Wisconsin Women's Hockey 2024-2025

[eastcoastgopher]

Below is the link to the Badger Women Hockey instagram page. Near the top you will see "32k followers" and "242 following" . Click on either and a pop-up window will appear showing you the instagram accounts in that catagory. "followers" are fans of UW WH who want to get 'alerts' when the account posts something. "following" is an instagram account that somebody at UW who controls this account is paying attention to.

These kind of "follows" have actually proven, let's say, significant in the volleyball transfer world, where an athlete starts following a bunch of team members on another team, and they all start following her back. That's can be an indication that the player in the portal made a campus visit and met those players. Or a recruit starts following a team, and a coach or players for that team starts following her back. As best I know, the most recent "follows" appear at or near the top of the list in the pop-up.

https://www.instagram.com/badgerwhockey/?hl=en

For example, the third name down on the "following" list is a Shattuck player named Zahra Nauhaus. (Her account is private, so we can't see who she is following, etc.)

FWIW

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Adding as another example, the top three most recent names/accounts that the Ohio State Women Hockey account is following are Hailey MacLeod, Brooke Disher, and Sara Swiderski. No idea when those "follows" happened, but if they occurred before the players committed, it would have been a clear indication that the commit was coming.

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One more example: the most recent "follow" by the Vermont Women's Hockey account is Jane Gervais, maybe "confirming" wheel-snipe-celly's post that that is where Gervais is heading.

Some schools do this. Ohio State typically doesn't until the player signs. There are a couple of committed players they aren't following. But yes, this is how I look at things. Of course, Wisconsin has followed players who don't end up going there.

 

[Timothy A]

For the record Haley Box wasn't wearing a Badger hoodie today at Woog Arena!

Now that is some good inside info. I'll add her to the spreadsheet.

It's interesting other schools are following the UW women, I did not expect that. I suppose it's recruiting intel. Maybe you don't want your recruits to follow you......

 

[wheel snipe celly]

Kotlowski will be coming back next year, this was not originally the case as there were no more scholarships available. She has decided to peruse her masters and still wanted to be part of the team. Welcome back Kate!

 

[Timothy A]

Kotlowski will be coming back next year, this was not originally the case as there were no more scholarships available. She has decided to peruse her masters and still wanted to be part of the team. Welcome back Kate!

Super duper awesome. If there was no scholarship money for her is that why Wheeler is gone?

 

[robertearle]

Kotlowski will be coming back next year, this was not originally the case as there were no more scholarships available. She has decided to peruse her masters and still wanted to be part of the team. Welcome back Kate!

The closer we got to May 1st, the more I thought this was going to be the decision. I'm happy!

 

[wheel snipe celly]

Super duper awesome. If there was no scholarship money for her is that why Wheeler is gone?

Yes, I believe so. From what I understand the coaching staff wanted Wheeler to return but did not have anything to offer her.

 

[Timothy A]

. Yes, I believe so. From what I understand the coaching staff wanted Wheeler to return but did not have anything to offer her.

That makes me sad.

 

[robertearle]

That makes me sad.

Two things to keep in mind here, as far as I understand things (if I'm getting anything wrong, let me know):

- first, women's hockey has 18 total scholarships, which can be divided up into partial individual scholarships, so long as the total is no more than 18. So, a roster of 24 could have everyone getting a 75% scholarship. Or you could have six players getting 100% scholarship, and the other 18 each getting a 2/3rds scholarship. Many other ways you could divide things up.

- second, the Big Ten requires that when a student-athlete signs their National Letter of Intent, that agreement commits the school to a four-year 'schedule' regarding the amount of scholarship the athlete will receive (the NCAA allows for year-to-year deals). There was a one-year exception for the COVID year, where those on scholarship during the 2020-21 year would not count against the 2021-22 limits. But I don't know how that affected the four year agreements going forward.

Assuming that that COVID exception is no longer affecting anyone, players like Gervais and Wheeler and O'Brien and Kotlowski will be in their 5th year, meaning the 4-year deal that made up their NIL has expired; everyone else on the roster who came in to the UW as freshmen are in their 4-year NIL deal, and the UW has no leeway to change or modify the amount of scholarship money they'll be getting in 2024-25. So if UW had only a scholarship or two not already 'committed' to negotiate with, it makes sense that they weren't likely to convince all four to stick around, if those four thought they could get more by transferring. Ice time is certainly a factor, but so is available scholarship money.

 

[BadgerDad2022]

my son is friends with a number of the prep school girls and he tells me that Wiski is by far the preferred offer out there right now---even moreso than Ohio State. I found this to be very interesting. According to him a number of girls from SSM had less than ideal experiences being part of the Buckeye program and this has kind of spread throughout their school. Take it for what its worth but he thought it was a something.

 

[Hockeybuckeye]

According to him a number of girls from SSM had less than ideal experiences being part of the Buckeye program

You may believe that but I know that's not the case at Ohio State. I've never heard discontent from any of our players, from SSM or anywhere and I most certainly would have heard if it was true. I was with most of the team just last week.

 

[Timothy A]

You may believe that but I know that's not the case at Ohio State. I've never heard discontent from any of our players, from SSM or anywhere and I most certainly would have heard if it was true. I was with most of the team just last week.

Do you really think the players are going to air dirty laundry in front of the cheerleaders and the coaches? LOL. In reality is no team has 100% of the players happy 100% of the time, not even at WI. These players are not robots, they are people.

 

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Do you really think the players are going to air dirty laundry in front of the cheerleaders and the coaches? LOL. In reality is no team has 100% of the players happy 100% of the time, not even at WI. These players are not robots, they are people.

I somewhat jest with the slOwSU crowd about the duckies and bunnies thing, but when you read posts like what hb posted, you get the sense that yuckeyeville fandom is out of touch with reality.

First of all, it was stated that the poster was with most of the team just last week? Now that doesn't sound creepy does it? And of course nothing but unicorns and rainbows with no discontent anywhere to be found since the poster hangs with his peeps and would have heard if something was amiss.

Please...

Speaking of SSM players, you had Sidney Morrow transfer out last year...You had Sawyer Fleming decommit from slOwSu last year...and you had her sister, Delaney Fleming enter the transfer portal this year. Seems like possibly more than nothing to see here but I imagine we will hear from yuckeyeville that there really is nothing to see here.

 

[robertearle]

I somewhat jest with the slOwSU crowd about the duckies and bunnies thing, but when you read posts like what hb posted, you get the sense that yuckeyeville fandom is out of touch with reality.

First of all, it was stated that the poster was with most of the team just last week? Now that doesn't sound creepy does it? And of course nothing but unicorns and rainbows with no discontent anywhere to be found since the poster hangs with his peeps and would have heard if something was amiss.

Please...

Speaking of SSM players, you had Sidney Morrow transfer out last year...You had Sawyer Fleming decommit from slOwSu last year...and you had her sister, Delaney Fleming enter the transfer portal this year. Seems like possibly more than nothing to see here but I imagine we will hear from yuckeyeville that there really is nothing to see here.

I was going to post about Morrow and Fleming, but you beat me to it.

Ohio State has had seven players total transfer out after the last two seasons (plus one who simply left the team mid-season); two of the transfers were SSM players, and both left after a single year at OSU.

And to be fair, they have also had ( I think) three SSM players on those rosters who were freshman commits to OSU who didn't transfer, and three SSM players who transferred to Ohio State.

 

[robertearle]

the duckies and bunnies thing ... unicorns and rainbows ...

For the old Marquette basketball coach and then TV broadcaster Al McGuire, the expression was "seashells and balloons". I think of it every time.

 

[BadgerDad2022]

Will be interesting to watch this upcoming recruiting cycle that opens up June 15th. I think the Badgers are going to do really well but that's probably not breaking news.

 

[Hockeybuckeye]

Speaking of SSM players, you had Sidney Morrow transfer out last year...You had Sawyer Fleming decommit from slOwSu last year...and you had her sister, Delaney Fleming enter the transfer portal this year. Seems like possibly more than nothing to see here but I imagine we will hear from yuckeyeville that there really is nothing to see here.

Everyone on forum know when player decide to leave a program or decommit they do so for personal reasons and being unhappy certainly isn't always the case. Can you name any program that doesn't have players leave?
As far a Flemming goes for the time being she still considers herself a Buckeye and participates in all the team's public appearances. Not the attitude of someone unhappy to be here is it?
Just for the record there is no negativity being spread at SSM about Ohio State.

 

[robertearle]

Everyone on forum know when player decide to leave a program or decommit they do so for personal reasons and being unhappy certainly isn't always the case. Can you name any program that doesn't have players leave?
As far a Flemming goes for the time being she still considers herself a Buckeye and participates in all the team's public appearances. Not the attitude of someone unhappy to be here is it?
Just for the record there is no negativity being spread at SSM about Ohio State.

Fleming is a forward leaving a team that has only ten forwards on the roster for the coming season (with Mobley going into the portal yesterday) and a month ago was 'advertising' to add two more. So her reasons are likely not "ice time", and probably not 'available scholarship money'. What do you suppose her reasons are?

(For that matter, why do you suppose Mobley is leaving? And one more for you: how do you know what is happening at SSM?)

 

[Hockeybuckeye]

(For that matter, why do you suppose Mobley is leaving? And one more for you: how do you know what is happening at SSM?)

When I do hear of certain things if the person it concerns doesn't come out publicly about it, it would be highly unethical and a breach of trust for me to reveal it.
If Olivia isn't giving reasons for leaving then you won't hear it from me.

 

[robertearle]

When I do hear of certain things if the person it concerns doesn't come out publicly about it, it would be highly unethical and a breach of trust for me to reveal it.
If Olivia isn't giving reasons for leaving then you won't hear it from me.

Yeah, you're like a vault when it comes to keeping 'secrets' ("Wink")

/eye roll/

 

[BadgerDad2022]

Everyone on forum know when player decide to leave a program or decommit they do so for personal reasons and being unhappy certainly isn't always the case. Can you name any program that doesn't have players leave?
As far a Flemming goes for the time being she still considers herself a Buckeye and participates in all the team's public appearances. Not the attitude of someone unhappy to be here is it?
Just for the record there is no negativity being spread at SSM about Ohio State.

The extensive use of the portal thing by Ohio State is absolutely a "thing" at SSM right now. As I've said, my son knows just about every one of the top girls on the 16U team and they mention it all the time. You can believe it or not. And my son is a Buckeye fan!! haha