Green Bay women gear up for March Madness
GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – For the first time since 2018, the Green Bay women’s basketball team is headed to the NCAA tournament.
“It’s an experience (where) kind of a dream came true,” said junior guard/forward Maddy Schreiber. “If you ask anyone on our team, it’s everybody’s dream that’s coming true.”
Outside of IUPUI transfers Natalie McNeal and Natalie Andersen, no player on GB’s current roster has made the Big Dance.
“It’s every player’s dream to play in the NCAA tournament, it is,” said Phoenix head coach Kevin Borseth, who last won a tournament game in 2007. “We all want to get in that tournament, so when you get in there, it’s icing on the cake from there (because) you get a chance to perform.”
Add the fact that Borseth has only won two NCAA tourney games to the lack of March Madness experience, and a date with a Tennessee squad that has never missed the Big Dance might sound daunting. But to the Phoenix, their mindset isn’t changing at all.
“We’re taking it as another game that we have the opportunity to play,” said Schreiber. “Yeah, there are going to be a lot of people there, but I think we (should) just focus on us… and let the rest handle itself.”
“I think we’ve done a good job (focusing) on the five on the court,” said fellow Green Bay junior Jasmine Kondrakiewicz. “Play together, play smart, and just focus on (us) five, and there’s nothing outside of the court that can mess with that at that moment.”
A mentality that Green Bay has embodied all season, posting a 24-6 regular season record, including wins over a pair of top 25 teams, Creighton and Washington State, and an undefeated three-game spurt en route to another Horizon League tournament championship.
“I’ve coached basketball for many years and I’ve never seen a squad that’s more determined than this squad,” said Borseth. “They have fight in them, they played really hard, they play together and they play smart.
If those intangibles hold up in GB’s first-round meeting with six-seed Tennessee, then Green Bay could move on to the round of 32 for the first time since 2012.
“It’s a winnable game for us,” said Kondrakiewicz. “We didn’t come this far to only get this far. We’ve had some alumni at practice over the last week and they said some of their biggest regrets were not being able to advance farther in the tournament when they had the talent to.”
“I mean a lot of people are saying the pressure is off and (we) have nothing to lose,” said Schreiber. “Which really we don’t, we just have to go out there and give it our all… just work hard and see what happens.”
The 11-seed Phoenix open tournament play on Saturday at 11 a.m. against six-seed Tennessee.
