By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
It’s year two for Jeff Hans as Northern Kentucky University women’s basketball coach. And that’s a good thing, the national championship-winning former Thomas More coach says.
“As long as I don’t have a “sophomore slump’,” he deadpans at Wednesday’s media day when outlining how this team will differ from last year’s.
But first, who’s the team to beat in the Horizon League this year? “I hope we are,” Hans says with a grin of his Norse women picked sixth in the league after an 11-21 season and a fifth-place 8-12 finish in the Horizon a year ago.
Not the norm for Hans, who came to NKU with a 339-42 record (.889), best of any NCAA women’s basketball coach with eight conference regular-season and tournament championships, 11 national tourney appearances, two NCAA Division III national titles, one NAIA national title and one national runner-up that earned him, among other honors, three national coach of the year awards.
So it’s been a big change coming to NCAA Division I? “Altogether different,” Hans says. Of the challenges – and the opportunities. As when you lose seven players – “mostly to graduation, two to the (transfer) portal,” Hans notes – and head into 2025-2026 with nine new players, matching the men’s team’s newcomer numbers.
And with an international and far-flung roster not unlike the men. There are players from Tel Mond, Israel and Gold Coast, Australia, not to mention Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Newcomers hail from stateside places like Midland, Tex., and programs like Fort Erie International Academy and Lincoln Land (Ill.) Community College not to mention Seward County (Okla.) Community College, the University of Texas/Permian Basin, Concordia (Neb.), Nebraska/Kearney and Portland (Ore.) State and Dodge City (Kan.) Community College.
“I learned a lot,” Hans says of his first Division I season. “I probably overestimated our ability to score late in games,” he says of a team that suffered nine of those 21 losses by six or fewer points. “That’s the biggest thing I learned.”
Now he’s getting to learn who his players are. Although two holdovers give him veteran leadership. There’s 5-11 All-Horizon fifth-year senior guard Mya Meredith, a Newport native by way of Scott High and Western Kentucky University, who has been named first-team preseason All-Horizon after averaging 10.6 ppg, 6.0 rebounds and 1.6 steals last season.
After missing the previous season following ACL surgery, Meredith says last year left her with a feeling of unfinished business, and she plans to change that coming back for this as her final season.
“I feel like we weren’t done yet,” said 6-foot senior Abby Wolterman from West Chester, Ohio, who averaged 21.0 minutes a game with 5.6 points and 5.0 rebounds. “And I wanted to play for him,” one last season.
All nine of his newcomers “bring in a winning mentality,” Hans says. Of the four true freshmen, he says, that “like freshmen, they think the way to the floor is by scoring.”
But if it’s scoring you’re looking for, late-deciding transfer Taysha Rushton, a 5-5 grad student guard from Midland, Tex., who averaged 16.8 ppg, 3.7 rebounds, 34 assists and 1.7 steals at UT/Permian Basin, may be the place to look as she brings five seasons of college experience to Highland Heights.
Then there’s 6-3 Aussie Mia Jordan, a junior transfer from Dodge City, who could give NKU a post presence with her rebounding and shot-blocking.
As for a schedule that opens with four straight road games, “That’s never great,” Hans says, “but it’s where we’re at” as NKU tries to help Marshall with a second straight game at Huntington, W. Va.
Two of those games are guarantee games where NKU gets paid to play there – at Louisville and at Butler’s historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Then there’s the Ohio State game, Dec. 11.
“All those games prepare us for March,” Hans says, “you get Ohio State and Louisville on the road, that’s great experience for our players.”
2025-2026 NKU Women’s Basketball roster
2025-2026 NKU Women’s Basketball schedule
