith over fear.