Tulane Women Add Size, Speed in Portal

The Tulane women's basketball program added six new faces to their roster during the transfer portal: a trio of backcourt players and three six-foot-plus frontcourt specialists.

Three Guards in the Portal, Plus More Two from the Prep Ranks

Last season, the Green Wave tended to give the ball up more times than their coach liked. Tulane averaged 17.7-turnovers a contest, ranking them in the bottom three in the American Conference. Coach Ashley Langford told us she saw a need for the ability to handle the ball well, thus the focus on the trio of guards and their experience.

"I thought that was important for us," Langford said in an exclusive interview with On SI Tulane. "We really wanted to get guards that were good decision-makers, and I think that's an area that we needed to improve on is our turnovers. So bringing in guards that have experience and are good decision-makers is important."

Georgetown transfer Khadee Hession is a 5' 9" junior out of Miami who started 29-games as a freshman for the Hoyas, dropping down to 10-starts in her sophomore year. An 85% free throw shooter, Hession won state titles in her junior and senior years of high school.

"She can play in multiple positions, whether that's on the wing or point guard," Langford told us. "She can do both, which is nice. I don't know exactly which spot she's going to fill right away. I think the way we might (play) this year is a little bit more positional, so everybody might get to have an opportunity with the point position."

Aihanique "Nique" Mayo comes in a redshirt-senior from DePaul university. The 5' 9" guard played in 21-games for the Blue Demons last season, and played all 31-games at Xavier as a sophomore.

"I've known her for a really long time," coach shared with us. "Nique can stretch the floor. She can do the (three-point) shooting and that's something else we were looking for. We call it a sniper. Every time the ball goes up, I know it's going in. She can also handle the ball as well."

Another redshirt senior, Asha Sra, started 25-of-the-27 games at Charleston Southern. The 5' 9" guard from Fresno led the Big South in assists, dishing out almost five per game.

"She's just going to bring a different maturity and leadership," Langford told us. "You can see that already. I'm excited for her. And, again, she can stretch the floor. She can create for others. So I'm really looking forward to her with the ball in her hand.
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Gaining Young Guards from the Prep Ranks

In November, Langford signed a pair of All-State players, one from Houston and another from Alabama.

From Texas, Kennedy Simpson joins the Wave. The 5' 9" guard won back-to-back state championships at Summer Creek High School. Simpson averaged 15-points-per-game, while dishing out four assists and stealing four balls in every contest.

"(Simpson has a) winning mentality, obviously," Langford said. "She can play multiple positions. The ball can be in her hand or she can play on the wing. She's a lefty. I typically like to have (left handers), especially at guard. She's a competitor. She can score it, and she can also pass it as well."

Hailing from Huntsville, Alabama, Jae Smith was the other November high school signee for the Wave. The 5' 9" guard made All-State twice, playing both the point and shooting guard, scoring over 1,000-points in her three years at Bob Jones High School.

"She's versatile," we were told by Langford. "She can play with the ball in her hand or she can play off the ball. I've been impressed so far with her length and her defensive effort. I think that's important, too."

Putting Size in the Lineup

Besides the five new guards, Langford brought in three forwards who measure above the six-foot mark.

Originally from across the pond, junior forward Edina Strausz, standing 6' 3", was at Davidson University, starting in nine games, but playing in all thirty-one as a sophomore last year. Strausz averaged 6.5-points per game and just under 3-rebounds in each contest. Born and raised in Budapest, Hungary, she captained the U17 and U18 women's national team in 2022-23.

"She's super skilled," Langford shared. "I mean, she can score, and she can pass it on the low block. She can also shoot the three as well, but she's just really skilled, and that'll be different for our league. I don't know if our league necessarily has a lot of really super-skilled post players, so I'm excited about that. And her coming from Davidson, which is a winning program, knowing what it takes to win, being part of winning is important to me, too."

The transfer portal also brought in a pair of sophomore post players. 6' 2" forward Makayla Carter, is from Tucson, Arizona, signed and played for Nevada her freshman year. She started over half the Wolf Pack games as a true frosh, averaging almost 4-points and almost 5-rebounds a contest.

"For her, it's going to be more on her athleticism, maybe her speed a little bit," Langford told us. "She's going to have to get stronger, and she knows that. She's working on that this summer. We really like her just because of her athleticism. She can run the floor. I think the best attribute that she has is, she plays really hard. If she's out there for 10 minutes, she's going to play as hard as she can for all 10. That's really important to us, plus her having experience in the Mountain West, which is a competitive league."

The other second-year player transfers in from Mississippi State. Nataliyah "Tally" Gray played over half her freshman year games for the Bulldogs. The 6' 3" forward was a force to be reckoned with when she was playing prep ball in Houston, averaging 26-points per game, pulling down over 13-boards a contest and blocking 3.2-shots each time out.

"So (it's) her athleticism, her ability to guard, (to play) multiple positions, again, same thing," Langford said, "and I'm just looking forward to seeing Tally put it all together this summer.

Summer drills are already underway for the Green Wave. Coach Langford is wanting the new kids on the block and the returnees to learn about each other and the culture of her program.

"To me, the biggest thing is our teams get to know each other and be committed to each other in terms of getting to know each other off the court," Langford told us. "I think that's a big piece: connecting. Everybody's new. They're barely in classes: a couple of them have one or two classes, so they have so much more free time. To me, that's what the summer is about, is really connecting off the court. Now, on the court, it's just establishing our culture and what we want this team to look like and what they want this team to look like."

The Tulane women will not begin official practices until near the end of September. The NCAA allows an official 42-day preseason practice period, which begins exactly six weeks before the first scheduled regular-season game. The Green Wave schedule has not been officially announced as of this writing.

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