Welcome back to the #HLWBB Starting Five, your sporadic offseason rundown of news and fun from around Horizon League women’s basketball.
1. Can’t Get Enough
We might as well lead with something that’s much bigger news in most quarters than a mere item within a link dump post: the WNBA is officially expanding once again, to Cleveland (in 2028), Detroit (2029), and Philadelphia (2030).
The league’s return to Cleveland, one of its original eight cities back in 1997, is hardly stunning, given that there were false starts on the story in February, and then again in May (the latter causing me to waste the “Extraordinary” headline, an homage to the Liz Phair song used in WNBA commercials back in the day, and a lead photo of former Rockers player Helen Darling, not that I’m bitter).
Detroit, a city often floated around WNBA expansion conversations, thanks largely to the dynastic Shock teams of the 2000s, was a bit more of a surprise. Regardless, it’s awfully hard to say no when extremely wealthy guys like Dan Gilbert and Tom Gores show up ready to hand over $250 million, the reported expansion fee. Cleveland and Detroit will join the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky to give the Horizon League’s #MajorCities four of the WNBA’s 18 teams in 2030. Not bad.
Those two metropolises – and Philly, though they’re outside of our coverage area – beat out an impressive list of contenders, including Nashville, Denver, Austin, Houston, Miami, and Charlotte (the latter three, like Cleveland and Detroit, are also former WNBA outposts, of course). The Rust Belt hasn’t scored a ton of wins over “newer” cities in the south and west over recent decades, but Monday decidedly brought two significant ones.
So what does that mean for the Horizon League? It’s a bit tough to say with any certainty right now, particularly given that the Fever were a moribund franchise for quite a while until Caitlin Clark showed up last season, and not anything capable of producing the sort of energy that would boost IU Indy’s profile. Nevertheless, over the long term, the potential certainly exists for the sort of women’s basketball ecosystem that has the ability elevate the Jags, along with Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy, Oakland, and Northern Illinois.
2. 6 Foot 7 Foot
Few sports information directors are willing to pass on opportunities to milk content for a few clicks, particularly in the middle of the summer, and particularly when it comes to their team’s schedule release. Yet that’s exactly what Northern Kentucky did at some recent-but-undetermined point, when the Norse quietly posted their 2025-26 non-conference schedule to their website. There weren’t any social posts, nor was there even a standard-issue press release. It was just…there. Cool.
If you’re too lazy to click through, I got you.
| Date | Opponent | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Sun., November 9 | Louisville | Louisville, KY |
| Wed., November 12 | Ball State | Muncie, IN |
| Sun., November 16 | Butler | Indianapolis, IN |
| Wed., November 19 | Toledo | Highland Heights, KY |
| Sat., November 22 | Chattanooga | Chattanooga, TN |
| Tue., November 25 | Music City Classic | Nashville, TN |
| Wed., November 26 | Music City Classic | Nashville, TN |
| Sun., November 30 | Southern Indiana | Highland Heights, KY |
| Thu., December 11 | Ohio State | Columbus, OH |
| Sun., December 21 | Bradley | Highland Heights, KY |
Yikes.
Jeff Hans certainly isn’t messing around in what was likely his first unencumbered crack at a schedule since his arrival last year. We’ll see what the Music City Classic ends up presenting, but right now, the slate features three high majors (two of which, Ohio State and Louisville, were top-35 NET teams last season), two of the MAC’s strongest programs (including defending champion Ball State), and a few other quality mids. In fact, the worst 2024-25 NET of any NKU opponent is Bradley’s 204. Everyone else, even new Division I team Southern Indiana, finished in the top half of the list.
Apparently, that’s normal for Hans:
Crazy? Genius? Probably a little bit of both. But one thing’s for sure: if the Norse can navigate those games in relatively decent shape, they’re going to have fantastic metrics throughout the season.
3. Big Cheese
Brutal scheduling and women’s basketball ecosystems are extremely familiar concepts at Green Bay. Case in point, with respect to the latter: the Phoenix’s latest commitment, Kyrin Lile, a 2026 power forward out of Elkhorn, WI.
As I’ve gotten familiar with the Horizon League over the last few years, it’s been a lot of fun to internalize the personalities and styles of the various HL programs and coaches. Check out this write-up on Lile from Prep Girls Hoops’ Brady Peterson and tell me that it doesn’t scream “Green Bay” to you.
“The Elkhorn forward is a skilled kid who can excel playing from the high post. Lile can pass well from the post and hit cutters from any direction, knock down shots from the mid-range area or perimeter, and attack slower players off the dribble and get to the basket. If she ends up at a place that wants to use their forwards as a fulcrum of an offense, Lile will have an excellent career at the next level. If you put her in a box, you lose the best traits that she brings to the floor.”
Kayla Karius used the transfer portal on a level unfamiliar to Northeast Wisconsin this spring, in an effort to quickly patch over some heavy graduation losses. However, with a whopping four 2026 commits now on board, Green Bay seems to be signaling that it’s still going to look to the high school ranks as a priority.
4. The Bare Necessities
Over at Oakland, new head coach Keisha Newell got out ahead of the local WNBA news by finalizing her first Golden Grizzlies roster with Ilris Aworet, a six-footer from Gabon.
Aworet spent the 2024-25 season at the NAIA’s Frank Phillips College – the Plainsmen! – where she averaged 8.2 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. She also managed those numbers extremely efficiently, boasting a 53.8 shooting percentage. Two years ago, Aworet began her college career with a juco, Arizona Western College, though she saw limited minutes on a strong team.
There’s certainly the possibility of much more than that at OU. Newell brought in a pair of freshman posts in Kimber Abshear and Karinna Trotter, while the likes of Lianna Baxter and Sereniti Roberts-Adams are back. The Grizzlies should have an extremely talented backcourt as well, including notable transfers like Angelina Smith, Filippa Goula, and Cali Denson (who is still an Eastern Michigan transfer for our purposes, given that she didn’t see the floor for Oakland last year).
What’s missing in the big picture is a ton of depth at the three and four, the sort of players who can offer a bit of length and clean up some garbage while stretching the floor a bit. That’s where a player like Aworet could prove quite useful as a prominent part of a rotation that might also include the likes of Layla Gold and Kyra Lawrence.
5. Changes
Last Friday, the City Club of Cleveland hosted a discussion called “The Evolving Role of Regional Public Universities.” The fantastic Amy Morona, who covers higher education for Signal Cleveland, served as the moderator, while Dr. Nigamanth Sridhar, Cleveland State’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, was one of the three panelists.
I chatted with Morona for a bit afterwards, and she, knowing what I typically do on this here website, pointed out that they didn’t even get into athletics during the hour-long event. I don’t remember the precise words I used in reply, but the gist was “who cares, the issues you guys discussed directly relate to whether these universities can even exist, let alone pay for sports teams.”
And that’s the truth of the matter. From demographic challenges, to shifting societal priorities and governmental pressures, regional public universities – a category that includes most of the Horizon League – are having a pretty tough time of things right now. Athletics are hardly immune from those realities, just ask Cleveland State wrestling, Purdue Fort Wayne baseball, or Wright State softball. So, whether you care about sports or not, it was enlightening to listen to a few really smart people, who have committed their lives to academia in one way or another, candidly speak on the issues.
The weird part? Despite everything, I walked away from the event proud and optimistic. After all, urban universities play such a vital and underappreciated role in our society by promoting social mobility, and through their symbiotic, economically beneficial relationships with their cities.
As Dr. Sridhar said at one point, they’re inclusive places, not the sort of schools that boast about how many people they can keep out. Moving forward, everything just might be okay if universities continue to find creative ways to lean into what they do so well.
Here’s the discussion in full, if you’re interested.
Subscribe to our emails, and get our latest posts in your inbox, plus a weekly digest of everything we've published!
