ROSEMONT, Ill. — After a decade without postseason success, the Nebraska women’s basketball team broke through and won a game in the NCAA Tournament last season.
The team’s leading returning scorers and starting frontcourt, senior Alexis Markowski and sophomore Natalie Potts, traveled to the Chicago area with Coach Amy Williams on Wednesday to discuss what’s next for the program at Big Ten Media Days.
“It was fun,” Markowski said. “Going to Oregon State and winning a game is something that we hadn’t done in 10 years, so we have that under our belt. But we want to go farther than that, we want to make it to the Sweet 16, win more than just one game. It’s hard. It’s hard when you’re not hosting. If you’re not a top-16 team, it’s hard to upset good teams in their home environment. Hopefully this year we have a great season and that we might have the opportunity to host.”
Nebraska went 21-11 heading into the NCAA Tournament last season, earning a No. 6 seed and a trip to Corvallis, Oregon. The Huskers beat No. 11 Texas A&M in a first-round nail-biter before falling to the host Beavers, a No. 3 seed, by 10 in the second round. Williams echoed what Markowski said: the next step for the program is to earn a hosting opportunity.
“We want to advance in the tournament, and in order for us to do that, we feel like the best position to be in is to be playing games in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the NCAA Tournament,” Williams said. “That, to us, would be the next step. There are a lot of things that we care about more than that, but the truth is that would be a great step for our program and put us in the best position to advance. It’s so much more about the growth that we’re making as a team and as individuals. We’re just going to live day to day, and we feel like that goal will take care of itself if we can just continue to stack days and be the best version of ourselves.”
The Texas A&M win wasn’t the only confidence-builder for the Huskers in 2023-24. Nebraska also pulled off a comeback win over the Caitlin Clark-led and second-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes in front of a program-record crowd at Pinnacle Bank Arena, then the Huskers nearly beat Iowa again in the Big Ten Tournament championship, falling in overtime.
“We’re really trying to just use the belief that was instilled in us when we had the success we had,” Williams said. “Knocking off the No. 2 team in the country in front of a sold-out crowd, going to overtime in our conference championship game, getting a win in the Tournament and having a taste of that, I think those kinds of things have given us a belief that we know when we’re playing our best and maxing out, we can compete with anybody in the country, we can beat anybody in the country and now just trying to take that to the next level by being consistent and, night in and night out, try to not have the letdowns. We know that comes from consistency in practice and that that’s going to be what carries us to that next level.”
Nebraska lost some key pieces from last year’s team, most notably All-Big Ten guard Jaz Shelley. However, easing that loss is the return of Allison Weidner, the redshirt junior from Humphrey, Nebraska, who missed the majority of the last two seasons with injuries.
“She’s huge,” Williams said. “There have been lots of days where we’ve walked away from practice already and said ‘Well, she was the best player on the court today and she really made everybody better around her.’ I think you add the Allison that we saw pre-injury that played hard, aggressive, controlled pace and tempo, and then you add to that 18 months of IQ, learning the game, spending a lot of time with our coaching staff, watching film, and now all of a sudden she’s a great combination of a high-IQ basketball player with hard-working intensity, and every day she just keeps getting a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. It’s really been special. It’s kind of a unique combination; she’s kind of a returner and kind of a newbie, and she’s a really, really good one.”
Weidner started nine games as a freshman then took a step forward as a sophomore, averaging 10.2 points on 54.1% shooting and 6.2 rebounds in 13 games before suffering a season-ending knee injury against Kansas. She injured the opposite knee in preseason last year, ending her campaign before it even began, but she’s back on the court with her teammates heading into 2024-25.
“It’s been amazing,” Markowski said. “She’s been through so much and she’s one of my best friends. Watching her sit out for two years, she’s put in a lot of hard work to get back to the position of being healthy and to play again. She’s just that player that you want to play with. She’s just a fighter, she’s super tough and she just makes those hustle plays, and it’s something that you can’t teach. Having her back out there has really been great.”
Another player the Huskers will rely on in the backcourt is sophomore Logan Nissley, who took off down the stretch of the 2023-24 season. Over the final 12 games, the 6-foot guard from Bismarck, North Dakota, averaged 9.4 points, 2.7 rebounds and 1.8 assists while shooting 42.6% from 3 in 28.2 minutes per game.
“What an outstanding freshman year, particularly for a young lady that did not get to have much of an offseason or preseason,” Williams said. “And then she kind of worked in, it seemed like, those first few games. We all knew what Logan was capable of; she’s got some special skill sets and early in the season, the first few games, it maybe wasn’t panning out with her 3-point field goal percentages, but her teammates would be like ‘Logan, just keep shooting,’ and she said ‘Oh, I will,’ and she did, and it paid off for our team.
“I think the first 10 games of the year she was working back in. We were able to increase her in the middle of the stretch and then down towards the end of the season she was somebody that was really heavily depended on as she worked into that starting lineup to bring that consistent scoring punch from behind the arc.”
Take an experienced group of returners and add a diverse cast of newcomers highlighted by five-star recruit Britt Prince and the Huskers are excited about this year’s roster. Nissley had offseason surgery and is starting to ramp up her activity. Freshman Kennadi Williams, the daughter of the head coach, is recovering from an injury and plans to redshirt this season.
For the rest of the team, it’s full go on the practice court as the Huskers gear up to make another run at the postseason in 2024-25.
