VB: Kelly Sheffield is a transfer portal maestro
The Badgers volleyball coach just keeps reloading in the portal every offseason with better and better players!
Recruiting is different in every sport, but there are definitely overarching themes you can see between football and basketball and hockey and, just throwing out a random sport here, volleyball.
The Wisconsin Badgers under head coach Kelly Sheffield have turned into a national powerhouse and while that certainly helps in recruiting, it’s not the only thing that his staff has done to get good players on campus. UW has also been completely killing it in the transfer portal and has set the standard that all of the other teams on campus should aspire to meet.
Back before the 2019 season started Sheffield and co. used the newly formed transfer portal (Oct. 2018) to bring in a junior libero/defensive specialist out of Naperville, Ill. who had started her career at rival Minnesota. You may remember Lauren Barnes as the emotional leader of the 2021 national championship team, but before that she was the only transfer on the 2019 UW squad. UW won the Big Ten and fell to Stanford in the national championship match that year.
The next year, Sheffield brought in L/DS Sydney Reed from UNC, L/DS Gio Civita from Wichita State, and OH/DS Deahna Kraft from Pepperdine (beach volleyball) to strengthen his team. This was the COVID season, but Wisconsin went undefeated and won the Big Ten again before losing to Texas in the Final Four.
In the 2021 season, Sheffield only brought in junior DS/L Joslyn Boyer from Iowa to solidify the depth at that position and, with Barnes and Civita starting most of the season, the team won the Big Ten for the third straight year and finally broke through to win a national title, beating Nebraska in five thrilling sets.
After that season the Badgers lost a TON of players to graduation. Barnes, Civita, Sydney Hilley, Dana Rettke, and Grace Loberg were all gone and Wisconsin needed some immediate help to fill out their lineup. While true freshman Gulce Guctekin (Istanbul, Turkey) stepped into the starting lineup, Sheffield nailed the transfer portal again.
Wisconsin reeled in All-B1G outside hitter Sarah Franklin from Michigan State, All-Big 12 middle blocker Caroline Crawford from Kansas, L/DS Shanel Bramschreiber out of Baylor, and MB/RS Gabby McCaa from Boston College. Franklin and Crawford slotted right into the starting lineup while Bramschreiber missed the first half of the season due to NCAA fuckery and McCaa was hurt on and off throughout the year. The Badgers won the Big Ten AGAIN but fell to Pitt in the Elite 8 and three of the four new transfers (Bramschreiber is out of eligibility) will be back for this upcoming season to right that wrong.
Now in the midst of another offseason of roster turnover: Jade Demps transferred to LSU and Danielle Hart graduated the Badgers have absolutely crushed transfer portal season again.
With Minnesota head coach Hugh McCutcheon retiring, a number of Gophers were looking for new homes and Wisconsin was more than happy to welcome 2022 first-team All-Big Ten, Big Ten All-Freshman Team, American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-North Region, and AVCA North Region Freshman of the Year 6-foot-7 middle blocker Carter Booth to Madison. She was No. 5 in the Big Ten, and No. 10 nationally, with 1.48 blocks per set last year. She is a genuine stud and is already listed on UW’s 2022-23 spring roster.
That clearly wasn’t enough of splash for Sheffield so he also went out and got grad transfer outside hitter Temi Thomas-Ailara from Northwestern. She was only an AVCA All-American, first team All-Big Ten and AVCA All-Region after leading the Big Ten with 502 kills (4.33 kills per set) last year. No big deal.
This doesn’t even include true freshman, and reigning Gatorade Wisconsin Player of the Year, Saige Damrow (Howards Grove) who was ranked as the No. 2 libero (and No. 11 player overall) in the country by PrepVolleyball for the 2023 class!
Wisconsin, as one of the best teams in the nation, will always be losing excellent players to graduation or the transfer portal. It happens to Alabama and Georgia in football and it should be seen as the sign of a healthy, successful program. What keeps a team at that level is their ability to lose those good players but still find equal (or better!) replacements.
So far Kelly Sheffield has proven himself to be better at doing that than anyone else in Madison and hopefully other coaching staffs on campus are taking note.
Yay!!