Hope Sivori jokes that the Lady Toppers have “turned the Cali girl into a country girl.”

Alexis Mead is the Cali girl, and she now admits she has two country songs – “The Kind of Love We Make” and “Better Together” by Luke Combs – on her playlist as the Western Kentucky women’s basketball team enters the 2022-23 season.

Mead made the move to Bowling Green last year from Moreno Valley, Calif., and impressed in her first year with the Lady Toppers, and now the 5-foot-5 guard is hoping to make more of an impact this season as a sophomore.

“(Coming to Kentucky) was pretty good. It wasn’t hard actually at all. They brought me in, they made me feel like family, they made it feel like a home and so it was easy to adjust,” Mead said at the team’s media day. “Right now I’m comfortable. It’s been good. That’s what I tell everyone when they ask me.”

The transition to college ball didn’t take long for Mead. She started all 30 games last season as the team’s point guard as a true freshman, and finished the year with 326 points and 101 assists – marks that were ninth and tied for sixth, respectively, among freshmen in program history. She was named to the 2021-22 Conference USA All-Freshman team after averaging 10.9 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shooting nearly 39% from the field and 36% from 3-point range.

Prior to coming to WKU, Mead played for Martin Luther King High School and for Cal Storm Team Taurasi in AAU. She was a second-team all-league selection as a freshman and a first-team selection the next three years, and was tabbed all-state first team her senior year. She was also a two-time First Team All-California Interscholastic Federation selection in high school, and was back-to-back national champion in AAU while being named MVP both times.

A love for basketball was what brought her and WKU head coach Greg Collins closer during the recruitment process, despite being in cities over 2,000 miles apart.

“We’re a little further away from the beach than she was in Moreno Valley, but the cool thing about sports – that’s what everyone has in common,” Collins said at the team’s media day. “Lex and I, when we were talking on the phone, the one thing we really connected with, we talked a lot about old NBA games and NBA players and WNBA teams and that was a thing that we shared. The differences weren’t as important as the commonalities. That part was easy.

“She got here and just had to adjust to being in Kentucky and not in California, and that’s a little bit easier when you’ve got people around you that care, and not just about whether you’re making turnovers or making 3s – they care and make sure that you’re wearing your helmet when you ride your motorcycle, make sure you’re going to class. Those are the things that are more important, so I think once she got here and she realized she was part of a bigger family, she’s fine. Really, the thing that she wanted to be a part of is a great basketball team, and she’s part of that right now.”

Despite being only a sophomore, Mead enters the season as one of the most experienced Lady Toppers after her one season and has become a leader on the team. WKU has no seniors, three true freshmen and two new transfers. Mead was one of three sophomore starters in Monday’s season-opener against Vanderbilt, where she scored 11 points, grabbed five rebounds and dished out three assists.

“(I’m) being a vocal leader and leading by example as well. Just going into practice doing the right thing, running the extra line if you have to,” Mead said. “Also being there for them off the court. Being there as freshmen, we all went through it. Sometimes you have a really difficult time with the process, but we just want to make sure we’re always there for them and helping them and supporting them on and off the court. It’s been pretty good, though.”

The fifth-year WKU head coach says one of the biggest areas of growth for Mead will come with continuing to adjust to the long college basketball schedule.

“Lexie is a basketball junkie and she loves learning about basketball. Really the biggest challenge for Lexie, just to be honest, is her durability. You can see – she’s not the biggest person in the room. This game’s a physical game, it’s a fast game, we play a lot more games than you do in high school, so the wear and tear on your body adds up and that wears her down,” Collins said. “Really, it’s about learning how to do the right things for rest and recovery and more work isn’t always better work, and it’s learning how to prepare herself for the long haul and the marathon and not just the sprints.

“She’s getting better in that area and she’s hungry to watch film, hungry to work on more skill development and improve her leadership ability. She’s going to get there. Right now it’s just about understanding how to put yourself in a position so you can play the long haul.”

While most of the team’s games aren’t close to Mead’s home, she’ll get a trip back to California to play this winter. The Lady Toppers are scheduled to play a 1 p.m. CT game at Cal Baptist on Dec. 21.

“We always try to go play some place for young ladies that are from farther than Monticello or Louisville, Kentucky, so we try to play some place where their families and friends can come see them play and meet their teammates,” Collins said. “ … We’re going to LA to play, so Lexie’s high school teammates and friends and coaches and families – and we can see where she went to school – and they can come see her play.

“Cal Baptist is also a really stinking good team, so it’ll be a good matchup, it’ll be a tough game, good experience – either way, on the court and off the court, it’ll be a great experience.”{&end}