Western Kentucky head coach Greg Collins talks to Western Kentucky guard Acacia Hayes (10) in an NCAA women’s college basketball game Monday, Nov. 13, 2023 at E.A. Arena in Bowling Green, Ky. The Lady Toppers won 62-56. WKU improves to 3-0 for first time in nine seasons. WKU travels to Vanderbilt on Wednesday. (Daily News photo by Joe Imel/joe.imel@bgdailynews.com)

It’s been a busy offseason for Western Kentucky women’s basketball coach Greg Collins.

After a disappointing conclusion to the 2023-24 season, in which WKU finished 15-17 after losing its final seven games, Collins quickly evaluated where things stood and what exactly went wrong.

While Collins and his staff felt WKU was close at times, it never all came together. The biggest culprit — depth.

“The lack of depth kept coming up,” Collins said. “It really showed up more so in conference and the latter part of the season as injuries and illnesses started to accumulate a little bit, as they do. We just didn’t have the depth that we needed. Often we had good leads (in games) and that lack of depth kind of got us again.”

That has led to a busy three months since the season ended, with WKU adding six players to the roster, creating what Collins is hopeful will be more versatility and success on the court.

Collins said the focus of the offseason was adding more size, more depth and better shooting. He is pleased with what his staff was able to piece together to achieve this goal.

“We’ve lacked size,” Collins said. “We’ve covered it up I guess or we played around it, but we just really needed to address it. We had some size last year, it was just really inexperienced. We added some players that have a little more maturity, a little more experience, but really we add depth so that we will be able to play multiple players in that position. That was a focus to make sure we were more competitive on the boards. That way we can get some more easy baskets around the rim and help us with our defense as well.”

WKU already added freshman Tori James and senior Caleigh Rose-West at Iowa Western last November. Since March, WKU has added in several ways.

First there is freshman Salma Khedr, a 6-foot-forward from Giza, Egypt, by way of Spire Academy in Geneva, Ohio. She will be the third player from Egypt to play for WKU under head coach Greg Collins. Raneem Elgedawy played for WKU from 2017-21, while Meral Abdelgawad played from 2018-22.

WKU was also active in the portal. While Karris Allen, Aaliyah Pitts and Nevaeh Foster all left, the Lady Toppers were able to add 6-foot-3 forward Jackson State transfer Mya Pratcher, Zsofia Telegdy, a 6-foot-4 forward previously at the University of Kansas and 6-3 forward Mariama Sow from UTEP.

Pratcher, who previously played at Auburn, is an athletic rebounder who will add length, according to Collins, while Telegdy played behind WNBA second-round pick Taiyanna Jackson at Kansas.

WKU also added a pair of junior college transfers with 6-foot-3 forward Tatum Boettjer from Barton Community College in Great Bend, Kansas, and 5-foot-10 Tia Shelling from Odessa College in Odessa, Texas.

“We are excited about all of them,” Collins said. “Really their character is as important as anything. They are all great young ladies, good students. We’ve got good character ladies that want to be part of a team, that want a chance to compete at a high level. We are excited about what they add to what we have returning.”

The returnees include three-year starting point guard Alexis Mead, who entered the portal but withdrew and decided to return, junior guard Acacia Hayes, who missed time last season with a knee injury, and graduate senior Destiny Salary, who will return for a second season at WKU.

Josie Givin, MacKenzie Chatfield and Caitlin Stacey also return, while Jaylin Brill opted to transfer to a junior college.

“Maybe the most encouraging thing is how hard each of those young ladies have worked in the offseason,” Collins said. “Except for maybe Josie, they all went through some injuries, illness type things that kind of set them back at times. That is where the depth comes in. They’ve all worked hard to improve the likelihood of that durability during the offseason.”

Collins said he is excited about Stacey’s development. The 6-foot-3 sophomore showed flashes last season, but will now have experienced mentors to work with as well as a full offseason at WKU.

“She showed up in August as a freshman coming out of high school,” Collins said. “She missed a summer of development and this has really helped her. She’s in the best shape she has been in right now. We have to continue to move that forward for her and continue to work on that player development. I think she has a tremendous upside.”

How everything will fit together will be the biggest question heading into the season. While some of the newcomers are already on campus, several have not arrived – Khedr, Telegdy and Sow are all playing for their national teams this summer.

“That’s the tradeoff,” Collins said. “I’m excited for them to get to play with their national teams. That’s a great honor for them. Plus, they will practice twice a day and play games. That’s a lot more than we get to do in the summer with them here, but the trade off is they are not here playing with their teammates. We will have some work to do to build that chemistry, but the key will be to keep things simple — keep roles clearly defined — and then try to keep everybody on a team page and not an individual page.”

With the roster taking shape, the other puzzle for the offseason is the 2024-25 schedule. The nonconference schedule will once again include the WAC/CUSA Challenge with a home and an away game against a WAC opponent and the conference schedule will include newest addition Kennesaw State.

Collins said WKU is close to finishing its schedule, still looking to add one or two more games.

“I like our schedule,” Collins said. “It’s balanced. We are working real hard to get home games. It’s tricky getting home games, but we are working on that. I like the balance that we have in our schedule of playing teams that might be Power Five and some teams that are maybe a little more in the middle of the NET rankings. That’s the key, trying to make sure we have some good challenges in there but we have some good opportunities as well.”