Last Tuesday Green Bay beat Cleveland State 64-40 in the Horizon women’s tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Phoenix owned this league for most of this century, making 14 NCAA tourneys in a 17-year stretch from 2002-2018, but had missed out since then until breaking the streak this week. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Green Bay JR G Callie Genke about her team doing some damage during non-conference play.
You were born/raised in Wisconsin: what made you choose Green Bay? It was close to home and I grew up going to games here. I just wanted to be a part of their culture/community.
Your entire roster is from Minnesota or Wisconsin: did you play with or against any of your current teammates during high school? I played AAU ball with a couple of them and 1 was a high school rival. It is fun that we get to play again in college.
You play for Coach Kevin Borseth: what makes him such a good coach, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from him so far? He really cares about us and lets us put a lot of input into the decisions. While winning is important, he really emphasizes that we are here to have fun/get an education.
You are majoring in Business Management and Marketing: what is the post-graduation plan? I plan to attend grad school but do not have many further plans than that.
You faced 2 teams this year ranked in the top-25 (Creighton/Washington State) and beat both: does that give you the confidence that you can compete against whatever power-conference opponent you face next week? Our non-conference schedule was definitely tough and we proved that we can beat the top teams: it will give us a lot of confidence going into next week.
Last November you scored a career-high 24 PTS/5-9 3PM in 24 minutes in a win over Illinois State: was it just 1 of those scenarios where every shot you put up seemed to go in because you were “in the zone”? Yeah: my shot felt good and my teammates kept feeding me.
You started 18 games last year but were named conference co-6th Player of the Year after getting 0 starts this year: what did it mean to you to receive such an outstanding honor? I did not expect anything like that: I will come off the bench and do whatever is necessary to get us the win.
You are 1 of 8 juniors on a roster that has 1 grad student and no seniors: did you think that your team was 1 year away from being a serious contender? We had quite a few returners from last year so we had high expectations and our goal all season was to make the NCAA tourney.
You have had the same 5 starters for almost every single game: how crucial has that consistency been to your team’s success this year? We talk about consistency a lot in practice/games and just being who we are. The 1st group knows what they have to do but everyone on the bench is ready as well.
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? I am the person on the team that looks at that the least, but I have heard estimates of a 9-12 seed. We proved that we can beat top-25 teams and will come out ready no matter who we play.