But for the time being, we’re not talking about a 2024-25 roster, at least not much.
One of the first things that a newly hired college basketball coach has to do is start working the phones to get the recruiting engine up and running.
The fact of the matter is that when you’re hired in April, like new Marquette women’s basketball coach Cara Consuegra, you have a little over six months before you’re expected to get some ink on paper for your first recruiting class. Seems like maybe not a big deal, but when you’re effectively starting from zero because there’s no one committed to play for you, it’s a whole thing.
In Consuegra’s case, she has an even bigger task in front of her: Being able to field a competitive team when the ball goes into the air in less than seven months. Right now, Marquette can’t even play four-on-four in practice, much less a full five-on-five scrimmage.
Right now, for this recruiting update, we only have one potential transfer name to talk about, but we have some possible future Golden Eagles to add to the list, as Consuegra has started activating some existing relationships from her time at Charlotte. It’ll make sense as we go, trust me.
Let’s drop the scholarship chart in at the top so we can all keep an idea of what Marquette and Consuegra are looking at both in the immediate sense and the long term view.
Transfer Portal
Vitoria Santana
5’9 PG- Vitoria Moura Santana received an offer from Marquette. @MarquetteWBB @vitoria_mouura pic.twitter.com/IQ8sfFlQkK
— EAC WBB (@eacwbb) April 26, 2024
Vitoria Santana is what you might call an old school transfer. She just finished up her sophomore season at Eastern Arizona College in the junior college ranks. The history of college basketball is littered with players making the exact same move — finish the two available years at JuCo, move to a 4 year institution — that she’s looking at doing right now. EAC went 30-5 this past season, reaching the NJCAA Division 1 national championship semifinals before having their season come to an end. Santana was a big reason why they did what they did, as she was the leader in points (15.9), rebounds (8.1), assists (3.8), and steals (2.6). Unsurprisingly, Santana earned First Team All-American honors for all of this.
I don’t think anyone’s expecting all of that to translate to success in the Big East, but if you’re good enough to do all of that for one team, there’s bound to be at least one part of it that does translate. The scoring would be the thing that is most on edge here, as she shot just 36% from the field and under 31% from behind the three-point line. That’s on over seven long range attempts per game, but from a glance at the rest of the EAC roster, maybe Santana would be a better shooter with better shooters around her. The two-point shooting isn’t very shiny at 43%, but again: Maybe if everything wasn’t depending on her shooting, maybe the shooting gets better.
Since April 24th alone, Santana has received high major offers from Minnesota, UCF, and Rutgers, and she had 21 Division 1 offers before that. Clearly Marquette is late to the game here, but as the scholarship chart points out, there’s playing time available in bunches.
Highlight reel? Sure, why not.
Class of 2025
Kate Sears
After a great call with @cconsuegra, I’m extremely blessed and thankful to have been re-offered by the new staff at Marquette University! @MarquetteWBB @BillTorg @TeamCurry @SheIsCoachAsh pic.twitter.com/YZ1zldr37n
— Kate Sears (@Kate_sears12) April 18, 2024
To be clear about what she’s talking about in her tweet here, Kate Sears did get an offer from Megan Duffy back in June of 2023……. as well as an offer from Cara Consuegra at Charlotte back in July of 2021. I’m not trying to say anything about anything here, but here’s what we know for sure: Kate Sears already knows things about both Cara Consuegra and Marquette.
Sears is a 5’10” guard, and, uh, she’s really good. Three seasons at Watauga High School in Boone, North Carolina, three conference Player of the Year trophies, three-time District Player of the Year, three-time all-state. In her 88 game career, she’s averaging 21.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.2 assists, and 2.3 long range makes per game while shooting 37%.
How about some highlights, just from the state championship tournament, as Watauga made it to the semifinals?
Highlights from the playoffs. @WataugaHSWBB pic.twitter.com/AAxOGwKP6t
— Kate Sears (@Kate_sears12) March 22, 2024
Kamryn Kitchen
Blessed to be re-offered by @cconsuegra and continue our relationship @MarquetteWBB !! pic.twitter.com/3wP2tnZHEa
— Kamryn Kitchen (@kamrynkitchen) April 19, 2024
ESPN already has a page for the 5’9” guard from Charlotte, North Carolina, grading her as a four-star prospect. Not sure if that really means anything right now as The World Wide Leader doesn’t go deeper than 60 in their national rankings quite yet, but I am pointing out that they have a page for Kitchen and not for Kate Sears. Both young women play for Team Curry on the grassroots circuit, so it would seem like the evaluating types will get to see them both play together this spring and summer. With that said, it seems that Kitchen might have been in ESPN’s 60 last summer at some point, so that’s interesting to watch.
As you can see from the tweet, Kitchen did receive an offer from Cara Consuegra to play at Charlotte. That offer was back in December of 2021, and the fact that Consuegra re-issued it now that she’s at Marquette is a pretty notable indication of both her interest in Kitchen as a player but also in her belief that Kitchen can play in the Big East. Much like her club teammate Kate Sears, Kitchen also had an offer from Marquette dating back to last June, so it helps that there’s already some level of familiarity with both the coach and the school. For whatever it’s worth to you, Megan Duffy has re-offered both young women at Virginia Tech, so presuming a continuing level of contact for the last year, that helps Consuegra as we head towards November’s signing date.
Independence High School in Charlotte is ON TOP OF IT when it comes to making use of MaxPreps to log their stats. There’s 80 games worth of stats for Kitchen, who is averaging 14.5 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 2.4 steals for her career. This past season, she went for 16.7 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 2.4 steals. Junior year was her best shooting year, as she hit for 54% from the field overall and a whopping 42% behind the three point line on top of a career best 84% at the free throw line. Kitchen attempted 178 of her 327 field goals on the year as triples, because you should do that when you’re hitting 42% of them.
Here’s 2-ish minutes of highlights.
2025 Kamryn Kitchen | @kamrynkitchen | Conference games
•quick release, next-level footwork
•ability create shot in small spaces
•75 3PM at 42%, single-season record
•197 career 3PM
•3.8 GPAContact for full game film #indyhoops pic.twitter.com/qtnxf7JECn
— Indy Girls Basketball (@IndependenceGBB) March 28, 2024
Class of 2027
Leena McField
Thank you Marquette WBB and @cconsuegra for believing in me. I am honored, humbled and blessed to receive this offer. #BigEastBasketball @ucantguardme3_
Leena McField c/o 2027 #CP3 pic.twitter.com/nlEBghdKbm— shegotnets (@michael_mcfield) April 23, 2024
Yes, it’s slightly funny to be talking about recruiting for a roster that doesn’t currently project to have any players on it, but that’s how things go when your signed freshmen for next fall all expectedly ask for their releases when the coach leaves for Virginia Tech.
In any case, this appears to be Leena’s father’s twitter account screencapping her Instagram post. It is what it is, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I judge a high school parent for not letting their high school freshman sign up for Twitter.
It’s clear that McField is pretty good at the whole basketball thing, even for someone who just wrapped up their freshman year. She’s attending Northern Guilford High School in Greensboro, North Carolina (I think we can expect a certain amount of NC prospects, at least for a little while, given where Consuegra was working up until recently) and she had a hell of a year. Measuring in as a 5’10” guard/wing, McField averaged 23.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 2.6 steals per game, and considering that the team went 28-2 with a 14-0 record in conference play, that’s really good.
McField already had an offer from Consuegra at Charlotte from last August, so this is just a continuation of that relationship. I found a highlight reel from early last August, which is useful since that’s right before Consuegra made that offer.
Class of 2028
Kinsley Ketterhagen
After a great call with @cconsuegra I am thankful to say I have received an offer from Marquette to continue my academic and athletic career. Thank you to everyone who made this possible! @MarquetteWBB @idketterhagen @sketty4444 @ThriveWi @bjbuss @Coach_Peplinski pic.twitter.com/On8LWA7gsp
— Kinsley Ketterhagen (@KinsleyKetty10) April 26, 2024
If you read what I wrote about Leena McField and did some math, then you’ve already figured out that this is Cara Consuegra offering a scholarship to a player who is currently in eighth grade. Two things about that: I presume this is almost more about Consuegra building an in-state relationship with Thrive, her club team, and 2) I have to point out that Ketterhagen already had an offer from Wisconsin by the time Fox 6 did a feature on her family last July. Ketterhagen has a pair of twin older sisters in the Class of 2026 and their father is the Oostburg girls basketball coach.
It’s a long way between now and when Ketterhagen might actually make a college choice much less actually sign a letter or arrive on a campus, so I’m not going to dive tooooo deep into anything about her for the moment.