Bob goes solo and talks with Purdue Fort Wayne men’s basketball coach Jon Coffman (@CoachCoffman). They discuss the Mastodons’ first year in the Horizon League amid the pandemic, as well as what the upcoming season holds.
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Letโs start with fundamental truth about the vast majority of books about a sports team: the primary audience is fans of, and others involved with, that team. So, even before word one, thereโs an expectation that the book tells that specific group of people what they want to hear and reinforces the teamโs legends and mythology. Put another way, most people who buy and read books like this arenโt looking for nuance or complexity.
Peter Kraker, the father of former Phoenix forward and assistant coach Mehryn (top photo), certainly delivers the goods for that constituency in The Green Bay Way, his newly-released love letter to/retrospective on UWGB womenโs basketball.
The obvious problem for those who are reading from a neutral position or as a fan of a rival team is that you will likely be rubbed the wrong way by something early and often. For example, ideas like Green Bayโs commitment to academics are presented as something unique (the book coming on the heels of Youngstown State and Robert Morris finishing in the top three of the WBCA academic rankings while the Phoenix didnโt place in the top 25 adds a little bit of extra oof to those comments).
However, the most cringeworthy parts involved Kraker frequently โ I donโt use that word lightly, much of the book is seemingly devoted to teaching through repetition โ rhapsodizing about the old school, hard-working, team first, farm tough ethos of the program while setting up modern basketball based around offensive stars as the other side of the dichotomy, at one juncture taking it to the point of saying that 2018 NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player Arike Ogunbowaleโs โoffensive mentality [wouldnโt] have dovetailed with the blue-collar work ethicโ at Green Bay.
That thread came to a crescendo during a review of the 2010-11 season, which marked the programโs lone trip to the Sweet Sixteen, a round that saw the Phoenix fell to a star-studded Baylor squad. In the buildup to that game, Kraker runs down the Bearsโ three All-Americans, Brittney Griner, Odyssey Sims, and Melissa Jones, singling out Jones as โa Green Bay Girl at heart.โ Then, in the aftermath, he once again drove home his favorite morality play.
โI can still see the length of Griner, and the smooth, easy grace of Odyssey Sims, and how you just knew that these were two athletes meant for the ages. But I also remember the concentrated power of Green Bay, forged, and sculpted in early mornings, while others, including the girls from Texas, slept. I remembered the Phoenix taking the court like a Norse raiding party sweeping in from the frozen north, their European features set like flint, and absolutely no fear in their eyes.โ
That simile is, uh, interesting.
Whether Krakerโs frequent belittling of some of womenโs basketballโs biggest stars (who, of course, just lucked into some DNA and are either too selfish or too lazy to be Green Bay Girls), is just standard-issue smugness or hints at something deeper is open to interpretation, but either way, itโs not likely to resonate with people who arenโt reading the book to buttress their belief in Green Bay exceptionalism.
There are some technical issues as well, many tied to the fact that Kraker spent roughly eight years on the project. He devotes a brief chapter, along with several other sections and passages, to Green Bayโs 20-year run of Horizon League regular season titles, treated as current even through the streak ended in 2019. Another outdated fact, though one with less time to correct, involved referring to Jon LeCrone as the current Horizon League commissioner.
Still, if you give up because of those shortcomings, youโll miss a fascinating story. Fan woofing aside, the Phoenix are unquestionably the conferenceโs most successful program, and have been among the best in all of mid-major basketball. Along with those 20 consecutive regular season crowns (among 21 total in 27 years of Horizon League membership), the Phoenix boast 16 league tournament titles and 18 total NCAA Tournament appearances (the first of those coming as a member of the now-Summit League). Any basketball or sports fan should probably wonder what makes a program like that tick, and the book provides a rich answer running several layers deep.
A lot of it is a story about a remarkable amount of continuity, particularly for a smaller program (the Phoenix have only had three different people serve as head coach). But more than that, itโs a story about what the continuity allows, specifically a deeply-ingrained culture, a carefully-refined playing style, and a community that has developed in support of the program. Coaches have the latitude from administration to recruit for fit instead of skill, and in turn, players have the latitude from coaches to drive a lot of the decision making within the team, while pushing each other far above and beyond what the coaches would be able to do on their own. Itโs a formula thatโs maddeningly simple, yet nearly impossible to duplicate because of the various pressures associated with high-level competition and the decades of support that give Kevin Borseth the ability to do things other coaches canโt.
The Green Bay Way is at its strongest when it leans on its extremely deep roster of interviews โ nearly 100 of them, running the entire gamut from star players and coaches to media and ordinary fans โ to drive the narrative forward. Thatโs never clearer than when reviewing the tenure of founding coach Carol Hammerle in a chapter set against the backdrop of an alumni banquet, when Kraker had the wisdom to simply set his recorder on the table and transcribe stories.
Hammerle is a heroic figure who began in 1973 with just three or four players (the accounts vary) who had even played basketball before and, during the ensuing 25 years, set the program up for its more modern successes. Really, sheโs an avatar for the entire womenโs sports movement, and many involved in that world will identify with her stewardship of a program founded in the aftermath of Title IX, juggling multiple coaching roles in her early days, enduring sub-par facilities, constantly struggling for resources, support, and legitimacy, and making a hazy dash through several sanctioning bodies and conferences, culminating in an elevation to Division I in 1987 that was earlier than Hammerle wouldโve liked and primarily driven by menโs basketball.
She left for Northern Illinois in 1998, just as the Phoenix were on the cusp of becoming a perennial power, handing the reins to Borseth, then Matt Bollant, then Borseth again (notably, Borseth left Green Bay for Michigan, then changed his mind five seasons later and returned while still holding the Wolverines job, speaking volumes about the appeal of the program for many). Each coach has, in turn, recruited tons of great players, with names like Chari Nordgaard, Nicole Soulis, Julie Wojta, Celeste Hoewisch, Kayla Tetschlag, Pam Roecker, and Amanda Leonhard-Perry dotting both the UWGB record books and Krakerโs interview schedule. Those individuals have all added their own touches to the program of course, whether itโs Bollant introducing the dribble drive or Nordgaard becoming a go-to player on a team that typically lacks them, but the overall system remains largely unchanged since the early days of the program.
Iโd be remiss if I didnโt offer a few words on The Green Bay Wayโs design and layout, executed by The Teaching Press at UW-Green Bay. Despite the COVID pandemic that shut down key resources, not to mention an obvious lack of experience, a team of 20 student interns did a very capable job of creating attractive spreads that seamlessly integrated a healthy volume of photography and assembling them into a great display piece. At the same time, there were some key trade-offs made. Most pages have three columns of text to accommodate low-resolution images unable to span an entire page without help, making the book an extremely dense read (its 194 pages felt more like 294), with copy that crept a bit too close to the binding. But all in all, for a student-driven publishing house working on its second-ever job and given some daunting challenges, The Teaching Press did exceptional work.
Despite Krakerโs sometimes-problematic heavy handedness and frequent moralizing, ultimately The Green Bay Way gave me what I wanted, a review of the Horizon Leagueโs historically dominant program and plenty of insight as to how it got to that point. I just wish I didn’t have to roll my eyes quite as often on the way there.
The Green Bay Way is available through the UW-Green Bay Bookstore or by contacting the author.
This is the annual HoriZone Roundtable writer’s forum, in which Bob and Matt invite contributors from horizoneroundtable.com to discuss their respective team’s off-seasons, prospects for the 2021-22 season, and views of the rest of the conference. This year’s participants include John Parker (@horizonejohn), Kyle Craven (@KyleCraven_NR), Alec Kwait (@alec_kwait), Karic Jones (@Karic_Jones), Marc Weems (@bigweems), Kyle Rossi (@KyleHZRT), and Horizon Boy (@HorizonBoy_HB).
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The Green Bay Phoenix are going to have their work cut out for them in 2021. Will Ryan returns only seven players from last season’s roster, four of which saw meaningful minutes. Itโs obvious the goal was to retool, find better system fits, and bring long-term stability to Green bay.
Playing time and cohesion are going to be among the hardest questions Will Ryan has to sort through when the phoenix are back on the court. In large part, minutes are available at each and every position โ this is a clean slate for every player on the roster. Itโs a mystery at this point how the team is going to mesh, but the one thing I feel confident saying is that Emmanuel Ansong is going to be the X-factor on this roster.
During this era of position-less basketball, an undersized – hyper athletic forward that plays bigger than his size is what every coach is searching for. Will Ryan has that in Manny Ansong, whom he brought with him from D2 Wheeling University. Ansong appeared in only 19 games due to eligibility issues last season, and was worked into the rotation slowly – before forcing his way onto the floor and making a name for himself.
Ansong would prove to be Green Bayโs most productive โbigโ on the roster despite standing at just 6-foot-4. He would go on to average 10.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.1 assists – all while averaging (1.053 points per possession) which put him in the 88th percentile in all of college basketball.
Heโs not someone you build an offense around by any means, but heโs highly productive despite low usage โ making him the ultimate complimentary piece. Ansong led the team in ORtg by a large margin (for those who regularly appeared in the rotation) as well as leading the team in PER. I can assure you this didnโt go unnoticed by Will Ryan, who rarely took him off the court late last season.ย
Offensively Ansong is definitely raw – evidenced by the out of control nature he sometimes finds himself playing in, which isnโt unusual for a late bloomer with his rare athleticism. However, he seems to have a good understanding of where his bread is buttered (around the rim/in the post). Ansong averaged (1.25 PPP) on post ups last season, which ranked in the 97th percentile in all of college basketball. Heโs generally much quicker than his defender and can beat them to the rim by putting it on the deck or with a quick drop step and exploding to the rim. Heโs also a phenomenal rebounder for his size, specifically on the offensive glass. The amount of second chance points he gave Green Bay last season was astounding. For all the reasons he benefits the team as a undersized forward, this may be the most important.
The defensive end is where the bulk of improvement needs to be done. Of the ten players who appeared in 19 or more games last season, Ansong recorded the worst defensive PPP allowed (1.07) on the roster. Now this isnโt to say that he isnโt a capable defender, because all of the tools are there. Ansong was often defending someone considerably bigger than him which is no easy task. On top of it, this defensive system is one that takes all players on the floor being in sync.
With his eligibility in question, he didnโt get a fair shake at the reps many others earned early in the season, more or less getting thrown into the fire and learning on the job. He has all the intangibles to be a good defender and has a great work ethic, so Iโm expecting to see an improved effort on the defensive end. Will Ryan stresses the importance of being in position and preventing points more than scoring them, so to play the heavy minutes heโs in line for โ defense is where heโs going to have to show an improved effort.ย
Getting Ansong to refine his game and play more under control is going to be the difference in seeing Ansong take the next step in his development. Because when Ansong gets a little overzealous it leads to some ugly mistakes and forces turnovers, which as we all know is something Will Ryan isnโt going to tolerate.
The best thing about Ansong is he already has the athletic traits in which you cannot teach. Heโs a big ball of clay right now and may have the highest upside on the entire roster. There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the program at the moment, but Ansong is the one player I feel confident has a role etched in stone. If he takes a noticeable leap in his second year with the phoenix โ making an all-Horizon League team isnโt totally out of the question.ย
Welcome to the Starting Five, your rundown of the five key stories in #HLWBB since the last Starting Five.
Almost exactly two months after embattled former Detroit Mercy coach AnnMarie Gilbert walked away from the job โ no need to rehash all of that at this point โ leaving the team with essentially one coach (assistant LaTanya Collins, who was immediately promoted to interim head coach) and two known players (previous commits Taylor Blunt and Irene Murua), the Titans have “finalized” a 2021-22 roster. Wild.
Winning the offseason and winning on the 92-by-49 are two very different things of course, and weโll find out about the latter soon enough, but for now, Titans fans should be encouraged not only by the speed of the rebuild, but by the quality as well. The new UDM roster includes five DI transfers in Murua from Louisiana Tech, Janna Lewis from Northern Kentucky (who also played for Collins at Motlow State CC), Monique Pruitt from Utah State, Daija Moses from Rider, and Brandi Washington from Grambling. The coaching staff features Collins, who has had success everywhere from high school to high majors, as well as Wanika Owsley, who has DI head coaching experience, and an up and comer in Stephanie Edwards.
To be clear, UDM will be absolutely nobodyโs pick to make noise in the league this season, but theyโll ruin someoneโs day at some point. Underestimate them at your peril.
Last week, Youngstown State became the second HLWBB team to release their full non-conference schedule and they were followed on Tuesday by UDM. Heads up, risky double-embed incoming, find me on the other side.
Neither one strikes me as super ambitious with YSUโs trip to Penn State standing as the only high-major opponent on either slate. But that said, playing things that way makes sense for both programs right now, with the Titans and Penguins both trying to fit a ton of new players together (for very different reasons). Common opponents Eastern Michigan, Akron, and Canisius will certainly give us plenty of opportunity to misuse the transitive property before conference play starts โ but hey, whatโs the fun of any of this without logical fallacies?
There are a sufficient number of games now out there to make it a bad idea to list all of them every time, but just to hit some highlights, Green Bay was the first full release back on July 26th. A couple intriguing Milwaukee games have leaked out as well, including a home game against Wisconsin on November 24th and a trip to Florida State ten days prior to that. Donโt be surprised if what should be a loaded Panthers team grabs one for the league somewhere along the line.
Finally, I mentioned it last month, but the last time we had a relatively normal season, the full conference schedule was announced on September 18th. A couple schools waited until that day to announce their non-league slates, and Wright State actually waited until a week later with theirs, but the most of the league went ahead of the HL date. So basically, expect to see a few more of these over the next couple weeks.
As COVID-19โs Delta variant continues to accelerate across the country, a number of Horizon League institutions have revised their previous full-go plans and backtracked into requiring masks indoors. Oakland, Cleveland State, Green Bay, Northern Kentucky, Detroit Mercy, and probably others I havenโt seen all fall into that category. Your guess is as good as mine as far as how any of it affects basketball season โ arenas are indoors, so presumably fans will have to be masked as things stand right now, but as weโve seen, attendance restrictions are something else on the table (that hopefully stay on said table).
Then thereโs Youngstown State. As of this writing, YSU has not done anything beyond โencouragingโ people to wear a mask or get a vaccine. Predictably, people arenโt particularly thrilled about that. So whatโs going on?
Oh noooo. As it turns out Julie Gentile, the school official in charge of YSUโs COVID response, isnโt as big on masks, vaccines, or the CDC as she is on conspiracy theories. While Gentile certainly has the right to believe and share what she wants, as a public official responsible for the health of thousands of students, faculty, staff, and (hopefully) fans, her views are alarming at best.
School spokespeople insist that their policies are under constant review, so itโs entirely possible that everything has changed by your arrival here. But for the time being, YSU is the odds-on favorite to lead the conference in superspeader events.
Outside of Detroit Mercy, the team that had the most reconstruction work to do this summer was Wright State. The Raiders, of course, lost their entire coaching staff to Memphis as well as most of their top players, with the toppiest of those players, Angel Baker, transferring to Ole Miss.
Yet while we were rubbernecking in the general direction of Calihan Hall for most of the summer (for good reason, to be fair), WSU has gone about their business relatively quietly. With that in mind, itโs nice to see that the Dayton Daily News sat down with new head coach Kari Hoffman and got a thorough update on all things Raiders.
“They want to get after it. They want to get up and down. They have a lot of grit. They want to compete.”
Wright State head coach Kari Hoffman
Youโre definitely better off clicking through and reading the Q-and-A versus accepting my two-sentence recap of the thing, but the topics covered including assembling a staff, WSUโs community service projects, a rundown of July recruiting and summer workouts, and the two newest Raiders, Deesh Beck and Makira Webster. Itโs going to be tough for the defending champs to get up to speed in time for what should be an ultra-competitive league, but it does seem like Hoffman and company have a decent start at the very un-glamourous but vital task of culture building.
The NCAA itself has also had itself quite the summer, between things like NIL and a scathing independent report outlining inequality between the menโs and womenโs basketball tournaments released a couple weeks ago. Those things (and a few others, like the biennial deluge of conference realignment rumors) have led to a larger conversation about what the NCAA should fundamentally be, since most agree that they do a pretty awful job at what they are now (which, to be fair, is a far more complex undertaking than was ever contemplated back in 1906).
Anyway, if a bureaucratic institution has a problem, there is undoubtedly going to be a committee charged with solving it. Enter the NCAA Constitution Committee, which includes Robert Morris president Chris Howard as one of its 28 members. Howard and his colleagues are charged with identifying “the core principles that define college sports and propose a new governance model that allows for quicker change without sacrificing broader values, while either reaffirming or redefining those values.” Fancy.
All of that would be pretty unremarkable if not for this: people really, really don’t like Chris Howard right now. In fact, there’s a petition out there aiming to have him removed, due mostly to his handling of RMU’s hockey programs. The Colonials men’s and women’s teams were cut without warning (and without a board of trustees vote) back in May and since then, Howard has been completely MIA to the public while hiding behind a handful of clumsy press releases and continuing to work to enhance his own brand behind the scenes with things like, well, cushy committee assignments. The outcry over the hockey cuts – and threatened litigation – led to something of a reprieve, and hope for the resurrection of the programs remains (the school announced last week that hockey would remain sidelined for 2021-22, but that fundraising would continue with an eye on a 2022-23 return).
First in a series looking at Horizon League Womenโs basketballโs committed players for 2022
Height: 6-3, Position: PF, High School: Brown Deer (WI), Commit Date: March 29, 2021
Cleveland Stateโs sole commit for next year to this point is a little bit of a coup, as Reisma hails from suburban Milwaukee, an area that is also a couple hours down I-43 from Green Bay of course, although neither of the Horizon League programs located in those cities offered. However, IUPUI โ a school that certainly knows a little bit about versatile bigs โ was among the others vying for the services of Wisconsinโs ninth-rated 2022 player.
Likely the first question most people want answered with 6-3 prospects, especially those in high school, is whether they translate to a higher level or whether theyโre only successful because theyโre, you know, larger than everyone else. After all, there are plenty of 6-3 and 6-4 girls roaming the Horizon League, so players need a well-stocked toolbox to survive. With Reisma though, itโs easy to see that itโs a total non-issue even from a few brief highlights. She jumps off the screen as a great athlete who makes good reads around the basket and adjusts accordingly, and has also developed a complete game on top of that. Prep Girls Hoops, for example, lauded her facilitation skills, defense, and midrange game while Jr. All-Star liked just about everything they saw, down to the way she ties her shoes.
Reismaโs position is listed differently by just about everyone, but Diener-Ivers Basketballโs review called her a stretch 4, which sounds about right to me as she rounds into her potential.
Height: 5-5, Position: PG, High School: McCutcheon (Lafayette, IN), Commit Date: July 20, 2020
Maggio might be the human embodiment of โspark plug guard,โ my preferred phrase for those players who have probably been told a time or 30 that theyโre undersized and decide to control the controllables by developing a superhuman work rate to compensate for it. You can take my word for it if you want, but youโd probably be better off just looking at how her AAU career ended: with a broken clavicle going for a steal on July 7th.
One scouting report called Maggio “a dynamic little point guard with a lot of creativity and feistiness to her game.” Well, okay, they all called her that, just using slightly different words from each other. But theyโre not wrong. Just donโt spend so much time marveling at her effort level that you miss the fact that sheโs also a pretty good basketball player with a quick first step, even quicker hands, and the ability to effortlessly knock down threes.
Interestingly enough, Maggio did have some mutual interest with DIIโs Cedarville (led at the time, of course, by now-Wright State head coach Kari Hoffman). But thereโs just something that seems right to me about the Maggio-IUPUI partnership โ sheโs close to home and jumped at the Jags’ offer last summer, and by the time she arrives on campus, sheโll have a chance to make an impact on a newly-young team. Between all of that and her high-energy style of play, she has the look of a future fan favorite in Indy.
Height: 5-7, Position: CG, High School: Crown Point (IN), Commit Date: August 6, 2021
The Horizon Leagueโs most recent commit (as of this writing) is also one of its most impressive, as Austin Parkinson landed yet another in-state gem with Carrothers. Her accolades speak for themselves, as she led Crown Point to the state title last season and was named Indianaโs Gatorade Player of the Year on top of it โ and those are just the headliners among a bevy of other statewide and local honors for the stateโs top-ranked combo guard.
Parkinson was certainly happy to get her, over the likes of Butler, Toledo, and Tulsa: “Carrothers picked up the phone late Friday to call IUPUI head coach Austin Parkinson and committed while he was out for a walk. He screamed in excitement, Carrothers said, waking up his newborn child in the process.”
Sorry about that Pearce.
“I think Iโm going to fit in pretty well,” Carrothers told The Times of Northwest Indiana. “[Parkinson] basically wants to have guards who can switch positions. He thinks if I keep doing what Iโm doing I should get a decent amount of playing time as a freshman early in my career.”
So what makes her such an exciting prospect for the Jags? Her versatility is a good place to start, as itโs clear that she has a full offensive arsenal and can beat people in just about every way there is to be beat. 1751 high school points with a year to go doesnโt happen by accident, after all. Prep Girls Hoops fills in most of the rest: “She plays with an outstanding motor, competes every possession, and she is also a nice rebounder and a solid defender who forces a lot of turnovers.”
Height: 5-7, Position: PG, High School: Hortonville (WI), Commit Date: August 4, 2019
Another esteemed point guard (sheโs ranked as the fifth-best player in Wisconsin by Prep Girls Hoops), Peppler seems like an ideal addition for a Panthers team thatโs built its identity around defense under Kyle Rechlicz.
More from that PGH scouting report: “Peppler is an outstanding two-way talent. Her strength is definitely her defensive intensity and instincts. She pressures the ball well and reads offensive sets when sheโs off the ball.”
Beyond that though, sheโs also received plenty of raves for her offensive skillset and floor leadership. Prospects Nation described her as “a high IQ point guard who continues to evolve into a multi-faceted playmaker. She had her play finishing skills on full displayโฆ her jump shot looks as crisp and her footwork is also on point.”
PGH took it even further by placing her offense somewhere beyond “game manager,” saying that Peppler can score when needed with a consistent jumper. To support that point, she averaged 15 points during her junior high school season and topped out with 26 in a win over Neenah.
Thatโs about everything, right?
Itโs easy to envision a ready-made spot in the Panthers lineup for Peppler, as Milwaukee is a school known for tough and efficient guards, but one that will be without Miquela Santoro and Sydney Staver by the time Peppler gets to campus.
Height: 5-9, Position: PG, High School: Mason City (IA), Commit Date: November 7, 2020
Williams is in a rather unenviable position: her name is identical to another basketball prospect, a 2023 from Missouri who ranks 13th nationally on ESPN and is committed to UCLA (to say nothing of the videos with breathless titles like “LeBron Pulled Up to Watch Jada Williams!”). Ouch.
Still, donโt sell Jada of Iowa short. As you might expect, she has more than a little bit in common with classmate and position-mate Peppler, though her highlights show her to be someone who prefers to attack the rim and either finish or kick from there, versus Pepplerโs more measured and shot-oriented approach. Hereโs Williamsโ high school coach, Curt Klaahsen.
“She is one of the best defensive players in the state, can guard anybody. She works really hard at that end, and has good anticipation skillsโฆ she is a really good athlete, but she has really worked hard on her skills. It was clear because of the schools that were recruiting her, and the fact that she gets to go to a really great Division I school with an excellent tradition and get a full scholarship, is a really great credit to her and her family, and all the support that theyโve given her as well.”
Williams, as Klaahsen mentioned, is a phenomenal athlete โ an opinion supported by Prep Girls Hoops, which called her the most athletic guard in the state. Itโs hardly your typical scouting platitude in light of the fact that sheโs a state track qualifier in multiple events, with a 100-meter time under 13 seconds.
Height: 5-11, Position: Wing, High School: Chillicothe Huntington (OH), Commit Date: June 28, 2021
Thereโs a lot to be said for getting in on a player early, with Basye now standing as a recent data point. NKU started recruiting her in seventh grade despite her location in off-the-radar south central Ohio, finally seeing the payoff with a commitment four years later. Thatโs not a small reward for the Norseโs continued loyalty and persistence, as her stock was on the rise with programs like Cincinnati, Toledo, and Kent State sniffing around, to go along with a status as the 14th-best player in a deep state.
“Complete” is a word that tends to be thrown around a lot when discussing Basyeโs game and you probably donโt need to go much further than her stat line: the All-Ohio second teamer posted 25 and 11 as a junior and, just as impressively, shot 89 percent from the line. Prep Girls Hoopsโ Jim Dabbelt raved that Basye is a “great scorer, very deep range and has the ability to slash and score at the rim.” When watching her highlights, just when you feel like you have a decent read on her as a big, physical wing with great defensive length, there she is effortlessly dropping pull-up threes.
“I feel like I bring versatility to the team,” Basye told her hometown Chillicothe Gazette. “I’m a big guard and I can play anything from point guard to small forward. Then if we get a mismatch, I can play inside and guard the post.”
Watching NCAA womenโs basketball alumni perform at the Olympics is typically a privilege reserved for the UConns, Baylors, and Notre Dames of the world. However at Tokyo 2020, Green Bay fans were able to join in on the fun โ with a little bit of a twist. Several of them, actually.
Enter former Phoenix guard Kaili Lukan. Lukan enjoyed a highly-decorated HLWBB career from 2012-16 as a two-time all-conference second-teamer and the leagueโs defensive player of the year as a senior, when she had 75 steals. Green Bay was still at the height of its dynasty powers when Lukan roamed the Kress and accordingly, she helped the team to three Horizon League titles and NCAA Tournament trips, though 2015โs version was particularly notable given Lukanโs spot on the all-tournament team and the 17-and-8 line she fired off against Princeton at NCAAs.
Since graduation, Lukan has changed positions, to forward. Rugby sevens forward on the Canadian national team, to be specific, a side she joined in 2017.
This wasnโt something done on a whim. In fact, Lukan isnโt even the only member of her family to play both basketball at Green Bay and rugby for the national team; she followed her sister Megan, a similarly successful member of Phoenix from 2010-14, who went on to win rugby sevens bronze with Canada in Rio five years ago in both regards, first playing rugby at Barrie Central Collegiate Institute.
“It’s a dream come true,โ their mother, Margaret Mulder, told CTV. “I had no idea that they would get to this level. She’s followed in Megan’s footsteps for many, many years, but she’s definitely standing on her own two feet.”
The younger Lukan was set back quite a bit by an ACL tear that forced her to miss most of 2018 with the national team (she also suffered an ACL tear as a freshman at Green Bay), but sheโs still rolled up several accomplishments including gold at the 2019 Pan Am Games. Canada also finished third in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons of the Sevens Series, the first of which served as an Olympic qualification.
To be clear, there are far better instructors for Rugby Sevens 101 out there in the world. Iโm not even an expert, just a guy whoโs watched it a few times and became interested. But itโs a fascinating sport and while itโs been around just as long as the 15-a-side versions of the sport, itโs currently enjoying an explosion of popularity worldwide (not the least of which is its inclusion in the Olympic program for the second time), so letโs get some basics out there.
As the name indicates, there are only seven players on the field for each team at a time which creates a game where brute force often takes a back seat to speed and conditioning, though thereโs still plenty of physicality involved. Generally, the mechanics arenโt entirely different from American football (though we donโt know a ton about that in the Horizon League either) in that the basic object of the game is to advance the ball into the other teamโs end through running, kicking, and lateral or backwards passing.
If you successfully touch the ball down โ you do have to actually touch the ball down on the grass for it to count โ itโs called a try, worth five points. The scoring team then has the opportunity to drop kick a conversion from 20 meters (just under 22 yards) away for an additional two points, but with the catch that the kick must be taken from a spot perpendicular to where the try was scored. As a result, the “easier” tries wider on the field create more difficult conversions, while managing to break the try line in the middle of the field makes for a less challenging one.
Of course, this entire time the side without the ball is trying to get it, usually by tackling the ball carrier, who then must let go of the ball, or by disrupting possession in other ways. Forwards like Lukan have the decidedly less-glamorous job of winning possession through scrums, which typically are awarded when the team with the ball illegally propels it forward, and lineouts, the name given to the out of bounds restarts that often look like jump balls. It’s not hard to imagine some rugby coach at Barrie Central saying to Lukan “hey, you’re big, you play basketball, get in that scrum” at some point.
Hereโs a video that helped me out a bit on all of that, if you’re inclined to undertake some additional research and fill in some of the additional details and nuance that I’ve omitted here:
While โsevensโ references a player count, it could also stand for the length of each half. Yep, the entire game time of a match is 14 minutes. Throwing in a brief halftime, stoppage time, and a handful of other short delays takes things to about 20 minutes total, so in the time it takes to watch a baseball or football game, you can literally watch, say, all four sevens quarterfinal matchups and a pair of 9th-12th placement contests. In fact, the entire womenโs rugby sevens tournament lasted three days with morning and evening (or evening and overnight if youโre in the U.S.) three-hour slots on each day covering three pool round games, an eight-team playoff, and enough consolation brackets to decide every teamโs final position on the field. In that sense itโs a little like 3×3 basketball, a sport seemingly tailor-made for our smartphone-truncated attention spans.
Of course, the unfortunate side of that, particularly in circling things back to Lukan and Team Canada, is how quickly the Olympic experience comes and goes. Sure, it might not be quite as fast as a swimmer only entered in one event, but itโs a stark contrast to something like the basketball tournaments, which sprawl over two weeks. And for Canada, it certainly went.
The Games started well enough, with a 33-0 thrashing of Brazil to open Pool B play led by captain Ghislaine Landry and her 13 points on a try and four conversions, though things took a turn downward seven hours later when Canada fell 26-12 to an upstart Fiji team, a result that proved a critical blow. The ascendant Fijians, who finished 11th at the 2018 World Cup and 8th at the Rio Olympics, were just beginning a surprising run that would take them all the way to the bronze medal. In addition to placing Canada in their hole, they eliminated 2016 gold medalists Australia on the way to the podium and nearly took down 2020’s eventual gold medalists, rugby superpower New Zealand, as well.
The 1-1 mark set up a wild second day for the Canadians, one which more or less ran the full emotional gamut both on and off the field. Early in the first session, France dominated Canada 31-0 to win the pool and put Lukan and company on the ropes.
Roughly around the time that the France match was ending, a man named Jamie Cudmore logged on to Twitter to revel in the Canadiansโ misfortune. Cudmore, a former national team player who holds coaching and administrative roles with Rugby Canada, probably shouldโve thrown his phone in the toilet instead.
Some background is in order: In January, Canadaโs team (including Lukan) filed a harassment and bullying complaint with Rugby Canada against former coach John Tait. That ultimately led to Taitโs resignation in April, although an independent investigation cleared him of wrongdoing. Bad feelings remain on both sides of the issue, with the players asserting that their concerns werenโt properly heard and Tait loyalists within the governing body continuing to do what they can to make the teamโs lives miserable.
Cudmore, for what it’s worth, was fired the next day.
“I’m not going to lie. It’s been a really tough time for the group off the field and on the field,” Landry told the Canadian Press just before the Olympics started. “You can’t just turn that off when you show up. But credit to how tight this group is right now. We went through it together. We did get closer. A lot of honest, vulnerable conversations were had within our group to help each other out and to speak our truths. I don’t think any of us would have planned or wanted to do this at the timing that it happened. But I’m so proud of the way we’ve come through it.”
Given the timing of Cudmoreโs abuse and the old wounds it re-opened, itโs likely Canadaโs team didnโt fully process the swings their tournament fate took in the hours after the loss to France.
Essentially, the squadโs remaining hope centered around the fact that the eight quarterfinals participants included the first and second place teams from each of the three pools, as well as two of the three third place finishes. Low seeds are low for a reason of course, but itโs still on the medal track, so Lukan and company sat through the rest of the late session and scoreboard watched, particularly with respect to the point differential tiebreaker.
Major damage to the Canadiansโ remaining quarterfinal hopes came when China (Pool Cโs third-place team) blew out Japan 29-0 in what was expected to be a closer affair, vaulting the Chinese ahead on point differential. However, the final punch was the most crushing, as the Russian Olympic Committee team (which occupied third in Pool A) lost to New Zealand 33-0. The result gave the Russians the last quarterfinal spot by the narrowest of margins, as they were tied with Canada on point differential and advanced on their 47 points for to Canadaโs 45. It was tantalizingly close to flipping the other way, as New Zealand had the ball deep in ROC territory when the game ended, and any additional points from the Black Ferns would have seen Canada advance.
Nobody dreams of playing in a 9th-12th placement mini-tournament, particularly not if youโve squared up with Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament before. Nevertheless, once Canada found themselves there they made the best of it, first dominating Brazil once again, then taking down Kenya 24-10 to clinch 9th place.
Lukan played her best rugby of the tournament against Kenya and was instrumental in Canada’s first two tries that made things fairly comfortable for the remainder of the contest. First, she set up Charity Williams 1:42 into the match with a long run deep into the Kenyan end. Then, just over a minute later, the woman who had 253 basketball assists in her Green Bay career dropped this dime to Bianca Farella:
For a team that had entered the Olympics as a second seed with strong medal hopes, things didn’t go as planned, to understate it by quite a bit. But, if nothing else, Canada now has the opportunity to continue healing from a brutal situation and prepare for their next tournament as well as the next Olympics, which is just three years down the road thanks to COVID, while their HLWBB alumna forward continues doing the conference proud.
Welcome to the Starting Five, your rundown of the five key stories in #HLWBB since the last Starting Five.
Even though the order of these is totally unimportant most of the time, I had to lead with Green Bay, the first HLWBB team to announce its non-conference schedule. Take a look:
After touring the rest of the state system with exhibition games, things officially get underway for the Phoenix on November 9th at South Dakota State. The Jackrabbits are one of the tougher mid-major programs out there โ theyโre only a couple years removed from a Sweet Sixteen run as a six seed, and they made the NCAA Tournament again last season โ so Kevin Borseth and company will have to be ready to go right out of the gate. Other highlights include a trip to Wisconsin, the South Point Shootout (an MTE in Las Vegas, with the other Ts in that E still unknown), and the always-crucial HL vs. MAC battle for Great Lakes region supremacy against Central Michigan.
While Green Bay might be the first team to pump a full non-conference schedule out there, you may recall that Northern Kentucky has announced a couple of games as well. Regardless, expect the majority of teams to release their slates over the next month or so.
Another sign that weโre on a collision course with 2021-22 are posted rosters. Last week, Robert Morris joined the rest of the league in adding their squad for the coming year to their website (Detroit Mercy, in case youโre wondering, has a partial list of their announced signings up, but the page has rolled over from last season so Iโm counting it).
The Colonial Sports Network has more on the roster, which includes eight new players in all, seven of which are traditional freshman recruits.
Plenty of the Colonialsโ trademark diversity is on display as RMU brought โem in from places like London (Rebecca Dwomoh), Montreal (Phoenix Gedeon), Spain (Alejandra Mastral) and, uh, Berlin Center, OH (Danielle Vuletich). Vuletich, one of the groupโs headliners, was rated one of the top 25 players in her class statewide by the Ohio Girls Basketball Report as a junior in 2019-20, and should be an immediate interior upgrade.
While Detroit Mercyโs list of players remains a bit short (as mentioned), the Titans keep adding to the names that typically appear just under that, the coaching staff.
Interim head coach LaTanya Collins hired Wanika Owsley as her associate head coach early in the week. Owsley, like Collins herself, has a bevy of experience with a lot of different types of programs. Most recently, she was an associate head coach and recruiting coordinator at Morgan State, while prior to that she spent a pair of seasons at Mississippi State and three at Jefferson Community College in Missouri.
A couple days later, Stephanie Edwards jumped aboard as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. Edwards spent the last four seasons in a similar role at Jacksonville (where she was the Dolphinsโ captain as a player from 2012-14) and had a separate two-year stint as a grad assistant at JU prior to that. In between the two tours at her alma mater, Edwards was part of the inaugural season at Florida Southwestern State College.
The Titans arenโt out of the woods just yet, and as long as Collins carries the interim tag who really knows how permanent any of this is, but at the very least UDM is pulling together a staff that can set the program up for some success.
Transfer activity has thankfully (itโs exhausting trying to keep up with it, Iโm just going to be honest about that) slowed down quite a bit from its peak a couple months ago, but Kari Hoffman and Wright State landed a late newcomer in former Ohio Bobcat Deesh Beck.
The Raiders havenโt been particularly active in the portal this summer, in large part because of the delay between the departure of Katrina Merriweather (along with her whole staff) and Hoffmanโs hire. However, Iโm going to put myself out on a limb and say that Beck may prove to be a sneaky good add.
Despite not offering overwhelming size at 5-9, sheโs a hard worker in the paint and on the glass โ in the per 40 stats from her last full season (2019-20), she was in the 83rd percentile nationally with 3.4 offensive boards while adding 2.4 steals. Additionally, she shot 48 percent from two as a freshman in 2018-19. And hey for good measure, here she is getting a loose ball and holding off Macee Williams for a bucket, which is pretty hard to do.
Basically, thereโs some evidence to suggest that Beck is a versatile player who can make more of an impact than she was given the opportunity to make down in Athens.
Finally, congratulations are in order for Youngstown State head coach John Barnes, who will be inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame on August 15th.
Barnes, who was actually voted in last year (but, you know, pandemic) has been with the Penguins since 2013 but before that was a longtime Yooper. The Escanaba, MI native scored over 1,000 points for the local high school before playing at Division II’s Michigan Tech. He later returned to serve as a longtime coach at MTU, including six seasons as a men’s assistant and as the women’s head coach from 2003-10. In the latter role, he amassed a 156-55 record and three conference titles, along with a couple trips to the Elite Eight.
Welcome to the Starting Five, your rundown of the five key stories in #HLWBB since the last Starting Five.
I think itโs okay to be brutally honest about something: Most people donโt actually care about grades. Everyone says they care, but show me one case where an athletic director met with a high-profile coach and was like โWell, youโve won 12 games in three years, but your kids are killing it in the classroom, hereโs a contract extension.โ For fans and donors, thereโs a certain allowance made. If the program is absolutely out of control in some way (Iโm lumping discipline issues in here as well) thatโs obviously unacceptable, but beyond that, nobodyโs going to act any differently when a teamโs GPA is 3.1 versus when it’s 3.8.
Well, Iโm here to tell you that I honestly do care. So when I see news that two HLWBB programs threw up GPAs among the top three in the entire country this past year according to the Womenโs Basketball Coaches Association, well, thatโs pretty special. Youngstown State was second to Maine with a 3.874, including nine players with 4.0s in both the fall and spring semesters. Robert Morris was right behind the Guins with a 3.824, the fifth consecutive top-four ranking for the Colonials.
Any day the Horizon League dominates the top of a national list is a good day as far as Iโm concerned, and I probably don’t need to tell anyone reading this about the added pressures life as a Division I student-athlete places on school, so congratulations and thank yous are in order to both YSU and RMU.
Weโre just over two weeks into the NIL era, and if thereโs one thing we know so far, itโs that we donโt know anything. Exhibit A: Barstool Athletics, the arm of Barstool Sports that suddenly popped up a few weeks ago toโฆ represent? โฆgive exposure to? โฆthrow t-shirts and pizza at? NCAA student-athletes high on newfound NIL freedom. Nearly 1,500 athletes across all schools and teams have aligned with Barstool so far, with Cleveland State hooper Isabella Geraci standing as one of the earliest adopters; she was the 33rd introduced on the Barstool Athletics Instagram account. A smattering of other Horizon Leaguers are also involved, as well as a few players from the lacrosse teams at CSU and Robert Morris who technically arenโt Horizon Leaguers.
However thereโs a catch, related to the fact that Barstool is part-owned by Penn National Gaming and runs a sportsbook. Involvement with gambling enterprises is, of course, one of the big remaining no-nos.
Not much to add to that. Be careful and check with your compliance departments before signing up for anything, kids.
The Horizon League got crushed in a recent report from the University of Minnesotaโs Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, ranking dead last among Division I conferences with just 27.6 percent (29 of 105) of womenโs programs league-wide led by a female head coach in 2020-21. The national average was 42.7 percent, and the Ivy Leagueโs 55.1 percent led the way.
When honing in specifically on womenโs basketball, the Horizon League improved dramatically, with โ remember, weโre talking about 2020-21 here โ Kyle Rechlicz, Tasha Pointer, AnnMarie Gilbert, Katrina Merriweather, Camryn Whitaker, and Niecee Nelson making up exactly half of the leagueโs head coach club (though that still trails the 64.3 percent national average for basketball). Some more good news? Sure: All three of HLWBBโs coaching changes this offseason involved women being replaced with other women, as LaTanya Collins, Kari Hoffman, and Maria Marchesano jumped in for Gilbert, Merriweather, and Nelson. But all in all, the HL has a quite a bit of ground to make up when it comes to gender equality.
This weekโs winner of Schedulewatchโข is Northern Kentucky, which laughed at our weird obsession with schedule releases of non-HL teams, then just went ahead and started dropping games themselves.
The Norse will host Eastern Kentucky on November 14th, four days after a previously-announced home contest against Kent State. Owing mostly to the fact that NKU was in Division II until less than a decade ago, the series history with the Colonels is more fractured than you would expect at first glance. In the most recent meeting โ and the only one since 1982-83 โ EKU took a 69-62 decision on November 6, 2019. Carissa Garcia and Ivy Turner combined for 34 of the 62 NKU points on the losing side of the ledger in that one.
Now we just need to get Western Kentucky in this mix so we can have some real fun with some sort of Royal Rumble situation.
Kind of out of nowhere on Thursday, NCAA President Mark Emmert dropped some comments that were thought-provoking, if nothing else, concerning how college sports might be structured in the future.
โI think this is a really, really propitious moment to sit back and look at a lot of the core assumptions and say, โYou know, if we were going to build college sports again, and in 2020 instead of 1920, what would that look like?โ What would we change? What would we expect or want to be different in the way we manage it. And this is good. This is the right time.โ
NCAA President Mark Emmert
Two specifics Emmert mentioned: The current three-division structure and the idea that “field hockey is different than football,” hinting at the possibility of the NCAA taking a step back and letting sport-specific administrators, possibly at the conference level, run the show. Both could obviously have huge implications for the Horizon League. On the surface it doesnโt seem like any huge divisional shift would be friendly to the conference, but I have to think enough people out there understand that mid-majors are a huge part of what makes March Madness special. At the same time, if everything is on the table, why not have different classifications for each sport? Itโs sort of a fun, if a bit overwhelming, exercise.
It is also at least a little bit funny that NCAA leadership is having an existential crisis over the NIL situation that most agree is a huge change but also a perfectly reasonable one that doesnโt chip at the fundamental structure of college sports, but thatโs another thing.
Welcome to the Starting Five, your rundown of the key stories in #HLWBB from the past week, or however long it takes me to come up with five items during these doggiest of offseason days. The concept probably doesn’t require a ton of explanation, other than the fact that the order is absolutely meaningless, so let’s jump right in.
The nationโs various travel basketball circuits fired back up this month, but significantly, itโs also the first time that college coaches have been able to hit the road in earnest (besides some state-sponsored events last month) since 2019. The recruiting calendar allows for three weekends, this one along with the next two, for coaches to take in everything from the Nike Tournament of Champions in Chicago to the Run 4 The Roses Classic in Louisville. The sheer volume of activity makes it an absolute grind of a month that goes on the cover of the โso you want to coachโ pamphlet, with a payoff โ teams are hoping โ of a couple good players on a future roster out of the hundreds on their radar.
HLWBB teams havenโt been shy about sharing the specific destinations of their coaches on social media for obvious reasons, and despite the always-enticing presence of the transfer market, enthusiasm for traditional recruiting remains extremely strong from what I can tell. Also, donโt embellish your packets kids:
CSU suddenly found itself back on Indeed this week when assistant coach Katelin Oney moved on to Northern Iowa. Oney was a standout for the Panthers from 2008-12 and is originally from Cedar Rapids, just an hour down the road from Cedar Falls (though itโs probably a bit longer if you take the Cedar River instead of I-380), so retaining her would have been a losing battle for just about anyone. Despite being less than a decade removed from college, Oney has a ton of diverse experience ranging from North Dakota to Texas, and the Vikes will try their best to fill her spot with a similar complement to Desma Thomas Bateast and Frozena Jerro.
The Oney news comes just a couple weeks after the program promoted Shelby Zoeckler to Director of Womenโs Basketball Operations, replacing Furman-bound Lauren Bornstein. While Zoeckler just received her bachelorโs degree in 2020 and is currently working on her masterโs, she is actually the senior member of the staff with five years of service, the last three of those spent as video coordinator. Zoeckler will undoubtedly bring her unmatched passion for the program to a job that requires a ton of thankless, behind-the-scenes work.
One final note on the staffing front: Cleveland State is also looking for a Director of Basketball Performance to cover both the womenโs and menโs teams. The position is likely one of those vague โprogram enhancementsโ that was a part of the Dennis Gates extension on the menโs side but hey, nothing wrong with accepting some spillover.
Donโt look now, but things are slowly returning to normal after an explosive six months at UDM. Since the AnnMarie Gilbert saga ended with her walking away last month, leading to the appointment of LaTanya Collins as interim coach, Motown appears to be singing once again. Through everything, the Titans somehow held on to combo guard Taylor Blunt (who signed during the early period), then added three more just-announced freshmen in Akyia Baker, Sonia Pereda, and Emma Trawally, along with Louisiana Tech transfer Irene Murua, during the height of the chaos. More recently, NKU grad transfer Janna Lewis and a pair of jucos, AโMoni Waiters (a desperately-needed big) and Imani McNeal, have committed to pump the Titansโ 2021-22 roster up to eight. UDM also hired Dashia Chandler as Director of Womenโs Basketball Operations this week.
Collins and company still arenโt home just yet, and it remains to be seen how competitive the team will be, but things feel light years ahead of where they were not too long ago.
Another late-ish transfer portal add involves Purdue Fort Wayne (coincidentally, one of the teams that benefited from the Gilbert situation, landing former Titan Sylare Starks through the portal), which grabbed Texas native Shianne Johnson away from Weber State. Johnson doesnโt have much tape over the last two seasons โ she didnโt play the second half of 2020-21 and was a medical redshirt in 2019-20 โ but thereโs plenty of reason to think sheโll be a great add for PFW. While the usual caveats about sample size apply, last season she boasted a 25.8 percent usage rate for the Wildcats, in part because she got up more than ten shots per game in 23.5 minutes. Shooters shoot, and this shooter might offer a jolt to a Mastodons team that averaged only 53.7 points per game last year.
Itโs not much, but we finally have the tiniest of leaks when it comes to the 2021-22 non-conference schedule. Kansas State announced their full schedule on Wednesday, which includes a visit from the Flames on December 22nd. It should be quite the test for Tasha Pointerโs retooled squad, which was only spared from the conference basement last season by the Detroit Mercy situation, as the Wildcats thumped UIC 84-40 in the only previous meeting between the teams, on November 11, 2019. Of course, Shelby Case and Tiana Jackson are the only current Flames who played in that contest, so itโs ancient history from the Windy City side of things.
The last time we started a season on a relatively normal timeline (2019-20, of course), the Horizon League released the conference schedule on September 18th. Green Bay was the first team to release a non-conference schedule on July 16th, followed by UDM on July 30th, then six more schools during the month of August. But until those start to drop, scouring the releases of non-HL teams for a handful of dates will be our favorite hobby.