• Green Bay women’s basketball eyes 21st NCAA Tournament berth after winning another Horizon League regular-season championship, with first-year head coach Kayla Karius leading the No. 1-seeded Phoenix into the conference tournament.
• Horizon League Player of the Year Jenna Guyer headlines a revamped roster, emerging as the team’s leader while forming a dominant frontcourt with Meghan Schultz and guiding eight newcomers through a championship-caliber season.
• Experienced transfers and veteran leadership fuel Green Bay’s postseason push, as senior guards Kamy Peppler and Maddie Skorupski anchor the backcourt and help the Phoenix pursue another Horizon League title and NCAA Tournament run.

For most low and mid-major college basketball programs, winning a conference tournament and playing in the NCAA Tournament is a banner-worthy occasion. For the Green Bay women’s basketball program, reaching the Big Dance has become the standard.

Now, the Phoenix wants to set a new standard and has the leadership to do so. Fresh off another Horizon League regular-season championship, Green Bay will begin postseason play this week as the league’s No. 1 seed, looking to earn the program’s 21st NCAA Tournament appearance.

Head coach Kayla Karius (Tetschlag) is an alumna of the program and knows exactly what it takes to create the expectation of winning in the tournament, not just getting there.

“This program has a really high standard that we've been to the NCAA Tournament 20 times. So it's not ever taken for granted, it's always special, it never gets old when you earn the right to go to that tournament,” Karius said. “And at the same time, there have been teams that have won games while they were there, and that's an extra special bonus.”

Over Karius’ four-year playing career the Phoenix made the NCAA Tournament three times. As a sophomore, Green Bay was eliminated in the first round. As a junior, the program won a first-round game and as a senior, it advanced to its first and only Sweet 16, winning two games.

An NCAA Tournament appearance would mark three-straight for Green Bay. But, as goes the modern era of college sports, this year’s team is totally different from the one that won the league tournament a season ago.

Karius welcomed eight newcomers to the roster in the offseason, and returned just one player who saw regular minutes in 2024-25.

Jenna Guyer, a redshirt senior, played in 32 of the team's 34 games in 2023-24, averaging 13 minutes per game. Following the season, longtime head coach Kevin Borseth retired and Karius was named his replacement. Guyer, despite the coaching change, opted to return to the Phoenix and was rewarded by playing in all 35 of the teams contests in 2024-25.

“I knew she knew what it took to win,” Guyer said of Karius. “That helped me trust that we were still going to be successful and I still had my teammates.”

For her final season of eligibility, Guyer stayed true to Green Bay and it is paying major dividends. Guyer earned Horizon League Player of the Year, All-League First Team, and All-Defensive Team honors when the league announced its individual awards prior to the postseason.

“I've worked so hard for this program and dedicated a lot of my career here,” Guyer said. “I think it was a really easy decision to stay here and embrace my final season here.”

Prior to the season, Guyer had made zero starts in her collegiate career. By staying loyal to the program, however, she put together the most decorated season of any player in the league, a testament to her individual growth and the program’s excellence.

Guyer, alongside redshirt freshman Meghan Schultz, who is eighth in the Horizon League in scoring averaging 12.6 points per game, make up one of, if not the most formidable frontcourt in the league which has been a huge driver of the Phoenix’s success.

Schultz has provided a great front court punch to supplement Guyer's scoring.

Beyond her on-court production, Guyer—the lone returner who played rotational minutes a season ago—has taken major strides as a leader, using her experience to bring together a team full of first-year Phoenix.

“The senior group last year was a huge part of my four years, so coming into this year, I feel like I had a good understanding of what it took to win Horizon League championships and get to the NCAA tournament,” Guyer said. “It started with transfers coming in and teaching them how we do things here, our mottoes and how we stay true.”

The frontcourt’s scoring punch and Guyer's ability to lead from experience has been critical for Green Bay all season. The backcourt, albeit experienced in a different way, has been equally as critical on the court and also provided a unique sense of leadership.

Senior guards Kamy Peppler and Maddie Skorupski rank first and second in the league, respectively, in assists per game. Having multiple guards who can create their own shots and set up teammates is a hallmark of successful teams, and the duo gives the Phoenix just that.

Despite both guards being in their first year with the program, the two bring a combined five years of Horizon League experience to Green Bay. Peppler spent her first three seasons at Milwaukee and Skorupski spent the last two seasons at Oakland.

With Green Bay in need of veteran voices because of roster turnover, Peppler, now playing within an hour of her hometown, has stepped into a leadership role—in just her first year with the program.

“Having the experience in the Horizon League is huge,” Peppler said. “You know all the teams, you have experience with them, you know the gyms, all those little things when transferring is a big advantage.”

Peppler is one of two elite orchestrators that Karius brought in the offseason.

While most of them are in their first year with Green Bay, the roster is full of seniors, some of which have never played in the NCAA Tournament, which has driven the team’s desire to go out swinging in the postseason.

“We just play for each other and no one wants to lose. The seniors especially leave everything out there knowing this is their last year playing,” Peppler said.

Some teams with numerous new faces struggle in the modern age of college sports, but for the Phoenix, veteran leadership was aplenty from both returning faces and newcomers that understood the program’s existing tradition of excellence.

The regular season once again ended in a championship for Green Bay, but like every season, there was adversity. It came late this season in a form that has been foreign to the program for years.

On Feb. 11, the Phoenix suffered a road loss to Cleveland State. Then, in their next game on Feb. 14, they lost at home to Northern Kentucky. The stretch accounted for two of the team’s three losses in the league in 20 games, but it marked the first time the program dropped back-to-back games since December 2020.

As is the sign of a strong program, Green Bay responded by closing out another regular-season championship. The ability to overcome a bump in the road late in the season starts with strong leadership, and that is exactly what the program has.

“We didn't act like the sky was falling. I think that's the biggest thing,” Karius said. “We didn't scrap everything and start over. I think that came at a really good time. We got back to competing and rebounding at a better level, and defending at a better level, and just reminding ourselves who we are.”

Having a head coach who responds to adversity by making the necessary adjustments while not trying to fix something that isn’t broken is critical as postseason basketball approaches. Karius’ mindset of staying true to the “Green Bay Way” in the midst of back-to-back losses allowed her players to right the ship.

“[The losses] were a huge growing point for us,” Guyer said. “It happened at a good point where we still had to grow from it and have a chance for the regular-season championship. I feel like there's a lot of positives to learn from just knowing how we deal with adversity and learning from that.”

Not only did the Phoenix have time to recover and win a regular-season championship, they did so by finishing multiple games above second-place Youngstown State, even after dropping the regular-season finale to Purdue Fort Wayne.

Entering the postseason as the favorite to represent the Horizon League in the NCAA Tournament is not foreign territory for Green Bay. It is, however, foreign to a roster that Karius had to craft with the Big Dance in mind during the offseason.

Karius has done the job as a player, and prepares to chase new tournament heights as a coach

Even with all the change from a season ago, Karius has a team in position to succeed in March, and she has full belief it will do so.

“We lost 85% of our minutes [from 2024-25]. That's the true story about who this team is,” Karius said. “You look at those stats at the beginning of the year, and you're like, ‘Oh, it’s a rebuilding year’ and this team figured it out really quickly and bought into relationships and friendships, so I give them a ton of credit.”

The 2025-26 Phoenix will have a chance to add their own chapter to the history of the program this postseason. Green Bay will play for the 2026 Barbosal Horizon League Women’s Basketball Championship and the Horizon’s League’s automatic-bid to the NCAA Tournament on Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET. It will face the winner of Monday’s semifinal game between Cleveland State and Youngstown State.