With significant announcement still to come, Amy Williams will ‘absolutely’ recruit transfer portal

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Recruiting rarely completely stops for a college basketball coach, but how much time you can devote to it changes when the games are done for that season.

For the Nebraska women’s team, the season ended with a 64-55 loss against Kansas in the third round of the WNIT on Thursday at Allen Fieldhouse.

Nebraska finished the season with an 18-15 record. The Huskers finished eighth place in the Big Ten standings at 8-10.

Like nearly every team, the Huskers could use more great players. The season-ending knee injury to Allison Weidner in December was crushing for the Huskers’ depth of talent. In 13 games, she averaged 10.2 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game.

Without Weidner’s injury, maybe Nebraska wins one or two more games and makes the NCAA Tournament.

There are almost always injuries over a 30-game season, and now Nebraska has to build a roster that can better overcome those.

Only five players appeared in all 32 games — Jaz Shelley, Alexis Markowski, Maddie Krull, Annika Stewart and Kendall Moriarty.

So Nebraska coach Amy Williams goes back to work. Will Nebraska recruit the NCAA transfer portal hard? Williams has a quick answer for that.

“Yes. Yes. Absolutely,” she said. “That’s something that’s a part of college recruiting now at this point.”

Nebraska starters Shelley (Oregon) and Krull (South Dakota) each joined the Huskers as transfer players.

Nebraska will recruit transfers regardless, but that conversation changes if Isabelle Bourne and Shelley make a decision to play for the Huskers next season. They’ve each played four seasons in college, but have one more year of eligibility because of the COVID season waiver.

Shelley has Australian national team and professional basketball aspirations and was first-team all-Big Ten this season — Nebraska’s first such player since 2014. But she has the option to return.

“I think that, hopefully, we should have kind of an announcement sometime soon from those two young ladies about their future plans,” Williams said. “And that will put us in a position where we know exactly what we need to do to build our pogrom.”

Having enough scholarships usually isn’t the problem — women’s basketball has 15 scholarships and the Huskers were under that this season — but in the past, Williams hasn’t taken transfers just to have a larger roster.

“I think there are some specific things that we feel like could really give us some depth and what we need,” Williams said. “But we’re obviously, first and foremost, we’re going to look for people that fit our chemistry and culture first.”

Williams plans a deep dive into what needs to happen to get Nebraska back in the NCAA Tournament.

“We know that at the end of every season it becomes, 'Now let’s pinpoint what we did well, and what we want to go better moving forward,'” she said. “And now can we continue to raise the bar for our program so that next year we’re playing in the NCAA Tournament and finding ways to continue to be one of the best teams in the country.”

This team was special to Williams. Sam Haiby took a chance on committing when Nebraska was coming off a seven-win season and Williams was entering her second season with the Huskers. Bourne came to Lincoln from Australia, and a few years later, that helped the Huskers get her close friend Shelley.

“We’ve done some remarkable things,” Williams said. “We beat Maryland this year. That’s the first time our program has beat Maryland, and to do that on their court by 20 points. I think this team had several really impressive, good wins that proved that we our capable of playing with the best teams in the country. We just didn’t do it consistently enough.”