Green Bay carries Horizon League crown, 22-game win streak into NCAA tournament

Indianapolis-new women’s champions Horizon League from Green Bay were a big mess.

This might be necessary to explain. Phoenix has just swept around Purdue Fort Wayne, 76-63 to win the Horizon League tournament, which is sponsored by Barbasol, shaving cream people. Then the space was earmarked with an inscription that read “One Holing Moment” and Phoenix players got a lot of cans of shaving cream and you can probably guess the rest. Optional glasses.

It is @Barbasolshave One moment of shaving✨#Ourharizon🌇 #Marharcstartshere #Although pic.twitter.com/akjfbealrm

– Horizon League (@Horizonleague) March 11, 2025

This was one of the rare unlimited moments for Green Bay, a team that testifies to the robustness of his program and the skill of his new coach, who was hired very high over his head. Mostly the trip was continuously on March. There are more good players in women’s university basketball than ever, more good teams than ever and more chances than ever. Green Bay, however, won 22 games in a row. Its edges of victory in the Horizon League tournament were 29, 14 and 13 points, although Purdue Fort Wayne was a struggle for three quarters.

29-5 Phoenix will now take this glossy strip to the NCAA tournament, just where they expected to be, and it would be reasonable if the coach took a big exhalation. Do you see the woman wiped tears out of her eyes and a man with a smile on the side sidelin? This is mother and father Kayla Karius. Do you see the guy hugged the coach and was assigned to watch the game ball? That’s Rick, husband. They understood what the moment meant Tuesday, given the complex mission Kayla received this season.

Put into her basketball shoes.

He was hired by a program that now has 20 NCAA tournament trips in his pedigree. Another 10 Horizon League teams have 21 together. Phoenix grabbed the offer in 2024 and all the seven best shooters returned – but not the pensioner of the coach Kevin Borseth -, so imagine what the fan base expected. Green Bay has considerable, highly invested tracking.

There’s something else. Before you were Kayla Karius, the married mother of two, you were Kayla Tetschlag and this is the name throughout the book Green Bay Record. Yeah, you were a co -founder of the year Phoenix Star and Horizon League in 2011.

Then you set out to play in Europe before you start the coaching path through the upper -western in places such as Drake and Wisconsin and South Dakota. Now you are back and you know how to do it. Green Bay Sports fans had several difficult moments. Packers were quickly from Play -Off again from Play -off, along the road, when the breweries of Milwaukee in their 43. The season tries to return to the world series. And don’t even get on the basketball program for men in Green Bay. Phoenix ended 4-28.

But women are almost always on the task, right?

Tuesday, they were.

“It is somewhat a feeling of relief,” said Natalie McNeal, who gained 26 points on the way to name MVP tournaments for the second consecutive season. “We felt this feeling last year, so we were chasing it all year round.”

They also wanted it for their coach. “It’s a alum,” McNeal said, “and is a part of the reason why Green Bay is what he is.”

Everything that went through Karius’s mind when she took a job

“I played for the program.” The feeling is the same as a player and as a coach. You know what you enter. When you are admitted to this program, you know what you are entering. We were saying how they continue for years, you don’t want it to end up on your lessons. Not on my hours. I felt just like a coach. It’s a positive pressure you feel. You have to pour a little more because you want to see this program continue and go to new heights when it is under the watch.

“So I just joined the same feeling I had as a player.”

And the outer burden of high expectations in 1 year?

“The less you think about it, the better.”

She entered the dressing room full of veterans who went to things like Phoenix on their playing days, and immediately knew it wasn’t time for complete renovation.

“All last summer and we had the interview every day.” In fact, sometimes we still have the conversation, ”she said. “What will we have the same thing and what will we change?” When I got there, I told players from 1 day. I don’t come and throw everything into the air. I saw the success they had. I also played in the program, so it’s not alien to me what they do.

“But I had the opportunity to go to some other programs.” I want to bring some improvements. I think we can improve in some things, so we have to meet in the middle. So I approached it from the beginning. ”

If you want to see that this week is worth it, it was out of satisfaction. It is always when the coach takes his alma mater to the march.

“You want it so bad for your players, but you also want it so bad for this base of graduates.” That means so much to me, ”she said. “My teammates are still my best friends.” We would call for Phoenix Sisterhood and we wanted it today for the whole Phoenix sisterhood. ”

But really, how does the team win 22 games in a row in today’s basketball?

“Daily attention to improve,” Karius said. “Everything we do is for the purpose.”

Except when the players were handed over a lot of cans of shaving cream on Tuesday afternoon. It looked like chaos. But the coach remained dry.