Baylor has added 6-foot-5 center Kate Koval after the NCAA granted her a transfer waiver, the university announced Saturday. It is not yet clear whether she will be eligible to play immediately because Baylor’s classes began in late August, a university spokesperson said.
Koval, who is from Kyiv, Ukraine, left LSU after the school signed Anna Minaeva, a Russian player who had previously played professionally in Moscow. Koval’s father serves in the Ukrainian military. After announcing her plans to leave LSU, she appealed publicly to the NCAA because the transfer portal had already closed.
In a social media statement, Koval said the war in Ukraine had directly affected people and places connected to her life. She wrote that people close to her had been killed or injured in Russian attacks and that locations where she grew up and began playing basketball had been damaged by missile strikes.
NCAA regulations allow transfers outside sport-specific windows in cases involving an urgent event beyond an athlete’s control, as long as it is unrelated to athletic opportunities or participation at the current school and requires an immediate departure.
Koval joins a Baylor team undergoing substantial roster changes before coach Nicki Collen’s sixth season in Waco. The Bears went 25-9 last season and did not experience major transfer-portal losses, but four starters graduated. Baylor had already signed three transfers and did not have any incoming freshmen before adding Koval.
