How Purdue women's basketball filled needs through transfer portal
Katie Gearlds and her staff added four newcomers without disrupting the program's future recruiting strategy
Experience. Maturity. One year remaining. Opportunity.
Those were the key items as Katie Gearlds and her staff began the process of scouring through the transfer portal to fill out the 2024-25 roster without disrupting the long-term recruiting plans already in place.
As Purdue maneuvers through the offseason, it does so with an eye on replacing basically five starters after the loss of Mary Ashley Stevenson, whose decision to enter the transfer portal blindsided the program.
However, the returning players and the transfers – Destini Lombard (Stephen F. Austin), Mahri Petree (UTEP), Ella Collier (Marian), and Reagan Bass (Akron) – bring plenty of minutes and game experience.
How will it mesh together for the Boilermakers? They need to bounce back after last year’s losing season and heading into the 18-team Big Ten, which adds UCLA, Southern California, Oregon, and Washington in July.
DILIGENT PROCESS
It officially started in March when the portal opened, and the coaching staff – specifically assistant coach Mark Stephens – poured over names looking for potential fits that would match what the Boilermakers needed.
Stephens sent names to Gearlds and assistants Kelly Komara and Alex Guyton to conduct their own research and bring together a collaborative process. Not every player the Boilermakers reached out to was going to align with the program’s priorities.
“Even when we were still playing, we were diligent in doing our homework, making sure none of us saw any red flags,” Gearlds said in a one-on-one interview last week. “But if the first question we get is - ‘How much money do you have?’ That’s not what we’re built on right now. We just kept it moving.”
With losing four starters – which eventually became five in April – the staff could show the opportunities for playing time. The Boilermakers had an edge with Petree, whose sister, Lesha, played for one year in the program and Gearlds’ relationship with Collier, who she recruited and coached at Marian, was key.
The staff built relationships with Lombard and Bass to bring them to the program. Purdue was recruiting Bass before Stevenson’s decision, and her addition to the roster takes on more importance now to fill the void left by last year’s Big Ten Freshman of the Year.
“Mahri is a lot like Lesha where she can get a bucket,” Gearlds said. “Big strong guard who can guard on the perimeter. Des, WAC Defensive Player of the Year, is a great athlete who shoots the ball well from the perimeter.
“Ella is the best shooter I’ve seen in my entire life, so you don’t have a day where you go 2 for 22 from 3 and lose to Florida by three points. You actually have somebody who can shoot it because outside of Sophie (Swanson), we didn’t have the knockdown shooter. We were recruiting Reagan before everything happened and getting her made it better for us right now.”
FILLING NEEDS
At the end of the season, the top goal was to bring in veterans, especially on the perimeter. Lombard, Petree, and Collier bring those elements, and Bass adds even more inside with her versatility to play power forward and center.
“I think we needed some maturity on the perimeter,” Gearlds said. “We needed an athletic mobile 4 (Bass) – and I think we got that. I like the makeup of our roster when you look at how talented our young kids, our young guards are, but we wanted to make sure we had some experience around them.”
The group has played in a collective 440 games with 288 starts, including 133 by Collier, the two-time NAIA National Player of the Year, and statistically is one of the top shooters in the nation, whether it’s NAIA or NCAA.
Lombard and Petree bring length and athletic ability to play multiple positions. Collier is a pure shooter, and Bass is “someone who can stretch the floor more than we stretched it last year from that position,” Gearlds said.
Gearlds didn’t pursue true centers since incoming freshmen – Kendall Puryear and Lana McCarthy – play the position and Alania Harper and Mila Reynolds remain with the program and add depth.
COMMITTED TO THE PLAN
The Boilermakers filled their needs without interrupting the work already done in future recruiting.
The program has two 2025 commitments – South Bend Washington’s Kira Reynolds and Brownsburg’s Avery Gordon – and continues to emphasize 2026, 2027, and 2028 prospects as foundation pieces of the program.
Gearlds is attempting to follow a similar path that Matt Painter has established in building and maintaining the men’s basketball program by emphasizing traditional high school recruiting and using the portal only when necessary.
“We’re trying to build this from the ground up,” Gearlds said. “It took Matt a while, but his guys don’t leave. They stay here and they get an opportunity at a young age, and I look at what Iowa did. Obviously, you have a Caitlin Clark, but those kids played together for a really long time, and I think it’s the Purdue way to build it that way.
“That’s why I prefer to build from the ground up and not “live in the portal” but supplement from the portal. You want to make sure you’re getting enough but not shooting yourself in the foot where you’re not competitive.”
“HARD PIVOT”
Stevenson’s departure came as a big surprise.
Keeping players from transfers is at the heart of what Gearlds is trying to build and maintain but there are factors out of her control. The speed at which college athletics is changing in regard to NIL and future revenue sharing will probably slow down some of the movement but not completely.
“That’s something we’re talking about as a staff – how do we prevent stuff like that from happening?” Gearlds said. “We keep recruiting these kids and put them in a situation where they don’t want to leave where retention is normal around here. I think we’re going to get to that.”
Gearlds had invested three years in recruiting the native of New York City and the Boilermakers planned to feature Stevenson as a centerpiece of the program during the next three seasons.
But Stevenson, who transferred to Stanford, and her family tossed that aside in search of another program.
“That’s the world of college athletics right now,” Gearlds said. “You’ve got to be willing and able to pivot when something doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to go or the way you thought it was going to go. Since that day, it’s been a hard pivot for us, and I like the path that we’re on.”