Under first-year head coach Brooke Wyckoff, the Florida State women's basketball team defied expectations.

The Seminoles (23-10) were picked to finish ninth in the ACC in the preseason, but finished tied for fourth and reached the first round of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 7 seed. They were without freshman sensation Ta'Niya Latson for the first-round loss to Georgia.

Latson averaged 21.3 points along with 4.5 rebounds, 2.9 assists while shooting 45.5 percent from the floor. She earned U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s National Freshman Player of the Year honors, honorable mention All-America honors by both the Associated Press and the United States Basketball Writers Association, ACC Rookie of the Year, and was an All-ACC First Team performer.

The Democrat talked with Wyckoff for an exclusive interview that covered a wide array of topics, including: Latson's historic season, how many players Wyckoff wants on the team, usage of the transfer portal and what Wyckoff learned as a first-year full-time head coach.

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Brooke Wyckoff Q&A

Despite how the season ended, your team has to be happy with how the season went, right?

Wyckoff: Absolutely. Yes, the end was not how we would have liked it to be obviously finishing with a first-round loss and not having Ta'Niya and O'Mariah (Gordon) available. But you have to look at the body of work, as they say, the overall body of work and we're so proud of this success that we had. Twenty-three wins, no one expected that. So we're focusing on that and really feel good moving into next year.

As you said in your press conference, you were picked to finish ninth in the ACC, so the season surprised a lot of people outside of the building.

Wyckoff: Yeah, no, that was the thing that obviously, nobody knew what to expect. I wasn't offended by being picked ninth because we're a new group. But what was special about this group was that they believed. The players had the confidence they had built relationships with each other. They saw the potential in themselves and each other, and that was the key. I mean they didn't listen to the outside noise. They took it as a challenge and said, we'll put in the work to rise to the challenge and they did.

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We talked before the season and you had high expectations for Ta'Niya as a freshman. Would you say she blew those expectations out of the water?

Wyckoff: She absolutely did. It's amazing what she accomplished and just the way she did it to is what stands out to me. You see all the amazing numbers, but the way she handled herself the poise, despite all the accolades coming, she never flinched and was a great teammate. As a freshman, she took on the role of having to be our leading scorer and the catalyst of our offense, and did it really, really well for the majority of the season.

She was earning praise from Mike Norvell, who says his daughter Mila looks up to her. That has to mean a lot, right?

Wyckoff: Mike Norvell has been such an amazing supporter of our team and the program. I really appreciated that.

And yes, Ta'Niya is somebody that little girls and little boys and grown men and women look to and are just really inspired by and just appreciate her talent, and again, who she is and the way she handles things, really stands out for those people as well. I am so proud of her.

What were some of the things you learned from the first year that you want to take moving forward?

Wyckoff: I've learned so much. I think, you know, you learn and after going through the season, you can go into the next season understanding, how we need to prepare for this part of the season and going into the first year, it was just kind of like, again, who are we going to be? Let's go out and shock the world and we put up a bunch of points

Now going into next year it's going to be how do we prepare knowing that we have a great team, how do we prepare to sustain into February and deep into March. You're preparing more along that mindset, having built a foundation with a group of people that have now proven who they can be. So that's, that's one of the just like, technical thing I'll bring in of we're in this for the long haul. We're working to sustain and go deep into March.

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In the first half of the season, you were among the best teams in the country. In the second half, you seemed to fade with injuries and fatigue with just 10 players. Is 10 the number you want next season or will you add more players?

Wyckoff: I don't know. I mean how many players we carry is always up to sometimes luck and recruiting, who you can get in and all of that. What I want to do is, is carry players that feel like they're going to make an impact and that understand why they're here. That's where that's my philosophy is that if you're on my team, you're understanding how you're going to impact right now or what we're building for the future.

You're not just here just to be another good player on a roster and not just here. So sometimes that means we have 10, and sometimes it means we have more than that. But again, we've talked about before, I felt like we were still deep, you know, even with eight, a lot of times we've had enough to win games.

Is a bigger roster something you're looking into as a coach to make that deeper run?

Wyckoff: Of course, you evaluate all of those things. But I wouldn't change the group that we have. You can never really predict injuries and so I think we had more than enough. Having just more people on the team, I don't know if they would have helped us be better in March. The people that we had on this team were the people that were going to help us go deep into March, had we stayed healthy.

So you're not going into the offseason thinking 10 or 12 is the correct number?

Wyckoff: As I said, I want to make sure that the student-athletes that we have here, understand that they have an opportunity. They understand a clear purpose and a pathway to achieving what they want while at the same time when we're trying to win games. That doesn't always mean that they're 100% happy with day-to-day, right with their playing time.

Of course, they're all going to want to play a lot of minutes they should want that, but understand the big picture. I'm not here to just have a million people on the team that are just here sitting on the bench with no purpose.

The team is losing four players who are out of eligibility and adding four players to the roster. One of them is Junior College All-American Sakyia White. What does she bring?

Wyckoff: She brings athleticism at the four at the post spot. She's another just strong athlete that can rebound like crazy. She's great at scoring around the basket, she's a proven rebounder and obviously a high achiever at the junior college level. She brings that into just helping us as we lose Valencia (Myers) and Erin (Howard).

You are also bringing in two players from Spain. How big is recruiting internationally?

Wyckoff: It's huge, there are so many talented players worldwide. We've always loved having international players, they bring a different style. They obviously bring a different life perspective that I think is so great on any kind of team or in any kind of group diversity and just different worldviews, which we love. On the basketball court, I mean, they're just talented. They have played high-level basketball coming in.

So that puts you at 10 players, assuming no one transfers out. Are you going to be active on the transfer market?

Wyckoff: Absolutely. Yeah, we're definitely looking and actively recruiting players out of the transfer portal and, and again, just to augment some of the roster spots that we need. We need to add size at the guard position. And so we're looking at that, and again, we feel like we have a really strong base right now. And so we'll look at maybe to sign a couple more, we'll see.

It's all about fit. They've got to fit our culture. They've got to fit a need that we have and be right for the group of people that we have.

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How big of a factor has NIL become in women's college basketball?

Wyckoff: I think it's a big factor in women's basketball. I don't think it's necessarily to the level of men's basketball or football. But it is a factor and there is a lot of great NIL opportunity out there for women's basketball players, which I think is amazing. So, it's something that we're definitely addressing and cognizant of.

I feel like Florida State has great, not just NIL opportunities, but it still is for all these female student-athletes about the fit, about the people. That's what I've seen the experience and all those old school things that everybody used to pick a school about that are still there. But the NIL thing is obviously part of the bigger picture now.

Any message for the fans?

Wyckoff: First of all, just so thankful for the support and just the passion and excitement we saw this year. I mean, it was those of those fans that were there and the people that I saw out in the community like I was telling you. I mean, just their passion and knowledge of our team of who was on our team, loving the joy that they saw us play with. These are things that people mentioned all the time, like love how they play, it looks like the girls get along. I love that you know the style of play. We're so excited. That means so much to me, that means like we're impacting we're making the community proud of us and excited and that's what you want in these types of situations.

Reach Ehsan Kassim at ekassim@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Ehsan_Kassim. You can also follow our coverage on Facebook (NoleSports) and Instagram (tlhnolesports).

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU women's basketball: Brooke Wyckoff reflects, looks to