Garcia is Ready to Take Off
Mar 18, 2026 | Women's Basketball, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
For now, she sits upon a purple throne — a purple padded folding chair in the corner of Bramlage Coliseum — shortly after noon on Tuesday after practice. Her Kansas State women's basketball teammates walk off the court, and they nod and they smile, and freshman point guard Gina Garcia offers a quick wave while seated upon her purple throne.
It won't be too long before Garcia and K-State, 18-17, face Georgia Tech, 14-18, in Thursday's 6:30 p.m. tipoff in the opening round of the WBIT on the very court and under the very lights where the 5-foot-9 assist-getter from Barcelona, Spain, dazzled with the basketball during the regular season, practically putting on assist clinics in many games, eliciting cheers from purple-clad fans who know full well this is just the beginning.
Garcia has 177 assists. To put that into perspective, she has the second-most assists by a Division I freshman this season, she is the third K-State freshman in 44 years to record at least 175 assists, and Garcia passed former All-American Serena Sundell's freshman total of 176 assists when she dished out four assists in a 74-62 loss to No. 10 TCU in the Big 12 Tournament.
Only Shalee Lehning had more assists as a freshman. That was 20 years ago. She had 189.
Asked if she knew exactly how many assists she has this season, Garcia replies: "Not really."
Informed that she has 177 assists, Garcia slightly grins: "That's a lot, I think."
Told that only one freshman in the nation has more assists than her heading into Thursday's game, Garcia practically blushes: "That feels really good, but it's also a thank-you to my teammates for making the basketball after I deliver the passes."
She pauses.
"That makes me so happy."
There are plenty of reasons to smile when it comes to Garcia, who needed just two games into her college career for her talents to be recognized on ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10. This time, it wasn't an assist, but it was Garcia driving to the hoop with 3.4 seconds remaining and scoring the game-winning layup as the buzzer sounded in a 46-44 win over SMU in Dallas, Texas, on November 8.
"It was really exciting," Garcia said days after she was featured on SportsCenter. "I didn't realize how important it was because I'm not from here, but all the team told me it was really good. The play went through all my family, and they said congratulations to me, and some friends, too. It was really exciting to hear from them.
"My family is far away, but they're always with me. Their message was really important for me."
That was just the beginning of one of K-State's most notable freshman seasons in recent memory.
What we've witnessed in Garcia's 35 games, including 33 starts, is a playmaker who shoots 45.8% from the floor, shoots 82.6% from the foul line, and averages 1.5 steals per game while her 5.06 assists per game ranks seventh in the Big 12. She's all over the court. She's the orchestrator. She currently holds the school record with a 2.13 assist-to-turnover ratio in her career.
"Nothing has surprised me about what she's done," 12th-year K-State head coach Jeff Mittie says. "We saw it, we continued to see it all summer, and when she got here, you could tell right away that she understood the game. None of what she's done this early in her career has surprised me."
Once Garcia had a career-high 10 assists against Iowa State and three days later had 10 assists again against Cincinnati, becoming the first K-State freshman with back-to-back double-digit efforts in assists since at least 2001-02. In addition, she has had at least five assists in 23 games.
In the Big 12 Tournament, underneath those lights at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri, Garcia posted 26 total assists, which were the most by any player at the tournament, and the most by a K-State player ever in a tournament, and the fourth-most assists in the history of the Big 12 Tournament.
"She's a smart player, she's learning her teammates better as you'd expect a young point guard to do," Mittie says. "She made a lot of right reads in the Big 12 Tournament and got the ball to the hot shooter and the right shooter on time. When you do that, you have a chance to do what she did, which is ring up a lot of assists."
Garcia's 177 assists are 10th most by a player in a season in K-State history. She's closest to Lehning in 2006-07 (179) and Sundell in 2022-23 (184) and Lehning in 2005-06 (189) and Sundell in 2023-24 (189).
As for Garcia's stature in the future? She has plenty to shoot for. Sundell's 262 assists in 2024-25 are the most by a K-State player in a season, ahead of Shalee Lehning's 229 assists in 2008-09 and Kayla Goth's 226 assists in both 2017-18 and 2018-19.
"We've had a lot of really good freshman point guards," Mittie says. "My philosophy is always to hand the reins to them as early as you can because they're going to be great players for you down the road and they're going to grow quicker through those experiences. We saw that with Kayla Goth and Serena Sundell.
"It's not always a smooth ride. You have to get through a lot of frustration and tough games, but that's part of the learning that occurs, and Gina falls right into line with Goth and Sundell. They all have a high IQ and work ethic and a team-first mentality."
However, Mittie explains a key difference that launches Garcia into a league of her own.
"The difference in Gina is she plays the ball screen better than Goth and Sundell," Mittie says. "They were big guards who played the skip-pass better and we also had a center during those times for many assists that were different. Gina plays the pick-and-roll game as good as any guard I've ever had. She has a knack for it. It's a similar offense to what they ran in Spain, so there was a familiarity coming in. She has a great feel for it."
Garcia arrived at K-State on August 15 after competing for Spain at a pair of FIBA Women's Basketball tournaments. She was named MVP and to the All-Star Five while helping Spain win the 2025 FIBA U20 Women's EuroBasket in Matosinhos, Portugal, and she averaged 11.3 points, 4.9 assists, 2.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals. She scored 20 points against Turkey in the quarterfinals and again against Italy in the semifinals. In the title game, she had nine points, eight assists, three rebounds and two steals against Lithuania.
Garcia also earned FIBA U18 Women's EuroBasket All-Star Five after helping Spain win the 2025 FIBA U18 Women's EuroBasket in Las Palmas, Spain. She averaged 7.6 points, 5.6 assists, 2.0 rebounds and 2.6 steals in that tournament.
As one basketball expert wrote: "Garcia's leadership, composure, and experience on the global stage set her apart from the typical freshmen, making her a perfect fit for programs seeking a poised floor general with championship-level experience and a relentless work ethic."
Garcia heard from the K-State women's basketball program for the first time last year. K-State assistant coach Staci Foss called her. Then Foss and Mittie joined Garcia on a video call.
"I felt good during and after the call, but my Spanish isn't very good, so I relied on a lot of help from Spain to translate for both of us," Mittie says, chuckling. "But I felt good about Gina's goals as a player. One thing about recruiting internationally, they're sacrificing a lot to come here — time with family, distance from familiarity, and they know the 'why' very early in the process, and they know what they're looking for. It was a good match right away."
Asked how she's been able to develop her craft of recording gobs of assists, Garcia replies, "I don't really know. Over the past years, I had really good coaches who helped me to understand the game and how to have good vision. That's helped. At K-State, the coaches have really helped me to understand the game here, and how to adapt to the game. We keep working."
And the work will continue against Georgia Tech on Thursday. If K-State wins, the Wildcats will host the California/Santa Clara winner on Sunday at a time to be announced.
"I always think that I have a lot of things to improve but it takes time," Garcia says. "I know I'm really young now, so I have a lot of years to keep improving, and I just want to have fun playing. Every year I want to be more competitive. I hope we can go to March Madness next year. That's it."
For now, she and her K-State teammates will hear the cheers from K-State fans at Bramlage on Thursday.
"This season has gone by really fast," Garcia says. "In August, my first night in Manhattan was amazing, a different experience, and I was like, 'I can't believe that I'm here.' This tournament is going to be a lot of fun. We'll have a really good crowd. It's always so good to play here. I hope our fans help us to get the win.
"When you have fun playing, everybody notices, and everybody has fun watching you. When we go to restaurants, there are always fans who say, 'It's so nice to see you and we really enjoy that you're here.' I want to thank the fans for how they support us. We're going to keep improving to make them enjoy us."
Fans have enjoyed Garcia plenty this season.
She might be far from Spain.
But she has found a home.
And this is just the beginning.
For now, she sits upon a purple throne — a purple padded folding chair in the corner of Bramlage Coliseum — shortly after noon on Tuesday after practice. Her Kansas State women's basketball teammates walk off the court, and they nod and they smile, and freshman point guard Gina Garcia offers a quick wave while seated upon her purple throne.
It won't be too long before Garcia and K-State, 18-17, face Georgia Tech, 14-18, in Thursday's 6:30 p.m. tipoff in the opening round of the WBIT on the very court and under the very lights where the 5-foot-9 assist-getter from Barcelona, Spain, dazzled with the basketball during the regular season, practically putting on assist clinics in many games, eliciting cheers from purple-clad fans who know full well this is just the beginning.
Garcia has 177 assists. To put that into perspective, she has the second-most assists by a Division I freshman this season, she is the third K-State freshman in 44 years to record at least 175 assists, and Garcia passed former All-American Serena Sundell's freshman total of 176 assists when she dished out four assists in a 74-62 loss to No. 10 TCU in the Big 12 Tournament.
Only Shalee Lehning had more assists as a freshman. That was 20 years ago. She had 189.
Asked if she knew exactly how many assists she has this season, Garcia replies: "Not really."
Informed that she has 177 assists, Garcia slightly grins: "That's a lot, I think."
Told that only one freshman in the nation has more assists than her heading into Thursday's game, Garcia practically blushes: "That feels really good, but it's also a thank-you to my teammates for making the basketball after I deliver the passes."
She pauses.
"That makes me so happy."
There are plenty of reasons to smile when it comes to Garcia, who needed just two games into her college career for her talents to be recognized on ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10. This time, it wasn't an assist, but it was Garcia driving to the hoop with 3.4 seconds remaining and scoring the game-winning layup as the buzzer sounded in a 46-44 win over SMU in Dallas, Texas, on November 8.
"It was really exciting," Garcia said days after she was featured on SportsCenter. "I didn't realize how important it was because I'm not from here, but all the team told me it was really good. The play went through all my family, and they said congratulations to me, and some friends, too. It was really exciting to hear from them.
"My family is far away, but they're always with me. Their message was really important for me."
That was just the beginning of one of K-State's most notable freshman seasons in recent memory.
What we've witnessed in Garcia's 35 games, including 33 starts, is a playmaker who shoots 45.8% from the floor, shoots 82.6% from the foul line, and averages 1.5 steals per game while her 5.06 assists per game ranks seventh in the Big 12. She's all over the court. She's the orchestrator. She currently holds the school record with a 2.13 assist-to-turnover ratio in her career.
"Nothing has surprised me about what she's done," 12th-year K-State head coach Jeff Mittie says. "We saw it, we continued to see it all summer, and when she got here, you could tell right away that she understood the game. None of what she's done this early in her career has surprised me."
Once Garcia had a career-high 10 assists against Iowa State and three days later had 10 assists again against Cincinnati, becoming the first K-State freshman with back-to-back double-digit efforts in assists since at least 2001-02. In addition, she has had at least five assists in 23 games.
In the Big 12 Tournament, underneath those lights at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri, Garcia posted 26 total assists, which were the most by any player at the tournament, and the most by a K-State player ever in a tournament, and the fourth-most assists in the history of the Big 12 Tournament.
"She's a smart player, she's learning her teammates better as you'd expect a young point guard to do," Mittie says. "She made a lot of right reads in the Big 12 Tournament and got the ball to the hot shooter and the right shooter on time. When you do that, you have a chance to do what she did, which is ring up a lot of assists."
Garcia's 177 assists are 10th most by a player in a season in K-State history. She's closest to Lehning in 2006-07 (179) and Sundell in 2022-23 (184) and Lehning in 2005-06 (189) and Sundell in 2023-24 (189).
As for Garcia's stature in the future? She has plenty to shoot for. Sundell's 262 assists in 2024-25 are the most by a K-State player in a season, ahead of Shalee Lehning's 229 assists in 2008-09 and Kayla Goth's 226 assists in both 2017-18 and 2018-19.
"We've had a lot of really good freshman point guards," Mittie says. "My philosophy is always to hand the reins to them as early as you can because they're going to be great players for you down the road and they're going to grow quicker through those experiences. We saw that with Kayla Goth and Serena Sundell.
"It's not always a smooth ride. You have to get through a lot of frustration and tough games, but that's part of the learning that occurs, and Gina falls right into line with Goth and Sundell. They all have a high IQ and work ethic and a team-first mentality."
However, Mittie explains a key difference that launches Garcia into a league of her own.
"The difference in Gina is she plays the ball screen better than Goth and Sundell," Mittie says. "They were big guards who played the skip-pass better and we also had a center during those times for many assists that were different. Gina plays the pick-and-roll game as good as any guard I've ever had. She has a knack for it. It's a similar offense to what they ran in Spain, so there was a familiarity coming in. She has a great feel for it."
Garcia arrived at K-State on August 15 after competing for Spain at a pair of FIBA Women's Basketball tournaments. She was named MVP and to the All-Star Five while helping Spain win the 2025 FIBA U20 Women's EuroBasket in Matosinhos, Portugal, and she averaged 11.3 points, 4.9 assists, 2.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals. She scored 20 points against Turkey in the quarterfinals and again against Italy in the semifinals. In the title game, she had nine points, eight assists, three rebounds and two steals against Lithuania.
Garcia also earned FIBA U18 Women's EuroBasket All-Star Five after helping Spain win the 2025 FIBA U18 Women's EuroBasket in Las Palmas, Spain. She averaged 7.6 points, 5.6 assists, 2.0 rebounds and 2.6 steals in that tournament.
As one basketball expert wrote: "Garcia's leadership, composure, and experience on the global stage set her apart from the typical freshmen, making her a perfect fit for programs seeking a poised floor general with championship-level experience and a relentless work ethic."
Garcia heard from the K-State women's basketball program for the first time last year. K-State assistant coach Staci Foss called her. Then Foss and Mittie joined Garcia on a video call.
"I felt good during and after the call, but my Spanish isn't very good, so I relied on a lot of help from Spain to translate for both of us," Mittie says, chuckling. "But I felt good about Gina's goals as a player. One thing about recruiting internationally, they're sacrificing a lot to come here — time with family, distance from familiarity, and they know the 'why' very early in the process, and they know what they're looking for. It was a good match right away."
Asked how she's been able to develop her craft of recording gobs of assists, Garcia replies, "I don't really know. Over the past years, I had really good coaches who helped me to understand the game and how to have good vision. That's helped. At K-State, the coaches have really helped me to understand the game here, and how to adapt to the game. We keep working."
And the work will continue against Georgia Tech on Thursday. If K-State wins, the Wildcats will host the California/Santa Clara winner on Sunday at a time to be announced.
"I always think that I have a lot of things to improve but it takes time," Garcia says. "I know I'm really young now, so I have a lot of years to keep improving, and I just want to have fun playing. Every year I want to be more competitive. I hope we can go to March Madness next year. That's it."
For now, she and her K-State teammates will hear the cheers from K-State fans at Bramlage on Thursday.
"This season has gone by really fast," Garcia says. "In August, my first night in Manhattan was amazing, a different experience, and I was like, 'I can't believe that I'm here.' This tournament is going to be a lot of fun. We'll have a really good crowd. It's always so good to play here. I hope our fans help us to get the win.
"When you have fun playing, everybody notices, and everybody has fun watching you. When we go to restaurants, there are always fans who say, 'It's so nice to see you and we really enjoy that you're here.' I want to thank the fans for how they support us. We're going to keep improving to make them enjoy us."
Fans have enjoyed Garcia plenty this season.
She might be far from Spain.
But she has found a home.
And this is just the beginning.
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