By Michael Haag | Sports Editor

As No. 18 Baylor women’s basketball counts down the days before its season opener, head coach Nicki Collen wishes she had more time to practice with her group, which features eight newcomers.

“I think at this time of [the] year, every coach is just worried about how their team’s going to look,” Collen said. “No one feels ready. I didn’t feel ready last year. I don’t feel ready today. I mean, you just have to let them grow up a little bit on the court and trust them a little bit and then fix mistakes after that.”

The Bears have an exhibition game against Southwest Baptist University Thursday evening before they open their non-conference slate on Monday versus Lamar University. Despite the new crew, graduate student guard Ja’Mee Asberry said she has seen high energy in practice.

“I see more positive energy,” Asberry said. “They want to be here, they came here for a reason, so I think we have more people cheering for us in practice now. And I think the energy is always great in practice.”

One of those fresh faces is junior guard Jana Van Gytenbeek from Stanford University. Gytenbeek called her teammates her “second family” and said that she’s had a smooth transition to Baylor.

Gytenbeek won a national championship her freshman year at Stanford (2020-21). While she knows what it takes to achieve the ultimate goal in college basketball, she said it’s hard to compare different teams when asked how the Bears matchup with that natty squad.

“There’s really not a comparison because every team is different,” Gytenbeek said. “But, I think that we’re really good and we have a lot to bring to the table.”

The team has spent more than the last six weeks practicing together, and Collen is still trying to mix-and-match all of her new pieces to see what works together. With the exhibition Thursday and the season-opener Monday, she said she hopes to see if this group can not only gel together, but “compete when the lights come on.”

One thing Collen has been preaching to this new group is selflessness. She said when you rep the green and gold, there’s plenty of talent on the roster. The second-year coach used Asberry as an example of this when the former Oklahoma State University Cowgirl transferred before the 2021 season.

“Ja’Mee sacrificed last year,” Collen said. “She went from 17 points a game as a junior to under 12 as a senior. But she won a Big 12 championship, and that’s what you have to make the decision to do when you come here. You have to sacrifice, sometimes, individual stats for team success and balance.”

The whole process has been an adjustment for Collen, as there isn’t as much clarity in terms of the rotation with this group compared to last year.

“Look, last year was pretty clear pretty quickly,” Collen said. “Here are our starters, Caitlin [Bickle] is going to be our first sub off the bench, Jaden [Owens] is going to be our second sub — guard sub. This year, it’s about figuring out, between injuries and other things, who are we going to start, who are we going to play after that.”

The Bears will get a sense of this on Thursday at 7 p.m. when they play an exhibition with the Bearcats in the Ferrell Center. Collen expects to see “a little bit of everything” from Southwest Baptist, mostly due to the fact that it had a lot of roster turnover.

Collen said it’s been hard to watch film on them because they’re watching girls who aren’t even with that program anymore.

Regardless, the contest will be the first step for Collen and her team, as they head into the year as underdogs in the conference. Despite winning 12-straight Big 12 regular season titles, Baylor was projected to finish fourth in the conference based on the preseason coaches poll.

Asberry has no issue with this, as she said “ pressure busts pipes” and that she’s “just ready to bring the pressure.”

Collen isn’t facing the same amount of pressure she felt when she took over the program a year ago, but she expects similar negative feedback if the team gets off to a rocky start. To her though, it’s all about keeping everyone’s head forward and disregarding outside noise.

“I mean, I think if we take a couple of hits early, there’s probably going to be a lot of people chirping,” Collen said. “And we just have to do what we’ve always done. And that’s just find a way to get better, so that when the games really, really matter, then we’re ready.”