In his ultimate season on the helm of Northwestern’s ladies’s basketball program, coach Joe McKeown is getting a lift from the lacrosse group.
The Wildcats not too long ago introduced that Sammy White, one of the vital embellished lacrosse gamers within the nation, will be a part of the ladies’s basketball group for the upcoming season. White performed a vital position in serving to Northwestern win the 2023 nationwide championship in ladies’s lacrosse and is a two-time All-American.
“We’re actually excited to have Sammy as a part of our program,” McKeown mentioned in an announcement. “She brings unimaginable ardour, together with a extremely aggressive perspective to the courtroom. Sammy is among the greatest lacrosse gamers Northwestern has ever seen and loved a terrific highschool basketball profession in Maryland. Her toughness and management might be an amazing addition to the Wildcats.”
As McKeown talked about, White does have some actual basketball bonafides. A 5-foot-6 guard, she scored greater than 1,000 factors in simply three seasons for Dulaney Excessive Faculty in Cockeysville, Maryland. As a junior, she averaged north of 23 factors per recreation.
“Northwestern has carried out a lot for me as a college that there’s no different place that I actually would somewhat be taking part in basketball,” White informed USA Lacrosse Journal. “I’m grateful that I’m going to have my lacrosse teammates and everybody there to help me as a result of they’re much more excited than me. They made me understand this was the appropriate resolution.”
White isn’t the primary Northwestern product to make this transfer. Pat Spencer, the 2019 Tewaaraton Award winner — akin to a Heisman Trophy for lacrosse — joined Northwestern’s males’s group and averaged 10.4 factors, 4.1 rebounds and three.9 assists per recreation within the 2019-20 marketing campaign. He’s nonetheless hooping, showing in 39 video games this previous NBA season for the Golden State Warriors.
In accordance with USA Lacrosse Journal, White supposed to enter the switch portal on the finish of this lacrosse season to make use of her graduate yr of eligibility to play basketball. NCAA guidelines permit athletes who’ve exhausted their eligibility in a single sport to play one other for one yr whereas pursuing a postgraduate diploma. Northwestern lacrosse coach Kelly Amonte Hiller had a dialog with McKeown although, and that led to White staying in Wildcat purple to pursue a season on the hardwood.
White would be the shortest participant on the Wildcats’ basketball roster, however her top by no means stopped her from excelling at lacrosse. She piled up 210 draw controls, 153 floor balls and 101 prompted turnovers in 81 video games for the Wildcats.
A defensive specialist, she additionally scored 17 objectives and had 12 assists for Northwestern. White was additionally not too long ago named to the US roster for the upcoming Pan-American Lacrosse Affiliation Ladies’s Championship. Northwestern made the Last 4 in every of White’s 4 seasons on the lacrosse group.
When she was named Feminine Athlete of the Yr by the Baltimore Solar in 2020, White’s highschool coach had main compliments for her basketball abilities.
“She is fast and we’re actually fortunate that we are able to search for her up the ground, outlet her the ball, or she’ll beat individuals down the ground simply dribbling,” Dulaney coach Jess Szymanski informed the Solar. “She is tremendous athletic and it creates one other dimension for us, that’s for certain.”
White isn’t the one ladies’s lacrosse participant making the transition to basketball for the upcoming season. Emma LoPinto, an All-American assault for Boston School, will be a part of the Eagles’ ladies’s basketball group after scoring 136 objectives for the lacrosse group. LoPinto helped the Eagles seize a lacrosse nationwide championship in 2024 and was a two-time All-American.
For Northwestern, this season is shaping as much as be an eventful one because it’s a farewell tour of kinds for McKeown, who introduced he would retire on the finish of the 2025-26 season. The 69-year-old has been the coach of the Wildcats since 2008 and led them to a Large Ten common season crown in 2020, a yr wherein he was additionally named the convention’s Coach of the Yr.
McKeown is simply 23 wins away from his 800th, however Northwestern hasn’t made the NCAA Event since 2021 and has simply eight mixed Large Ten victories up to now three seasons. The hope is that gamers like White may also help flip issues round. The Wildcats additionally added transfers in DaiJa Turner from TCU and Tate Walters from Furman, the latter of whom averaged 12.6 factors, 3.9 rebounds and three.6 assists per recreation final season.
