WBB: Wisconsin has landed their second player from the transfer portal

Gift Uchenna is a post player from Southern Illinois who may be a literal rebounding machine.

The Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team has a number of open roster spots still, but according to reports from On3’s Talia Goodman and the internet’s (???) Skim Milkey there is one fewer available as of Tuesday. Gift Uchenna, a post player from Southern Illinois, is apparently the next addition to Robin Pingeton’s roster after Laci Steele’s commitment earlier this month.

Uchenna took a visit to Madison back on April 7 and must’ve liked what she saw and heard since she is now penciled in as a starting big for Wisconsin. While we are waiting for official confirmation from UW and/or Uchenna on the move, I feel pretty confident that this a done deal and Uchenna just isn’t a very active social media user which, to be honest, makes me like her all the more.

(while finishing up this post, UW officially announced Uchenna’s commitment!)

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"I am beyond grateful and blessed to be part of this program," said Uchenna. "I am looking forward to achieving amazing things together!" Now, in the spirit of togetherness, let’s learn about the newest Badger as a group!

Gift Uchenna Fast Facts

• Height: 6-foot-3

• Position: forward

• Eligibility: one year remaining (I think…could be two)

• Previous School: Southern Illinois

• Hometown: Ebonyi State, Nigeria

• 2024-25 Highlights: All-MVC Third Team; MVC All-Newcomer Team

Gift Uchenna Fast Stats

• Career College Stats (NCAA)

  • GP/GS: 29/29 (she also played one game against a non-D1 team which I’m not including in these numbers)

  • MPG: 28.7

  • PPG: 14.2

  • RPG: 12.7 (2nd nationally!!!)

  • APG: 0.4

  • SPG: 0.9

  • BPG: 2.0 (28th nationally)

  • TOPG: 3.3

  • FG: 163-of-378 (43.1%)

  • 3P: 2-of-8 (25.0%)

  • FT: 83-of-119 (69.7%)

Gift Uchenna Scouting Report

A 30,000 foot view comparison if you don’t want to read more than one sentence? A taller Carter McCray who occasionally attempts threes. But you don’t subscribe to a niche women’s basketball newsletter for that! You want to get in the weeds!

Uchenna has taken an, and this might be underselling it a bit, unconventional route to get to the Badgers. She is from Ebonyi, the third smallest (of 36) state in Nigeria, in the southeast part of the country. From there she attended Kochi Chuo High School which, as far as I can tell, is a Japanese high school that has an exchange program with Nigeria (and maybe other African nations) to bring female athletes to Japan to study and play basketball, volleyball, handball, and other sports.

Upon graduation she went to Shih Hsin University Taipei and played basketball for two years winning two championships and a tournament MVP award. Per her bio on Southern Illinois’ website she was also a two-time “block queen” and one-time “rebound queen” while also being named to the “Best Five” twice. She played this past season at SIU and dominated, despite the Salukis’ struggles overall as a team.

Shoutout to Hoop Highlights on YouTube for this excellent compilation of Uchenna clips, btw.

I need you to watch some of the above video because if you don’t you’re probably going to assume that I am lying when I say this: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone shoot a basketball the way Uchenna does. She appears to NOT have a preferred hand and will alter left and right depending on what her defender is doing.

Uchenna made two three-pointers last season, which are both clipped at the beginning of the highlight reel, and she follows through with her right hand on them but then there are times when she is shooting jumpers in the paint where her left hand is more dominant. She also holds the ball directly over her head and launches it towards the basket in a trebuchet-like motion.

To be perfectly honest…I hate it. It is bad shooting form and I don’t know how it hasn’t been corrected by any coach she has ever had in her life. Per Torvik, Uchenna shot 29.5% (23-of-78) on all two-pointers that weren’t at the rim and that is probably on the higher end of the spectrum for someone with her mechanics. Moving to the Big Ten, where there will be taller players and better defenders will also hurt.

Among players 6-foot-3 and taller, Uchenna, who is 6-foot-3, was not highly ranked in shooting percentages.

• Close Twos: 47.3% (138-of-292), 168th nationally

• Far Twos: 29.5% (23-of-78), 134th nationally

For comparison’s sake, here are Serah Williams and Carter McCray’s numbers from last year:

• Serah Williams (6-foot-4)

  • Close Twos: 65.7% (142-of-216), 43rd nationally

  • Far Twos: 35.8% (81-of-226), 88th nationally

• Carter McCray (6-foot-1, but played an extremely inside-the-arc game)

  • Close Twos: 67.5% (102-of-151), 60th nationally (keep in mind all of the additional players this search returned due to the new heights)

  • Far Twos: 36.2% (29-of-80), 251st nationally

While I don’t think Uchenna will become a dominant scoring force for the Badgers in the Big Ten, at least right away, an area that I do think she’ll continue to dominate in is rebounding. There is definitely a skill to being a good rebounder, but all the technical know-how of the way the ball will bounce off the rim won’t help you actually secure the rebound. Effort will, though.

Averaging the second most rebounds of any player in the entire country doesn’t happen by accident. It happened because when a shot went up, Uchenna decided that nothing was going to stop her from securing the ball. To expand a little further statistically:

• 12.7 rpg; 2nd nationally

• 8.0 drpg; 9th

• 4.7 orpg; 5th

• total rebound rate: 23.2%; 3rd

• def. rebound rate: 31.4%; 4th

• off. rebound rate: 16.2%; 36th

• 368 total rebounds; 4th

• 232 defensive rebounds; 19th

• 136 offensive rebounds; 7th

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Last season, just like Uchenna, McCray transferred in from a low-major as an excellent rebounder and, while her numbers were lower, she was still in the 95th percentile nationally for total rebounding rate. McCray also had another rebounding big (Serah Williams) on the court so not all of the boards automatically went to her. Uchenna is the top rebounding option for Wisconsin (as the roster is constructed currently) and should have another nationally relevant season corralling errant shots.

Another area where Uchenna excels is rim protection. She averaged two blocks per game last year and uses her height and wingspan to deter smaller players from even attempting shots in the paint. With Williams out of the picture, the Badgers desperately needed someone in the post who could defend the parade of talented bigs that the Big Ten has.

I have a couple more first impressions based on her highlights and stats that don’t really warrant whole paragraphs, so let’s do some bullet points!

• her assist numbers were dreadful last year; it’ll be interesting to see if she’s capable of making good reads out of the post and her teammates just missed shots last year or if she’s a bit of a black hole once she gets the entry pass

• she uses shot fakes well to get defenders of balance

• while I don’t want her bringing the ball up the court and running the offense, she isn’t afraid to put the ball on the deck and make a move to the rim

• she fouls too much

• her usage was incredibly high last year (29.9%, 97th percentile) and her efficiency was, uh, incredibly low

  • eFG%: 43.4, 38th percentile

  • PPP: 0.78, 48th percentile

  • PPSA: 0.95, 41st percentile

• on a similar note, she was a turnover machine last season but the numbers look better when you see her turnover rate. I’m not going to post the numbers here because they still aren’t good, but much like Serah Williams, Uchenna was her team’s undisputed top offensive options and everyone knew it…there were going to be some turnovers

• shot just under 70% (69.7%) from the free throw line which was better than Ronnie Porter, Tess Myers, Carter McCray, and Halle Douglass

I don’t imagine you, dear reader, watched much Saluki women’s hoops last year, but let me tell you this: they STUNK. They finished the year with a 4-26 (2-18 MVC) overall record and slotted in at No. 332 in Torvik’s year-end rankings. Oh, one of those four wins? Not even against a D1 opponent.

Their offense was awful and their defense was even worse. They didn’t have a single player with a positive box plus/minus, although Uchenna was the closest at -0.6, and only two players shot over 40% from the field on the year.

As is often the case, I can see Uchenna’s efficiency numbers go up as her usage rate goes down in Madison and hopefully that will leave her with even more energy to get rebounds and swat shots.

Wisconsin’s roster is slowly but surely coming together under new coach Robin Pingeton and, if internet rumors/people I’ve heard from are to be believed, there should be a third player coming to the Badgers via the portal soon. The final judgement on this roster obviously can’t come until they’ve played actual games, but even I have to admit that I’m a little excited about how Pingeton has attacked the portal so far.