The Big Transfers In The Big Ten (So Far)

Maryland rebuilds, Indiana reloads

There’s still a little over a month until I plan to do my first team preview for the 2022-23 Big Ten season, but an update on some key transfer portal news feels necessary for a few reasons.

For one, there has been plenty of action in the portal within the conference. Two, it is much harder to keep up with women’s college basketball transfer news than I would prefer. While making this post I learned about some moves that I completely missed, so I’m sure some of these fell under the radar.

For this post, I’m going to talk about some interesting team changes and some interesting individual players. It will be a little hodgepodge, but what else is new.

Before I begin, though, I must shoutout Raoul of WBB Blog. As far as I know, this is. the most complete list of transfer information around for women’s college basketball, and everything I talk about here is because of his ongoing list.

Indiana Hits Big

If there’s a portal winner so far in the Big Ten, I think it has to be Indiana. The Hoosiers faced a potential down season after losing Ali Patberg, Nicole Cardano-Hillary and Aleksa Gulbe, three key starters.

Running it back with Grace Berger and Mackenzie Holmes there was doable, but it has now become the expectation after bringing in Sara Scalia from Minnesota, Sydney Parrish from Oregon and Alyssa Geary from Providence.

Scalia is maybe my favorite signing from any Big Ten team thus far. She led the Gophers with 17.9 points per game, doing it primary from behind the arc, hitting 111 threes while shooting 41.3 percent from deep. Indiana’s offense struggled at times last year because there was no true sharpshooter from three, so getting the NCAA’s No. 3 player in three makes from last season should be massive.

Parrish was also a tremendous acquisition. She started all 31 games last season for Oregon and shot over half her attempts from three, making a respectable 34.7 percent of them. With Holmes’ interior scoring, Berger’s mid-range specialty and two true threats from deep, Indiana’s offense could make a massive leap.

Geary could slot into the starting lineup, but may end up being a veteran player off the bench. Still, 118 games of experience is huge, and for a Hoosiers roster consistently lacking depth last year, her presence is a big one.

Maryland Is Unrecognizable

New Maryland just dropped!

Brenda Frese has had no time to rest after another contract extension, as three of Terrapins’ top contributors — Angel Reese, Ashley Owusu and Mimi Collins — all dipped, heading to LSU, Virginia Tech and NC State, respectively.

Those departures, along with Katie Benzan’s to the WNBA, leaves Diamond Miller and Shyanne Sellers as the only major returners from last year’s team. (Side note: Shoutout Katie Benzan, who went undrafted, made a practice roster and is now on the Washington Mystics official roster, that rocks.)

Frese has had to reload before, and she has done so relatively successfully. There are five incoming additions to match the five total players gone, with Princeton’s Abby Meyers being the most notable. Meyers helped lead Princeton to a massive upset victory over Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament with 29 (!) points before falling in a close one to Indiana.

Meyers averaged 17.9 points and 5.8 rebounds for the Tigers in 2021-22 and should immediately start for the Terps. Maryland has also gotten some big names in Florida’s Lavender Briggs (12.5 PPG, 5.6 RPG) and Vanderbilt’s Brinae Alexander (15.2 PPG, 2.0 SPG), but I’m not convinced it will be enough to replace talents like Owusu and Reese.

Favorite Sleeper Transfers: Michigan, Wisconsin

Michigan has to replace Naz Hillmon’s production, a truly impossible task that has since taken an even larger hit when Emily Kiser entered the portal. That still remains a concern, but the arrival of Greta Kampschroeder from Oregon State is a get that might be flying under the radar.

Kampschroeder’s one year with the Beavers was nothing of major note: 31 games, 25 starts, 5.2 PPG, 2.5 RPG, 1.2 APG while shooting 33.9 percent from the field and 32.6 percent from three. What intrigues me here is the potential. Kampschroeder was a top-35 prospect in the 2021 class via ESPN and could really come into her own under Kim Barnes Arico.

The other signing I really like is Holy Cross’ Avery LaBarbera to Wisconsin. The Badgers showed some life late in the first season of Marisa Moseley’s tenure, and veteran guard Katie Nelson was helpful in that, providing leadership even when her production was a little subpar.

LaBarbera has the experience (106 games, 104 starts) and the production (16.8 PPG, 9.8 RPG, 4.1 APG, 1.8 SPG in 2021-22) to make a massive impact for a developing Badgers squad. Her efficiency left something to be desired (36.3 FG%), but that was on a Holy Cross team that did not have another scorer above 9.0 PPG.

Wisconsin is still seasons away from competing for something bigger, but a move like this without losing much of anything out of the portal, is great progress.

Minnesota Is Tanking

There are a few teams that have seen mass exoduses in the Big Ten. Purdue and Rutgers have lost seven and eight players, respectively, but the former has kept the major core together, the latter needed a rebuild anyway and both got a player I really, really like.

For Purdue, that’s Caitlyn Harper out of California Baptist (17.8 PPG, 53.0 FG%, 5.9 RPG, 1.6 BPG). For Rutgers, that’s UNC Asheville’s Kai Carter (15.3 PPG, 6.4 RPG).

Minnesota has had seven players exit through the portal. It has had at least four seniors who can’t return. It has, unless I have missed something, one upperclassmen: Katie Borowicz, who missed all of last season with back surgery.

That leaves two players from Minnesota’s 2021-22 active roster that are still here: Alanna Micheaux and Maggie Czinano, both of which were true freshmen last season. Both additions in the portal, Nebraska guard MiCole Cayton and Arkansas center Destinee Oberg, could benefit from a change of scenery with less competition, but it feels more likely they are going to be depth pieces for the reason behind all this.

Minnesota head coach Lindsey Whalen has tanked, intentionally or not, for the four incoming freshman. Whalen’s best wins as Gophers head coach have undoubtedly come from the four signees that she kept in state: guards Amaya Battle and Mara Braun, and forwards Mallory Heyer and Nia Holloway.

These four Minnesota prospects make up a top 10 class nationally for the Gophers, and now the runway is there for all of them to see significant time immediately. This is going to be a fascinating to watch play out if the roster only adds more depth pieces in the portal the rest of the way.

Minnesota, you may not be any good for awhile, but you certainly have my attention.

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