'A great spot' to land: UWGB women's basketball scores big with transfer portal
GREEN BAY – University of Wisconsin-Green Bay women’s basketball coach Kevin Borseth and his staff made a concerted effort during the offseason to find some veterans in the NCAA transfer portal.
Borseth is an advocate of the portal, which was launched in October 2018, in part because he likes the thought of the entire recruiting process being wrapped up in two weeks rather than five years.
“I love it,” he said. “There is not a whole lot of wooing going on. At the end of the day, these players are zeroed in on they want to have a good basketball experience.
“In all reality, in my opinion, we provide the best basketball experience of any place in the country. Nobody gets a better basketball experience. At that point, for those players who potentially didn’t have one want to have one, this is a great spot for them to land.”
Still, almost all Phoenix players under Borseth have arrived on campus out of high school as traditional recruits.
UWGB hadn’t used the portal much in the first few years, although its lone addition was a big one. It signed former Appleton North guard Sydney Levy in 2020 after she spent her first two seasons at UW-Milwaukee, and she is the leading scorer for the Phoenix as a senior this season.
That worked out, so why not try again?
UWGB went searching for guards and found two key ones.
It started with Tatum Koenig at the beginning of April.
The Iowa native arrived in Green Bay as a graduate transfer after spending her first four years at Bradley University. Koenig was coming off a season in which she averaged 12 points and 3.6 assists and was one of the Braves’ career leaders in 3-point field goal percentage and assists.
UWGB’s portal pursuit continued a few weeks later when it landed junior Natalie McNeal.
The former Germantown star spent her first two seasons at St. Louis University, averaging 9.4 points and 5.3 rebounds as a sophomore.
It appears Borseth picked a good time to go all-in on the portal considering the injuries and departures that have plagued the Phoenix this season, giving his team some much-needed depth.
One doesn’t have to look any further than UWGB’s 75-55 win over Wright State on Sunday at the Kress Center, which was McNeal’s shining moment in her first season back in her home state.
The 5-foot-8 McNeal had a double-double by halftime and finished with a season-high 16 points and a career-high 16 rebounds, which came two games after she set a then-career-high with 11 boards.
McNeal is averaging 16.2 minutes but has played 20 or more in each of the last four games, including a season-high 29 in a win over Oakland earlier this month.
Koenig is averaging 16.1 minutes but has played 19 or more in each of the last five games. She has been a nice threat from beyond the arc and leads the team in 3-point shooting percentage at 42.5% (17-for-40).
The two are averaging a combined 9.3 points and 5.7 rebounds along with 52 assists and 36 steals.
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McNeal and Koenig have helped UWGB overcome plenty of obstacles with the departure of Hailey Oskey and injuries to Maddy Schreiber and Julia Hartwig. The Phoenix enters the final four games of the regular season with a sparkling 21-4 record and in a first-place tie with Cleveland State atop the Horizon League standings.
“Oh, it’s everything, you need experience,” said Borseth, before pulling out a quote from American poet James Russell Lowell, who died in 1891. “I think I’ve said before, ‘The thorn of experience is worth more than the wilderness of warning.’ “Those two have got a lot of it. So, they understand what big games are all about. In those kinds of games, they make things happen.
“We have been lucky so far.”
It can’t always be easy to go from one system to another and get comfortable enough to be productive right away, but the transfers have found a role and thrived in it.
“The key for us, is that for the most part, we allow players to do what they do, whatever that is,” Borseth said. “Then we try to adapt to their strengths rather than them adapt to us. It’s probably the best way I can describe it. Otherwise, you are trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. You spend too much time trying to learn things rather than let them do what they do.
“The key is learning your teammates. Learn what they do. Learn what their strengths are, and then build that into your system."
Maddy Schreiber's season is over
While Hartwig is working her way back after missing the last three weeks with a lower body injury, the news isn’t as promising on Schreiber.
The sophomore guard-forward’s season is over with an upper body injury. She hasn’t played since a game against Cleveland State on Jan. 14.
It’s a big blow for the Phoenix considering how important the former Kimberly product has been in her first two seasons.
She is second on the team in scoring at 9.9 points while shooting 53.4%.
Schreiber scored double figures in three of her final four games and five of her last seven.
Sophomore guard Callie Genke has started the last eight games in place of Schreiber and is averaging 5.4 points and 22 minutes during that span.
“She was our (second-leading) scorer,” Borseth said about Schreiber. “Take your (second-leading) scorer out of your lineup, somebody that rebounds, somebody that plays defense, somebody that’s a good passer, somebody that does everything on the court.
“Take one of your best players off the floor and what you do beyond that is difficult. But I think (point guard) Bailey (Butler) has stepped her game up. Natalie has stepped her game up. Everybody has done their share of trying to fill that void.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: UWGB women's basketball scores big with depth from transfer portal
