WBB: fourth transfer player joins up with the Badgers
Kyrah Daniels is a versatile guard who played her first two years at Missouri State.
Last Monday, the Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team announced that they had secured their fourth commitment out of the transfer portal this off-season. Robin Pingeton continued her hot start on the trail by bringing in former Missouri State guard Kyrah Daniels.
Daniels has a couple years of eligibility remaining and should slot right into UW’s rotation in the 2025-26 season. "I'm super thankful and blessed to be a Badger. I'm excited to start a new era with Coach P, the staff, and my new teammates! On Wisconsin!", said Daniels.
Kyrah Daniels Fast Facts
Height: 6-foot-0
Position: guard
Eligibility: two years remaining
Previous School: Missouri State
Hometown: Highlands Ranch, Colo.
Fun Facts: mom played ball at Penn State; dad played for the Canadian National Team and the Denver Nuggets; played in Australia for her freshman and sophomore seasons in high school
Kyrah Daniels Fast Stats
Career College Stats (two seasons)
GP/GS: 63/57
MPG: 28.8
PPG: 11.0
RPG: 4.3
APG: 2.0
SPG: 1.1
BPG: 0.8
TOPG: 1.7
FG: 277-of-694 (39.9%)
3P: 103-of-287 (35.9%)
FT: 37-of-60 (61.7%)
Kyrah Daniels Scouting Report
A 30,000 foot view comparison if you don’t want to read more than one sentence? A higher usage Natalie Leuzinger who is more dynamic on defense. But you don’t subscribe to a niche women’s basketball newsletter for that! You want to get in the weeds!
First things first: there aren’t any collegiate highlight reels I could find for Daniels, so I was forced to use her Hudl highlights from high school. She is only three years removed from high school, but obviously there will be some differences in her skill-set now.
What I saw on her high school tape was a player that has a nice looking three-point shot with a high release. She also appeared to be a solid rebounder although I think that isn’t as much a part of her game in college now that there are taller players on the court.
The long range shooting has stayed on point though. She shot 35.4% from three on above average volume in two seasons at Missouri State and she’ll be counted on to replace the production lost from the graduations of Tess Myers (37.7%, well above average volume) and Natalie Leuzinger (42.2%, average volume).
Interestingly, Daniels’ free throw percentage plummeted from 71.4% as a freshman to 54.5% as a sophomore. She doesn’t get to the line often (only 68 career attempts in 68 career games) but it is strange how poorly she shot from the charity stripe last year. Daniels also has poor shooting numbers on two-point jumpers but shot just below 60% at the rim per Torvik.
Her shooting chart from the invaluable Hoop Explorer shows a slightly better percentage at the rim, but those mid-range jumpers at/below the break need to be eliminated from her game. Just look at how much higher the percentages are when she steps behind the three-point line!!!
An area of her game that excites me is her ability to make the right reads passing the ball. Her 12.1% turnover rate (91st percentile) last year was excellent and that contributed to her 1.29 assist/turnover rate (84th percentile). Daniels isn’t going to be initiating Wisconsin’s offense but her secondary playmaking will be crucial to UW’s offensive success.
On defense it looks like Daniels is a bit of a havoc creator. Her block rate of 3.2% was in the 85th percentile nationally and she earned 1.1 defensive win shares (91st percentile) last year. I don’t have any sort of official measurement but her arms look to be relatively long which would contribute to her block numbers being better than most 6-footers.
The “metrics” really like Daniels’ game and she rated out highly in box plus/minus and win shares last year. Nick Kalinowski’s awesome transfer portal web app rates Daniels’ commitment as “excellent” for Wisconsin and has her as the 85th best player in the portal out of the 517 he tracked.
Daniels is another solid transfer portal pickup for Robin Pingeton’s first roster in Madison and should slot right into UW’s starting lineup next year.
Other Exciting News!
I have been working a lot at my day job recently so this article is a bit late, but that means I can also include this exciting news that the Badgers announced on Tuesday afternoon. Ronnie Porter is withdrawing from the transfer portal and coming back to Madison!!!
You all already know about her game, so I won’t go into that, but this is an important re-addition to the team. Steady, veteran point guard play is invaluable and every team wants it. Wisconsin wasn’t going to have it next year but now they do.
I was extremely skeptical of the Robin Pingeton hire but everything she has done from her opening presser to her transfer portal strategy has been bang on perfect tbqh. I'm excited to see how she fills out the rest of the roster and can't wait for actual hoops to be played in the fall.
Last item on the wish list is a little bit more size for the bench.
Maybe 2 players - 1) Flipping a taller decommit to add a 2nd to the incoming class and 2) avg F/C player who could be in the rotation w/o too many issues.