How Kansas women’s basketball signed S’Mya Nichols, one of the nation’s top players

LAWRENCE — In a word, relieved.

That’s how S’Mya Nichols felt last week in the days after the college basketball landscape learned of her commitment to, and later signing with, the Kansas women’s basketball program.

Nichols, described in a Jayhawks release as the No. 22 prospect in the nation by the Collegiate Girls Basketball Report, had actually committed to Kansas back in October during Late Night in the Phog. The weight of the decision, so to speak, was lifted off her shoulders that day. But that decision wasn’t public until she released her commitment video on Nov. 8.

Now that her commitment was sealed, questions about where she planned to play in college died down. The focus has shifted. Nichols, a local 6-foot guard prospect out of Overland Park, Kansas, can now simply talk about how excited she is to join the Jayhawks next season.

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“When she was young, we made it really clear to her that we needed to be good enough to be worthy of her consideration by the time she got to that point,” said Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider, whose team enjoyed a breakout season last year. “And I think our message was, ‘Hang in there with us. Just hang in there. Hang in there. Keep watching. Here’s what we think is going to happen. Here’s what we project. Here’s who we’re bringing in. We feel like we had really good practices this week.'

“So, it was selling kind of, by the time you’re a senior and going to make your decision, we’re telling you we’re going to be good enough that we’re a place you ought to strongly consider with all the factors involved.”

A lengthy recruitment

Schneider came right out and said it in the Nov. 9 announcement of her signing. The Jayhawks had been recruiting Nichols, who’s at Shawnee Mission West High School, since she was in seventh grade. Kansas extended an offer to her in eighth grade.

A prospect has to be a no-brainer to make them an offer that early. To Schneider, Nichols didn’t look like an eighth grader at that point, playing high-level AAU basketball with a quiet confidence. Even now, he said she looks like she could be a junior or senior in college.

What made it tough was that Schneider’s chips were on the table early in a recruitment he knew might not end for years. As time progressed, other programs were going to be able to pitch Nichols on choosing them. Both of those eventualities came to pass before she ended up choosing Kansas over several other major programs.

“In particular with domestic recruiting, identifying players at an early age that have the potential to be top-40 good — you’re going to recruit them potentially for a long, long time,” Schneider said.

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Because of how close Nichols lived to campus, Schneider felt fortunate to be able to have her around as much as they did. Nichols can’t even put a number on how many times she’s been on campus since the recruitment started. That certainly played a role, as did the relationships she formed with the coaching staff.

There was Schneider, of course. But Schneider also pointed to associate head coach Terry Nooner and Nooner’s connection to Nichols through the Missouri Phenom AAU program, in addition to others on staff who helped put a greater emphasis on recruiting locally in the Midwest. Collectively they garnered the relationships with those around Nichols that are important to have with any recruit, even as the decision was always going to come down to one person.

“There wasn’t anybody in, throughout, the process, that I felt like was going to make the decision other than S’Mya,” Schneider said. “She's just is too strong a personality to let somebody else make a decision for her.”

What mattered to Nichols even more than how long Kansas recruited her was the way they recruited her. She could tell how much the coaches wanted her, that aggressive mentality to bring her in, but never considered herself pressured to do something she wouldn’t be comfortable with. And the turning point came on her official visit in September.

Nichols saw not just how much the entire school, not just the women's basketball program, wanted her. She saw it while she was on campus. She saw it on social media, including a post on Twitter by former Kansas men’s basketball and current Denver Nuggets player Christian Braun urging his followers to get her to join the Jayhawks.

“As I walked around campus people knew who I was,” Nichols said. “When I went to the football game (against Duke), we walked past the student section. They’re all screaming, ‘We need you.’ And it was just like really hype and a surreal moment. … As I was there, I already felt like I was just home.”

S'Mya Nichols responds after her ACL injury

Nichols didn’t plan for the video of her commitment to be released when it was a way to build suspense. Nichols, who wanted it to look like the Under Armour, Adidas and Nike commercials she researched, explained it just took some time to be able to get it to look how she wanted. The fact that she's wearing a brace on her left knee, that there was a reference to her two ACL surgeries and a close-up of the scars on her left knee, came with a purpose.

Nichols wanted to acknowledge the injuries she’s worked to overcome because she understands how much of a setback they can be for an athlete and how they can impact someone mentally. She's embraced hers because they’ve helped make her who she is. One of the most powerful things in the video is the scars, she noted, because to her they symbolize strength.

“Honestly, when I think about my knees, I think I have new knees,” Nichols said. “Like, I have new knees ready for college. That’s how I think about it.”

Nichols acknowledged she dwelled on it after her second ACL tear. She explained how, when that happened earlier this year, she was hugging her coaches thinking she couldn’t go through it again. But it only lasted about a week before her mindset shifted to getting back on the floor.

She credits part of her approach to how Kansas’ staff stuck with her despite the injuries. That’s when, deep down, she saw them as family. Their confidence in her allowed her to feel as if the rehab she’s going will be easy since she’s been through it before.

“They didn’t treat me any different,” Nichols said. “They were, like, ‘Oh, you’ll be fine.’ Like, ‘You’ve done this before.’ They kind of thought of it as, ‘This is nothing.’ And that helped me, because at first I was like, ‘This is everything.’ Like, ‘No way.’”

Looking ahead to S'Mya Nichols' basketball future

Schneider said that this past spring and even last summer, Nichols played so well he would have rated her as a top 10 player in the country. He saw her win individual matchups against other top recruits and said she dominated them in many cases.

As Nichols finishes her time in high school, she wants to hit 1,000 career points. She’ll also intensify her training ahead of reporting to campus at Kansas next year. When she arrives, Schneider thinks she’ll do so with the potential to have as big an impact as anyone in about the last 25 years.

Schneider doesn’t want to speak for periods of time at Kansas that included stars like Tamecka Dixon, who played in the mid-1990s, or Lynette Woodard, who played in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But he’s bullish on Nichols’ versatility, IQ and ability to defend multiple positions. At least in Schneider’s time as the Jayhawks’ head coach, which dates back to 2015, he’s confident in Nichols’ stature as a prospect.

“I think that her career will be jump-started as a freshman, hopefully playing alongside some people in their COVID year — Taiyanna Jackson, Holly Kersgieter, Zakiyah Franklin and those guys,” said Schneider, referring to three players who helped lead Kansas to the NCAA tournament last season. “I think that would be a terrific way for her career to get kicked off here.”

One reason Nichols is excited to get that career started, why she wishes she was already on campus, is because of a winning mindset she thinks the Jayhawks have. She thinks it holds true across Kansas Athletics. During her recruitment, she saw a level of chemistry within the team that she didn’t see in other programs she looked at.

Another reason is Nichols feels responsible as a local recruit to help push Kansas forward as a program. This season, Schneider envisions the Jayhawks being capable of becoming a top 20 team that competes for a Big 12 title and makes some noise in the NCAA tournament. Next season, with Nichols in the fold, those heights could be even greater.

“I do feel like there is that pressure of pushing them, and that’s exactly what I want to do,” Nichols said. “But that’s something I’m not afraid of.”

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: How Kansas women’s basketball signed S’Mya Nichols