5 Takeaways From Green Bay’s Opening Week

The Green Bay Phoenix women’s basketball program is just different than most mid-majors in the country. They get home and home series against programs that typically only do buy games, or at best, neutral site contests. With that comes an expectation for Phoenix fans: that their team is going to compete in those games as they attempt to build a resume for the NCAA Tournament. After a hiatus in tournament appearances from 2019 to 2023, Green Bay has made 3 straight bids to the “Big Dance”.

Green Bay celebrated last year’s team on Saturday night’s home opener, handing out rings, raising the NCAA Tournament banner as well as the Horizon League regular season and conference tournament banners, and celebrating a second straight academic national championship. With no transfers out, the Phoenix had most of the band back together, save for Lily Hansford and Jenna Guyer playing professional basketball overseas. They welcomed nearly 2,000 fans into the Kress Center as the team looked to move to a 1-1 record, after having dropped the season opener to No. 4 Duke 76-60 at Cameron Indoor earlier in the week. The Phoenix took care of business on Banner Night, dropping Loyola Chicago 82-48.

With two games in the books, Green Bay’s next contest will be on the road against Illinois State, who got off to a 3-0 start and have put up over 90 points in all three games. Before that game, though, let’s take a look back at the biggest takeaways from the Phoenix’s opening week of games.

1. Depth is going to be a strength

Two games into the season, Green Bay is already showing its depth. While they won’t necessarily go with hockey-style line changes, this is a team that has a legitimate chance of being 9 deep in its typical rotation. Head coach Kayla Karius opened the season with a starting lineup that featured Maddy Skorupski, McKenna Johnson, Elisa Mevius, Jorey Buwalda, and Kristina Ouimette. For game two, she swapped in Meghan Schultz for Buwalda, both of whom were featured as First Team All Horizon League predictions in the Horizone Roundtable preseason poll.

Also earning significant minutes in the early contests were a pair of familiar names in Gracie Grzesk and Maren Westin, as well as freshman Ady Ketterhagen. As mentioned, Karius isn’t rolling with wholesale line changes, instead mixing and matching different groups of players. The result so far was on full display on Saturday night.

2. The more things change, the more they stay the same

At the risk of overreacting through just two games, the seemingly seamless nature with which this program reloads appears to be something truly special. This team graduated five players last year, brought in four true freshman, and landed three transfers. Yet the switches on defense are in midseason form, and the offensive spacing and ball movement is already flowing. Regardless of who has been on the floor, the Phoenix have just found a way to keep the machine rolling.

Perhaps the best showcase of this fact was how Green Bay closed the first half of Saturday’s game against the Ramblers. While the Phoenix held a lead after the opening quarter thanks to an 11-0 run in the first, Loyola Chicago tightened the gap to 28 to 23 with 5:10 left in the second quarter. From there, Green Bay closed the half on a 16-0 scoring run to close the period, and hit a pair of threes to start the third before the Ramblers got back on the board.

Green Bay’s recipe for success isn’t anything drastic–it’s fundamental defense that forces turnovers and flowing ball movement on offense, executed by players who can play multiple positions. Add in a healthy splash of outside shooting, and you have the “Green Bay Way.” Nothing fancy, but it’s inevitable. They find players in high school or in the portal, who are typically familiar with the formula, and let it rip.

3. Welcome to Green Bay

Continuing with that point, the newcomers have certainly made an impact. Buwalda has been as advertised, a physical presence in the paint that gets it done on both ends of the floor. Johnson has put together a pair of games that showcased her scoring ability. Mevius starred in the loss to Duke, hauling in 8 rebounds and grabbing 3 steals while dishing 4 assists in both contests to open the season.

Green Bay has been as old fashioned as any modern team can be, turning to veterans to play big minutes, while developing talent that gets mop-up work in their underclassmen years but star when they become juniors and seniors. That said, Karius has not been afraid to turn to an exceptional freshman either. Last year it was Kristina Ouimette. This year, it is another player who also shares the locker room with her sister, Ady Ketterhagen.

Ketterhagen logged seven minutes against the 4th ranked Blue Devils, but showed she belonged, hauling in a rebound and a steal. She upped the ante against Loyola Chicago, scoring 8 points, swiping 2 steals and dishing an assist across 18 minutes of game time.

4. Winning the turnover battle

The Phoenix hung with Duke for most of the game earlier in the week, and rolled past Loyola Chicago on Saturday. It has been alluded to a couple times throughout, but Green Bay is able to do this by winning the turnover battle. There are no moral victories when it comes to sports, but as a mid-major program, you stay in a game against the #4 team in the country by winning the turnover battle. Going to Cameron Indoor is a tough task for any visiting team, but being able to take the crowd out of the game by forcing the Blue Devils to commit 17 turnovers is noteworthy.

Green Bay cranked this up to a different level when hosting the Ramblers. The Phoenix defense forced 23 turnovers and committed just 7 on the other end. The Green Bay offense turned those 23 turnovers into 26 points, highlighted by those long scoring runs in the game.

5. Looking ahead to Illinois State

The Phoenix will have another fierce offense to contend with when they travel to Normal, Illinois to face the Illinois State Redbirds. The Redbirds are 3-0, fresh off a 96-54 drubbing off non-D1 opponent Augustana. Prior to that, they took down Dayton 91 to 87, and gave a 106 to 69 drubbing to Chicago State in the season opener. Five players from Illinois State have averaged double figure scoring totals, led by Wisconsin native Neveah Thomas’ 17.7 points per game, and Green Bay native Trista Fayta, a high school teammate of Grzesk, who scored a season high 28 points in the win over the Flyers.