Kansas guard Sania Copeland’s journey to Senior Night — 6:30 p.m. tonight vs. No. 20 Texas Tech at Allen Fieldhouse — began with a basketball and a backpack, long before she could even spell the name of the game.
“I’d wake up to play ball at 9 o’clock on a Saturday and she’d be at the front door with her backpack, like, ‘You’re not going anywhere without me. Let’s go,’” Sania’s father, Dana Copeland, recently told R1S1 Sports, noting that those early-morning greetings started as early as first or second grade.
Sania remembers those days well. And the self-proclaimed “dad’s girl” said they started as a simple way to spend some extra time with her father.
It didn’t take long for the inspiration behind those trips to the gym to take on a greater meaning.
“After I saw my dad play and saw the passion he had for the game at his age, I really fell in love with it and just wanted to be around basketball,” Sania recalled after a recent KU win.
“I’m proud of myself. Everything I went through and overcame, I could’ve never imagined myself in this position years ago. It was always a sort of pinch-me thing that I was actually here and playing at Kansas, and now it’s a pinch-me thing that I’m about to be done, too.”
— Senior guard Sania Copeland on her college career, coming to Kansas and the arrival of her Senior Night
From there, her future was set. It was all-basketball all the time — through high school, AAU ball, travel teams, junior world championship wins and so much more.
Sania was recruited by several colleges out of high school at nearby Olathe North High, but most of the interest came from mid-major programs.
She was supposed to sign with Missouri State, but a coaching change scrapped that plan and, thanks to some help from her high school coach, she wound up at Wisconsin — Big Ten Country — a place she never thought she’d be.
After two seasons at Wisconsin, where she appeared in 54 games and averaged 5.2 points per outing during her freshman and sophomore seasons, Sania’s basketball life came full circle and she jumped at the opportunity to come to Kansas.
Yeah, it was home. But it was more than that. She went to countless camps here growing up. She played dozens of games with KU star S’Mya Nichols. The two even talked, when they were younger, about living together after college.
The reunion, while fun in all of those nostalgic ways, also opened up something in Sania’s game.
Playing with Nichols again gave her something she could count on and a teammate she knew she could trust. The memories and laughs came back, too, and the game was fun again.
Perhaps a little too much fun.
At left, Sania Copeland (22) and S'Mya Nichols (12) talk during a recent KU home game. At right, Copeland warms up her handles before the Jayhawks' road game at Baylor in Waco, Texas. [Kansas Athletics photos]
Sania said she never really thought about playing with Nichols in college because, in her words, “I knew she was gonna be better than me.” But the two longtime friends clicked again quickly the minute Sania stepped foot in Lawrence, and her presence gave Nichols another teammate she could trust, too.
“I think Brandon, for a moment, was like, ‘S’Mya, there’s other people to pass to,’” Sania joked while looking back on their first days as Jayhawks together. “She’s just a great player and a great teammate and I love having her on my team.”
Added Dana: “Being around S’Mya gave her some confidence. And she really started to feel like, ‘OK, I can be myself. I can contribute. And I can make other people better.’”
That last part could be the title of Sania’s basketball autobiography — ”Making Other People Better.”
Because, no matter where she has played or who her teammates have been, Sania has always found a way to fit in, using heady play, a selfless approach and an unrelenting willingness to defend and create opportunities for others as the cornerstones of her game.
“It helps that, intellectually, I could play her at four positions, and that's without practice reps in any of those spots,” KU coach Brandon Schneider said. “She just has an ability to understand the game well enough to know, you know, even though I only practice two spots, I know what I'm supposed to do if I'm ever thrown in those situations. And that is something that is becoming more and more rare.”
Added star freshman Jaliya Davis, who earlier this week won her record eighth consecutive Big 12 Freshman of the Week honor: “Cope’s a really big presence for us. I mean, she's always there to guard the best player on the other team. She's always ready to make the passes and she's not really caring about her own stats. You can't really see what she's doing in her stat sheet, but she makes a really big impact for our team.”
That, too, started at an early age, with Sania copying her father’s game as much as she could.
“She leans on her defense,” Dana said. “Always has. That’s our household. Our household is defense first. I don’t care what you scored. I want to know what your man scored.”
That approach aligns perfectly with what Schneider believes is most important and it’s another reason why Sania has been one of the first players he has looked to in a pinch during the past two seasons. He knows she’ll be ready. And he knows she’ll do what’s asked.
“He actually did praise me one time, in film,” Sania said of her head coach. “He was like, ‘She’s a dawg; Cope’s gonna do everything that we need her to do consistently.’ And I was like, ‘OK.’”
Last year, she made 29 starts in 30 games and averaged 32.9 minutes per game. This year, especially early, her usage dipped, as the Jayhawks were healthier and deeper. She’s now averaging just 17.6 minutes per game for the season, but she has started the past 11 games and averaged 25.4 minutes per night in those games.
At first, the limited playing time bothered her. And her father. But both of them trusted her enough to let things play out.
“She just never got down,” Dana said. “And this whole season has been like a learning journey for me, actually.”
Every time dad thought he had an answer for Sania about this or that, a voice spoke up in his head to remind him that he didn’t.
“Hold on a second, I don't know,” he said of the conversations he had with himself about his daughter's tough moments. “So I’m gonna step back and I'm just gonna watch you.”
At left, Kansas guard Sania Copeland puts the ball down to drive against a Houston defender; at right, Copeland listens intently to instructions from KU coach Brandon Schneider during the Jayhawks' timeout huddle. [Kansas Athletics photo]
What he saw was something that made him proud.
“I’m not gonna lie, that was pretty hard mentally,” Sania said of her limited minutes early in the season. “But I’ve been through something like it before and I knew I could overcome it. So I just put in the same effort as if I was playing 40 minutes a game.”
What changed?
“I think I became more aggressive on the offensive end,” she said. “I knew I could do everything on the defensive end, but what was I producing on offense? I had to be real with myself. And that just changed my whole mindset.”
She hasn’t exactly lit up the stat sheet or scorched the nets in these last 11 games, but she has been willing, making the right plays, taking the right shots and not being afraid to look to score a little more.
If that means an open 3-pointer, she’s got that. If that means a ball-fake Euro-step in the lane to get an uncontested layup when it looked like she was stuck, she’s got that, too.
“Sania is not going to back down,” Schneider said, adding that having a player like that who is so versatile and so locked in has been an incredible luxury these last two years.
Now, however, it’s all down to this.
Sania and the Jayhawks (17-11 overall & 7-9 in Big 12 play) are still fighting for an NCAA Tournament berth, and they’ve got two regular season games remaining and whatever damage they can do in the Big 12 tournament to prove they belong.
As the end of her career draws near — Sania will be joined in the Senior Night celebration by teammates Nadira Eltayeb, Elle Evans and Lilly Meister — she can’t help but flash back to all of the things she’s done, all of the memories she’s made and all of the joy this game, and this place, have given her.
“I’m proud of myself, honestly,” she said. “Everything I went through and overcame, I could’ve never imagined myself in this position years ago. It was always a sort of pinch-me thing that I was actually here and playing at Kansas, and now it’s a pinch-me thing that I’m about to be done, too.”
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