Welcome back to the #HLWBB Starting Five, your sporadic offseason rundown of news and fun from around Horizon League women’s basketball.
1. Money
Since March, when the Horizon League and its members declared their intent to opt into the House v. NCAA settlement that allows schools to share revenue with student-athletes, I’ve had one burning question: “lol what revenue?”
That’s certainly not meant as a criticism of any school or individual. I just find it hard to believe that there’s a pile of money worth discussing to be found within a bunch of athletic departments already trying to do more with less, and generally funded largely by student fees. Additionally, Cleveland State, Wright State, Northern Kentucky, and Purdue Fort Wayne have all made recent headlines over budgetary concerns, either within athletics or at the university-wide level.
WSU, however, has come up with a creative way to offer at least something to the pot.
Beginning this fall, the Raiders have initiated paid admission for every sport where it’s reasonable to do so, including men’s and women’s soccer, which are typically unticketed at most schools. Why charge for something that’s been free in the past? According to the Raiders’ release, “every dollar supports our student-athletes by providing critical resources that elevate their experience.”
In all likelihood, that’s a euphemistic way of saying that ticket revenue will be shared with those on the respective rosters. That decidedly won’t add up to a life-changing amount of money, and it’s worth questioning whether squeezing an audience disproportionately made up of family members is the right way to go about things, but it’s nevertheless an interesting idea that could eventually be tried at other conference outposts.
2. Higher Power
Students may be returning to campus right now, and preseason workouts won’t be far behind, but recruiting never stops (unless the NCAA forces everyone to take a break). Just ask Detroit Mercy, which received a commitment from 2026 combo guard Alonna Divine on Sunday.
“Thank you to Coach Kiefer, Coach Juanita, Coach Capaldi, and the rest of the staff for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to represent Detroit Mercy’s program,” Divine said in her announcement. “I’m honored to be part of the Titan family and look forward to the journey ahead.”
In landing the Indianapolis native, UDM outlasted a couple Horizon League rivals, including hometown school IU Indy and Northern Kentucky, both of which earned visits last summer. Stetson and LIU also produced offers early in Divine’s recruitment.
Here’s Prep Girls Hoops’ Brandon Bradley on what the Titans are getting:
“She was extremely active, involved at both ends of the floor, and constantly made plays for the Red Devils. She is so long, smooth/fluid athletically, and she does a little of everything well. She was finding open teammates, getting to the basket herself, and she was effective defensively. She even blocked a big shot late and pulled down a couple of key rebounds in their loss to Lawrence North.”
UDM has been incredibly productive in recent weeks, including 2026 pledges from Marianna Jones, Nina Rodriguez, and now Divine. That already-significant class should offer a ton of padding once a good chunk of a veteran roster moves on after the coming season.
3. The Hockey Song
It seems like there’s always something of a catch when a Horizon Leaguer participates in the Olympics. One of the very first pieces I wrote on this site concerned former Green Bay hooper Kaili Lukan and her journey at the 2020 Tokyo games, not in basketball, but in rugby sevens.
That same summer, Canada won bronze in softball thanks, in part, to Oakland alumna Erika Polidori and one-time Detroit Mercy player Kaleigh Rafter. Rafter, however, transferred to Florida State after three years with the Titans, so UDM was omitted from the lower third graphics when Rafter came up to bat. Isabella Geraci, a Cleveland State graduate, is eyeballing the 2028 Olympics after a Lukan-esque sport change, to flag football (and she would probably prefer that I quit associating her with CSU).
Enter former Robert Morris hockey player Kirsten Welsh, who didn’t actually play in the Horizon League (obviously, hockey isn’t an HL-sponsored sport) and graduated before the bulk of RMU’s other teams joined the conference.
I don’t care, I’m counting it.
As a defender for the Colonials from 2015 through 2019, Welsh helped RMU to four total College Hockey America titles – three regular season, one playoff – as well as the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance, in 2017.
She was a two-time All-CHA First Team selection, and also won the league’s Defender of the Year award as a junior.
As impressive as all of that is (and quite ironically, given her track record as a highly-penalized player), she’s reached even greater heights as an official. Just a few months after leaving Robert Morris, Welsh served notice of her ascendancy by working an NHL Prospect Tournament. Then, in 2021, she became the first woman to serve as a linesperson in both the Ontario Hockey League and the American Hockey League.
Welsh isn’t done breaking barriers, as she was recently selected for the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics, set for Milan this coming February.
Can the NHL possibly be far behind?
4. Stuck in the Middle with You
It’s tough to say how good Purdue Fort Wayne will be this season with a massively-overhauled roster, but if nothing else, it’s a reasonable bet that the Mastodons’ coaching staff could beat most others.
This offseason, Maria Marchesano has added three members to her staff. One is Kendal Muxlow, a former Don whose playing career was cut short by injury, though she made the most of the situation by spending three years as the team’s manager and director of basketball operations, while earning two degrees. After a year away as a teacher, she’s back in Fort Wayne as an assistant coach.
A second, Lauren Ross, needs little introduction, given that she was arguably the Horizon League’s top player in 2024-25 and the ringleader of PFW’s best-ever Division I campaign.
On Monday, the Dons announced that Elise Stuck has also hopped on board as a grad assistant. Stuck, a Charlevoix, MI native, spent 2020 through 2024 as a role player at Michigan, before finding a larger task at Ball State a year ago and helping the Cardinals roll to a MAC championship with 9.3 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. In fact, Stuck went to the NCAA Tournament at the end of all five seasons of her college career, a streak that certainly bodes well for black and gold loyalists.
Incidentally, she also started and played 12 minutes in the Wolverines’ 80-61 win over PFW to open 2023-24. Pretty decent chance that came up in the interview.
5. Start Again
We’re finally – finally – near the end of that kinda-annoying time of year where there isn’t a whole lot to do other than repeat the same things about the spring’s transfer portal activity and wait for schedule drops.
Milwaukee has been one of the last holdouts on the scheduling piece (we have it on good authority that the others, Green Bay and Wright State, are waiting for the Horizon League’s conference slate to come out), but the Panthers have adopted the Purdue Fort Wayne “one at a time” plan to keep things entertaining. Here’s what’s out so far:
| Date | Opponent | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Mon., November 3 | Loyola Chicago | Milwaukee, WI |
| Fri., November 7 | Northern Illinois | DeKalb, IL |
| Mon., November 10 | Wisconsin | Madison, WI |
| Sun., November 16 | Valparaiso | Valparaiso, IN |
That might be some of the tightest travel I’ve ever seen.
Basically, we have two former HL schools, Loyola and Valparaiso, one future HL school, Northern Illinois, and the state flagship, Wisconsin. If the rest of the thing even approaches the pound-for-pound impact of the first four games, Kyle Rechlicz’s squad is going to be quite the follow this fall.
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