LAWRENCE — Things are a bit different for the Kansas women’s basketball program this offseason.

Considering the construction that’s ongoing at the Jayhawks’ arena, Allen Fieldhouse, coach Brandon Schneider said they don’t have access to their locker room. But it’s not as if they don’t have a locker room at all, or access to the practice facility where they would do most of their development work in the summer anyway.

So, as athletes arrive on campus to work out in the weeks and months ahead, they’ll continue their development process. They’ll continue to attempt to build off of a second NCAA tournament appearance in three years, with a 2023 Postseason WNIT championship in between. Come early September, similar to the international trip the team took last year, Kansas will go on a team retreat that’ll provide the Jayhawks with opportunities to further discuss what the team will see as expectations for this upcoming season.

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“We have seven new players, so those are conversations that we’re definitely going to have,” Schneider said. “I think for the majority of it, we’re probably going to get in and get a few weeks under our belt — both from a strength and conditioning standpoint and getting to know each other on the court, putting in some work on the court, before we really dive into those conversations.”

Kansas has been a team that’s had the potential to challenge for Big 12 Conference and national success over the past few years, as the program’s broken through during Schneider’s rebuild. The 2021-22 and 2023-24 seasons saw the team reach the round of the 32 of the NCAA tournament each time. While the 2023 Postseason WNIT wasn’t the goal during the 2022-23 season, that postseason experience also drove up a significant amount of fan interest that the team has continued to capitalize upon.

Becoming a team that will be able to compete for the same type of success the Jayhawks have been aiming for in recent seasons won’t be an easy task. Not only did it lose a WNBA draft pick in Taiyanna Jackson, but two more veterans saw their college careers end in Holly Kersgieter and Zakiyah Franklin. But there is also the return of two key athletes in Wyvette Mayberry and S'Mya Nichols, among others.

Kansas has enjoyed some type of experience each of the past three years, with a team retreat ahead of those initial two seasons and the international trip ahead of the third. Schneider hasn’t forgotten that, and therefore sees the upcoming team retreat as important as well.

It’s a chance to reinforce how influential valuing culture and chemistry can be.

“We think it’s extremely valuable,” Schneider said. “It’s an opportunity that builds some chemistry, some camaraderie, to have some fun, but we also mix in some really important team meetings where we do talk about expectations, about standards, and really dive into the importance of our cultural pillars.”

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas women’s basketball coach Brandon Schneider values team retreat