SOUTH BEND, Ind. — During a game earlier this season, Kevin Borseth had become incensed at his Green Bay team.
The Phoenix had twice run a play incorrectly, leading him to simply turn the controls over to them. He was done.
Fifth-year senior Mehryn Kraker, who does a bit of everything for Green Bay, responded, as she’s inclined to frequently do.
“Coach had finally had enough and said, ‘You guys need to figure it out,’” teammate Jen Wellnitz said. “So Mehryn grabbed the clipboard and told him, ‘We got it,’ because he was a little frustrated. We drew it up and did it right the next time.”
Good thing. Borseth certainly would have been furious, and Kraker might have too. She’s Green Bay’s leader, on and off the court, having grown into the role after being a secondary player earlier in her career before taking over this season. It’s worked. The 6-foot forward — she’ll play on the perimeter and is an excellent three-point shooter, but will post up, as well — is averaging team-highs of 17.4 points and 3.8 assists per game, plus 3.2 rebounds.
“Mehryn just does everything for us. She scores, she plays defense,” Wellnitz said. “It’s going to really stink to lose her next year, but we’re still thankful to have her now.”
Kraker, from West Allis, is part of a Green Bay team full of Wisconsin natives, all 14 of them. It wasn’t a shock for her to join the team once she was offered, considering she’d long though of the Phoenix as the premier home-state school. It’s accurate; Green Bay has 40 straight winning seasons, with 17 NCAA Tournament appearances. It’s won the Horizon League regular-season title for 19 straight years.
“I think Green Bay is a no-brainer for any kid from Wisconsin,” Kraker said. “All you have to do is one quick Google search and the history, the significance of this program, you can’t ignore that.
“I didn’t win in high school, and that was a tough pill to swallow, and I didn’t want that to be the college. So I chose the program.”
Hard to believe then, that the string will soon come to an end. Green Bay (27-5), the Lexington Region’s eighth seed, plays Purdue (22-12), the No. 9 seed, at 5 p.m. Friday in Notre Dame’s Purcell Pavilion.
Kraker, the Horizon League Player-of-the-Year, has had a remarkable career, scoring 1,648 points, fourth on Green Bay’s all-time list. She’s made more than 200 career three-pointers, by far the best in program annals. And this season, she ranked in the top-10 in the Horizon in points (second), field-goal percentage (third), three-pointers (second, tie), assists (eighth) and three-point percentage (seventh).
Now, she’s playing with a sense of urgency, not wanting her career to end.
“This whole season has felt like that,” Kraker said. “I want it for the girls, I want it for myself, I want it for Coach, I want it for the fans, our community. It’s not strained, there’s no pressure, but you feel like you’re trying to grasp that thing that’s not going to be in your hands in the next couple weeks.
“With that said, it’s amazing to feel like that, because it means after five years in the program, I’m not willing to give that up. I’m not ready to take off the jersey. I’m not ready to stop playing with my girls. I think that’s what has made this program special.”
Experience counts
The Phoenix have advanced to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments, and competed in each, losing last season as the No. 10 seed to seventh-seeded Tennessee by only six.
But now, they want a win.
They think they’re prepared because of the experience.
“I think it really helps, having been here and having done this before, it’s really nice to fall back on,” Wellnitz said. “Teams that have never been here probably get out under the big lights and are excited and everything, you can see that. But we’ve been through that.”
Green Bay has long been a mid-major power, making NCAA appearances in 11 of Borseth’s 14 seasons across two stints. In 2010-11, the Phoenix advanced to the Sweet 16 under Coach Matt Bollant.
“We hear about that Sweet 16 team a lot,” Wellnitz said. “And we haven’t won a first-round game in a couple years now. You’ve got to take it one at a time, so we’re hoping to get this first one and get another chance at Notre Dame.”
Green Bay is a veteran squad, with two seniors, two juniors and a third-year sophomore in its starting lineup.
“If you never have been here before, all the little glitz and glamour and fireworks things that take place outside the game itself could be a distraction,” Borseth said. “But with that said, there’s no guarantee that if you’ve been here before, that it’s going to do anything to make you play better. We recognize that this is a big game and it’s a big game for everybody at every stage. You have to play well. We’re a small school, a really small fish in a big pond.
“Having been here before, we recognize the fact that you’ve got to get here and got to compete.”
Back home
Tiara Murphy won’t be able to play in her hometown this weekend.
The sophomore Boilermaker played only nine games this season, before tearing an ACL in the ninth and sidelining her for the remainder. It makes the return home bittersweet.
“It is frustrating, just because a lot of people wish for this day, but I’m not sad,” said the South Bend Washington graduate. “I’m just taking it day-by-day in my process of getting better.”
That’s been Murphy’s focus. The point guard is rehabbing now, more than two months post-surgery, and is back shooting. But full-on conditioning and basketball won’t come until the summer.
“Rehab is going excellent now,” said Murphy, who had to pick up extra tickets from her teammates to account for all her family coming to the game. “I’m able to shoot. I can do everything that I feel is comfortable for my knees to do. Right now, I’m just trying to get back in shape.”
But Friday — and perhaps Sunday — she’ll have to sit on the sideline. She says she’s learned a lot, though, from that perspective.
“You see it differently,” she said. “You see everything that the coaches see, even like when I was playing, I was like, ‘I don’t see what they see.’ But now that I’m sitting on the bench, you can definitely get the perspective of a coach. I try to help my teammates out as much as I can during timeouts, what I see and what needs to be done.”
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