After 18 seasons, Joe McKeown retired from his position as head coach of Northwestern’s women’s basketball team earlier this year. His tenure was incredibly successful, as the ’Cats tallied up 268 wins, 10 winning seasons, a Women’s National Invitational Tournament second-place finish in 2019 and two NCAA Tournament appearances in 2015 and 2022. Arguably, his biggest achievement was guiding the program to a Big Ten title in 2020, where the team finished with a program-record 26 wins. 

His final season in Evanston was not the most fruitful, as the team finished (8-21, 2-16 B1G), finishing second to last in the conference. 

Taking over for McKeown is Head Coach Carla Berube. Berube spent the last seven years at Princeton University, where under her leadership, the program had a .835 winning percentage, won five Ivy League titles and made five NCAA Tournament appearances. 

This season will prove to be a massive identity shift in multiple ways, with multiple transfers and first-years, and returning players being used in new ways. It will be a fresh start for the program, but how it unfolds will be a constant work in progress. 

Holding down the fort

Northwestern has an outstanding eight returning players. The two expected starters out of this group are fourth-year guard Casey Harter and third-year guard Xamiya Walton. 

Harter was named one of the three captains for the season, a testament to the trust the team and program have in her. Walton said at Big Ten Media Day that Harter “embodies everything that our team is.” And Harter truly is a do-it-all player. 

Harter increased her scoring average to 10 points per game and shot a career-high 40.4% from the field. She has the ability to attack the basket and get to her spot in the mid-range. She is also a tenacious defender. Some added efficiency from three would be helpful to her game, but overall, she will be the go-to player for the Wildcats. 

Walton is going to have a massively expanded role this season as she transitions into the team’s point guard. After jumping from 1.4 points per game in her freshman year to 7.1 in her sophomore year, Coach Berube is expecting a similar leap in terms of assists for Walton, who averaged just 1.8 assists per game last season.

Off the bench, third-year guards Kat Righeimer and Claire Keswick will be looked to for some much-needed depth. Both Righeimer and Keswick had a limited amount of minutes last season, but for different reasons. 

Righeimer didn’t play much to start the season, but she saw increased playing time as the season went on. This was emphasized by an 18-point performance against Penn State. It remains to be seen how she will handle an increased workload throughout the season, but she could serve as a valuable piece for the team. 

Keswick was well on her way to tallying up minutes last season, but she suffered an undisclosed injury in January that ended her season. Prior to that, she showed her ability as a three-point shooter, a valuable trait that coach Berube could turn towards. 

The rest of the returning roster is a mix of veterans and younger players still looking to find their path. Either way, it may be hard for them to find time on the court with the amount of recruits coming in. 

New faces in new places 

Coach Berube brought in four transfers this season, and each one of them looks to make an impact. 

Third-year guards Lily Carmody and Lexi Blue were both named team captains and project to be starters alongside Harter and Walton. 

Carmody is quite the get for the Wildcats, as she averaged 12.8 points per game at Boston College last season. She got buckets in a variety of ways, but primarily, she is ferocious at attacking the rim, drawing tons of free throws in the process. She is exactly the type of player Coach Berube wants on her team. However, while Carmody filled up the box score, Boston College went (5-26, 1-17 ACC) last season, so winning needs to follow Carmody in order to disprove any label of empty stats. 

Blue comes from the University of Kentucky, a team that just made a run to the Sweet Sixteen. However, she saw just under 11 minutes per game last year and doesn’t put the ball in the rim all that much. However, that won’t be something asked of her. Blue is going to chase down rebounds and play hard-nosed defense. As she gets more minutes, there is certainly a possibility her offensive game will grow as well. 

Along with Carmody and Blue, second-year guard Camdyn Nelson and second-year forward Jasmyn Cooper-Derba transferred in from Syracuse University. 

Nelson will serve as the team’s primary ball handler when the starters are sitting. She is a smaller guard at 5-foot-8, but she has great floor vision and will provide a great change of pace for the team. It will be interesting to see if she finds herself in lineups alongside Harter and Walton so they can see some more off-ball action. 

Cooper-Derba is the most interesting transfer for Northwestern. She did not see the court all that much last season, but showed tons of promise in high school. She is incredibly versatile. However, the three-point shot is probably not something that will ever be a part of her arsenal. She is definitely a project player, but due to her height at 6-foot-1 and Coach Berube’s desire to roll smaller lineups, it is possible that Cooper-Derba could find herself starting at the five sooner rather than later. 

With a new coach, transfers and returning players expected to take a leap, Northwestern will have a lot of moving pieces. How they come together is the big question. 

A new era

It’s hard not to measure the success of a team by the win and loss columns. However, Coach Berube said, “That win-loss record looks like it’s not really important to me right now. It is taking those important steps forward.”

The team looks to build an identity this season. The “foundation” Berube mentioned is rooted in defense. Supplementing that will be competitiveness and toughness. 

The team lives by the motto “lift the boat.” Harter described it as “everybody rising, and no one falls behind…it takes 15 people to win a game, not just one or two or five.”

There will be ups and downs this season, but the team is not just thinking about now. They’re looking to build something bigger. “We want players to stay at Northwestern and really care about what’s written across their chest,” Berube said. 

It is not easy following up the tenure of such a successful coach. The program climbed to heights it had rarely seen before. However, with recent years of disappointment, it’s easy to look back and wonder where to go. But this group of Wildcats is not fazed by the challenge. 

Berube kept it simple and said, “We’re facing forward, not looking back.”