Kansas State star seniors leave behind legacy, and face questions for the future

“I’m just proud of this group. I guess we had big goals coming into the season, so obviously proud to get to where we did,” Sundell reflected. “It stings right now. The locker room was hard. We wanted to extend the season as long as we could, but I know we’re going to look back and be really proud of what we’ve done for this program.”

The pair, led by head coach Jeff Mittie, helped their Wildcat squad return to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 23 years, despite many doubts of their ability to even make a postseason run. Both players leave an undeniable mark on the program, signified by crowded trophy cases and countless honors, but bringing their team back to the national stage was a unique journey of growth and resilience.

Add Locked On Women’s Basketball to your daily routine

Here at The Next, in addition to the 24/7/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.

It feels impossible to imagine Kansas State women’s basketball without Ayoka Lee. Arriving in Manhattan, Kan., in 2018, Lee dedicated six tumultuous years to the program. Injuries plagued Lee’s promising career, forcing her to sit out of 92 of the 228 total games in which her name was listed on the roster.

Lee’s mark on the Wildcat program in spite of her injuries is a testament to her undeniable talent. Best known for setting the NCAA Division I single game scoring record with 61 points against Oklahoma in 2022, Lee holds at least 14 of the school’s records, including career points, rebounds and blocks. In an era where traditional centers are few and far between, Lee serves as a masterclass in post play every time she takes the floor.

Kansas State started this season 18-1 with a healthy Lee, who led the team with 19.7 points per game in the previous year. But five years of dealing with her knee issues taught them not to get too comfortable with having her on the floor. In January, Lee suffered a broken foot, leaving her sidelined for the majority of their conference schedule. After eagerly returning to the lineup for one game in late February, she began experiencing pain in her other foot, requiring another minor procedure that left her sidelined through the remainder of their conference schedule and conference tournament.

While Lee’s talent initially drew recruitment his interest, Mittie says that her passion and drive is what he now admires most about her. Over her six year career, the duo has had multiple conversations about if there was even a future for her career or if her body was telling her to hang up her shoes, but Lee wanted to give everything she could to the program that Mittie has spent the past 33 years building.

“Because with all the stuff she’s been through she could have said, Hey, I’ve given it everything I’ve got, and nobody would have thought twice about it,” Mittie said. “She made that decision to have a procedure done so that she could come back … And I think it’s just simply because she loves her teammates, she loves her school, she loves Manhattan. And she wanted this, it hadn’t happened in her career, and she was going to do everything she could.”

Once a top-tier WNBA prospect, Lee now gets to decide if she has anything left to give to another team or if she’ll leave her basketball shoes in Manhattan. When asked about her future with the sport post game Saturday, Lee simply said, “That’s a tomorrow question.”

While declaring for the WNBA Draft is ultimately Lee’s personal choice, there is undoubtedly a question of whether a team or coach would take a chance on her. During a time when versatility is arguably of the utmost importance in the WNBA, Lee’s traditional post play isn’t something that we have seen make a roster in recent years. According to WNBA general managers in The Athletic’s “WNBA Draft Confidential,” her style of play coupled with the injury risk means that Lee likely will not make a roster, if she’s drafted at all.

Want even more women’s sports in your inbox?

Subscribe now to our sister publication The IX and receive our independent women’s sports newsletter six days a week. Learn more about your favorite athletes and teams around the world competing in soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers.

Readers of The Next now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.

During her time at Kansas State, academics have become Lee’s safety net amidst the uncertainty of her future in athletics. In May 2024, she graduated with a master’s degree in couple and family therapy and is already seeing clients while also pursuing a second master’s degree in personal finance planning and leading her team to the NCAA Tournament. So, if Lee does decide to close the basketball chapter of life, she has certainly set herself up for the future. 

“I don’t know what the future holds for her,” Mittie said. “She has been an amazing person in that she has always wanted to be where her feet are and not think too far ahead. She’s got a unique ability to do that. Even though she’s a planner, and in her professional career, she’s already a family therapist and already seeing clients, and she can see down the road. But she also knows how important it is to be in the moment. And so, you know, her and I will have a discussion, and we had a few, but awhile back. And that’s what she told me, Let’s get to when the season ends and we’ll have one and she will make a decision.”

Reflecting on her six years wearing Royal Purple, Lee attributes her longevity with Kansas State to the support of Mittie and her teammates, especially Sundell. 

“To have a coach that has just continued to believe in me through everything I’ve been through and to have teammates like Serena [Sundell] who have just been game-changers from the minute they stepped on campus,” Lee said, pausing for a moment to hold back tears. “Yeah, I don’t think — like, not everyone gets to have a college career like that, so extremely grateful.”

While Lee’s career was simultaneously extremely successful and often precarious, her beloved teammate, Sundell, had somewhat of an opposite trajectory. A native of Maryville, Miss., just 173 miles from Manhattan, Sundell doubted her ability to play at the Power 5 level, thinking that a mid-major might be a better fit. Fast forward four years, and Sundell led all scorers with 22 points in the first Sweet 16 appearance for Kansas State since 2002, against a high-powered No. 1 seeded USC team no less. 

“You know, that’s been one of the things that we’ve been proud of, just our program in general, is the development of players like Serena [Sundell] that maybe aren’t the five star coming out, but my staff sees something in them, we see something that we can develop them in the weight room, develop them in their skill set,” Mittie said. “Serena [Sundell] is exactly the type of player that we’ve had a lot of success with, players that come every day, want to work, want to learn, want to get better.”

Your business can reach over 3 million women’s sports fans every single month!

Here at The Next and The IX, our audience is a collection of the smartest, most passionate women’s sports fans in the world. If your business has a mission to serve these fans, reach out to our team at editors@thenexthoops.com to discuss ways to work together.

Sundell’s development goes beyond just a mid-major-level talent to Power 5 star. After averaging a team-high 14.1 points per game this season, Sundell is on the radar of professional coaches hoping to take her game to the next level. Following her team’s win, Big Ten Coach of the Year Lindsay Gottlieb took a moment to give Sundell a shoutout. 

“I’m a big fan of Sundell. I think she should be in somebody’s WNBA camp for sure, if not drafted,” said Gottlieb, a former NBA assistant in Cleveland before taking the job with the Trojans. When asked to reflect on the evolution of her game that now has the potential to translate into a professional career, Sundell echoed Lee’s credit to Mittie.

“That’s a huge compliment,” Sundell said of Gottlieb’s comments. “I would just credit my coaching staff and teammates for helping me grow over the last four years. I’m a much better player, and I have a lot more confidence than the 18-year-old I was when I first stepped on campus. So just a credit to the people around me and, yeah, I’m grateful to be a Wildcat.”

While many say that growth isn’t linear, it certainly seems to be for Sundell. Unranked nationally coming out of high school, her freshman year at Kansas State put her on the map. Mittie saw Sundell’s potential long before the rest of the world did, putting her in the starting lineup and playing her for more minutes than anyone else on the roster in her first year. If Mittie’s confidence in her wasn’t evidence enough that she deserved to be a starter for a Power 5 school, not just a role player at a mid-major, Sundell’s efforts were honored by a unanimous selection for the Big-12 All-Freshman Team and an Honorable Mention on the All-Big 12 team.

Sundell received another All-Big 12 Honorable Mention her sophomore year before successfully leveling up to the All-Big 12 First Team list in her final two seasons. A recent naming to the Associated Press All-America list as an Honorable Mention is the bow on top of Sundell’s continual positive trajectory throughout her career.

Your business can reach over 3 million women’s sports fans every single month!

Here at The Next and The IX, our audience is a collection of the smartest, most passionate women’s sports fans in the world. If your business has a mission to serve these fans, reach out to our team at editors@thenexthoops.com to discuss ways to work together.

With their collegiate careers now behind both Lee and Sundell, the next few weeks will decide the fate of their futures. Lee must first decide if she wants to take a stab at professional basketball and declare for the WNBA Draft or if she is ready to move on from the sport, diving fully into her career as a therapist. Sundell now joins the pool of players in the awkward post-basketball season, pre-graduation limbo, patiently waiting for the WNBA Draft on April 14. The Next’s WNBA Draft experts predict Sundell to be selected mid-to-late second round, dependent on specific team needs.

Regardless of what happens in the following weeks, Mittie says he will forever be appreciative of what Lee and Sundell have done for his Kansas State program, but more importantly, he will support them beyond the basketball court.

“It goes deeper than just the wins and losses,” Mittie said. “Those are things that we obviously want to do, but people — as a coach, you know, boy, they’re going to be hard to replace just as people and just as just quality people across the board. Whatever I asked ’em to do, whatever I needed them to do, whether it be, you know, they were glad to do it. Whether it be community outreach, whether it be talk to their teammates about something, whatever, whatever. They’re rare. They’re rare. They’re rare people.”