The two players who played the most minutes for the BYU women’s basketball team in the 2023-24 season certainly weren’t surprising. Forward Lauren Gustin (1,177 minutes) and guard Kaylee Smiler (1,105 minutes) are both senior veterans who everyone knew would be key contributors.

But the player with the third-most minutes for the Cougars might be more unexpected: Freshman Kailey Woolston.

Woolston (a former star at Lone Peak) logged 1,067 minutes of game action this season as she averaged 13.3 points per game while making 174 3-pointers as well as having the third-most assists and steals and the fourth-most rebounds on the team.

Her impressive performance made Woolston a critical piece for BYU — a piece the Cougars might have to be without in Thursday’s Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament, or WBIT, opener at Santa Clara.

The freshman got injured in BYU’s Big 12 tournament loss to Kansas and Cougar head coach Amber Whiting said in Monday’s press conference that Woolston would be a game-time decision.

“She’s working through some stuff right now with her injury,” Whiting said. “Hopefully we have her but if we don’t, that’s a huge, huge loss.”

Whiting did say that the silver lining is that BYU has had some time to prepare if Woolston isn’t available.

“We haven’t had her this week, so that for us was time to work on chemistry and work on players being in different positions,” Whiting said. “Working on just different plays that would have worked with the different lineup I think was super helpful. If it had been back-to-back, we would have been like fish out of water for sure.”

Cougar freshman guard Amari Whiting said that the team is working to be ready, with or without Woolston.

“Obviously, we hope she’s back,” Amari Whiting said. “If she’s out, then we haven’t played with that rotation. It’s about getting the reps in and being able to know each other’s strengths. I think you could tell in the Kansas game that we were kind of thrown off a little bit. We still need to play our game pushing the ball and we’ve got to be tough defensively.”

BYU heads into the tournament as a No. 5-seed, while the Broncos are the No. 4-seed.

The Cougars played Santa Clara twice when both were members of the West Coast Conference in 2022-23 with each winning on the road.

Amber Whiting said this is a good Broncos team and BYU will need to be ready.

“Tess Heal and Olivia Pollerd are really good players,” she said. “They’re averaging like 20 and 18 points per game respectively, so they’re two players we really have to worry about. They play at a high level and we have to make sure that defensively we’re sound and ready to go for that.”

Amari Whiting said the big key will be staying focused and making the most of the opportunity.

“They’re really good at picking and popping,” the Cougar freshman guard said. “They have a couple good guards and are good at rebounding it as well. We need to go in there and push the ball in transition and get stops. Most of all, we need to be locked in. If we are, I think we can win some games.”

The Cougars and Broncos are scheduled to play at the Leavey Center in Santa Clara on Thursday at 7 p.m. MT. The game can be seen on ESPN+

Notes: The Cougars and Broncos have met 28 times in series history with BYU emerging victorious in 25 of the contests. The former WCC foes last met on Feb. 16, 2023, when the Cougars knocked off the Broncos 78-72 at the Leavey Center … BYU has an 11-1 record when playing at Santa Clara, but the Broncos are 12-1 at home in 2023-24 … The Cougars will make their 28th postseason appearance on Tuesday. BYU has made five-consecutive trips to the postseason (NCAA Tournament or WNIT), excluding the 2020 COVID canceled season and holds an all-time postseason record of 16-23.

Courtesy BYU Athletics

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