Overview:
Coach Renee Jimenez augments her high school recruiting class by adding four players from the NCAA Transfer Portal
The third season can be the charm for a college women’s basketball coach and the players she recruits.
Renee Jimenez finds herself in that position, having brought in all but one of the players for UC Santa Barbara’s team next season.
But that one exception … is exceptional.
All-leaguer Zoe Borter, the lone holdover from coach Bonnie Henrickson’s last Gaucho team of 2022-2023, and four of last year’s teammates will be joined by eight new players when they tip off next season.
And Jimenez believes the large influx of newcomers will give Borter the best chance to go out a winner.
“I told Zoe ‘I want you to win a Big West (Conference) championship before you leave … You deserve it,’” she said. “I feel like we now have a team in place to do that.
“We match up a little bit better with some of the athleticism we’ve brought in.”
The new Gauchos include four players signed out of the NCAA transfer portal: 6-6 senior forward Olivia Anderson from Washington, 5-7 junior guard Mauriana Hashemian-Orr from Saint Mary’s, 5-9 junior guard Naomy Zonzon-Huyghe from UC Irvine, and 6-2 sophomore forward Nicole Steiner from Cal State Fullerton.
The four incoming freshmen are headlined by 5-10 Oak Park High star Karisma Flores, a four-star recruit who was ranked 49th among the nation’s top seniors by 247Sports. (She was known as Karisma Lewis until switching to her mother’s maiden name last year).
Other high school recruits are 6-2 Ava Albanese from St. Louis Incarnate Word, 5-8 Sarah Heyn from San Diego Westview, and 5-9 Charlotte Lipkin from Bothell, Washington.
Jimenez scored a major off-season coup by retaining Borter in an era when power-conference schools are luring away midmajor stars with NIL (name, image and likeness) payouts.
Olivia Bradley, Borter’s running mate on UCSB’s starting front line, did accept an offer from Utah.
“There’s just not enough words to express how big it was to keep Zoe, especially in the day and age we’re in of players transferring for money and bigger, brighter, shinier,” Jimenez said. “There’s not a lot of Zoe Borters left in this game.
“Alyssa Marin did the same thing. Bonnie left and she could have gone, and she didn’t.”
Borter, a 6-foot-2 wing, earned second-team All-Big West Conference honors after averaging 15.1 points per game and ranking 26th nationally with a league-best, three-point shooting percentage of 41.3%.
Her willingness to plug various holes in UCSB’s lineup enabled Jimenez to log her first 20-win season at UCSB.
“We got Zoe as a sophomore, and it was great to watch her growth and development,” she said. “No matter what we threw at her, she was always a willing, willing participant.
“When Maddie (Naro) went out with her shoulder injury, I was like, ‘Oh, you might have to play a little point guard,’ and she was like, ‘OK.’ Or you might have to guard the five.’ … ‘OK.’
“That’s parenting. So I just so badly want this to be a great year for her, for her family … to chase a championship and the Big West Player of the Year Award.”
Point to Make
Naro, Borter’s former teammate at Beaverton (Oregon) High School, took over from Marin as UCSB’s starting point guard last season after transferring from Santa Clara.
She underwent surgery on her left shoulder two months ago. She missed three games after suffering the injury during a 62-61, New Year’s Day home loss to Cal State Fullerton.
The recovery time is four to five months, Jimenez said.
“Maddie made the decision to play through her injury,” she said. “The doctor told her, ‘If you don’t have the surgery, your chances of it popping out again are 80% to 90% … If you have it, you’re down to like 15%.’
“So with her mom and dad, we were like, ‘Let’s do this.’
“Maddie is also not wired to be out, that’s just not who she is.
“But she’s so far ahead of where she’s supposed to be (with her rehabilitation). The doctor is trying to slow her down a little bit, which is what you want right here.”
The Gauchos’ other returning players are 5-7 junior Zoe Shaw, who shot 36.3% from three-point range as UCSB’s starting wing guard; 6-foot sophomore Chauncey Anderson, who averaged 5.8 points and 4.4 rebounds as a top reserve; and 5-10 freshman Ava Rawlins, who sat out last season as a medical redshirt.
The NCAA transfer portal will add to that veteran depth, especially on the defensive end.
“Maddie and Zoe were incredible when it came to locking down the other team’s best players, they always had the hardest defensive assignments,” Jimenez said. “But we were also making Maddie bring the ball up for 30 minutes and making Zoe try to be our leading scorer, so we needed some help for them defensively.
“Naomy and Mauriana will be really good in terms of taking some of that pressure off, where Maddie doesn’t have to defend the other team’s toughest guard every night.
“The same thing with Nicole Steiner, where Zoe Borter doesn’t have to see the hardest matchup every night.”
Zonzon-Huyghe, a French import, averaged 5.0 points while shooting 35.9% from three for UC Irvine’s 26-7, Big West regular-season championship team.
“She’s a high-energy kid and great defensively, and she’s a big guard,” Jimenez said. “She’s had a lot of overseas experience, playing in France, and her dad’s a coach there.
“She’s highly competitive and looking for a bigger role than what she had at Irvine.”
Hashemian-Orr led Saint Mary’s in assists with a 2.8 average despite coming off the bench in all but six games. She also scored at a per-game clip of 4.2 points.
“We really struggled against quick guards, and we needed more ballhandlers against Fullerton’s press,” Jimenez said.
“Those are guard pieces that Mauriana and Naomy fill perfectly.”
Forward Thinking
Steiner will help fill the void created by Bradley’s transfer.
She made the Big West’s All-Freshman Team last year after averaging 10.1 points and 7.4 rebounds — 4.1 of them offensive — for a Fullerton team that won 18 games last season.
Jimenez thought about offering her a scholarship after she set 10 school records at Los Gatos High School.
She regretted that she didn’t pull the trigger after Steiner burned UCSB with a double-double of 16 points and 13 rebounds in the Titans’ New Year’s win at the Thunderdome.
“She totally kicked our butt,” said Jimenez, noting Steiner’s eight offensive rebounds in that game. “When she went into the portal, I went, ‘Look, you’ve always wanted to come here and we really want you here, let’s do this,’ and she was like, ‘All right!’ … She didn’t take any other visits.
“She’s a really high academic kid — her parents really want her to be in a better academic situation — and this was like her dream school.”
For more rim protection, the Gauchos replaced one Olivia with another.
It lost 40% of the team’s blocked shots from last year when Bradley transferred to Utah.
But Anderson, a senior from Washington, will bring her 6-foot-6 length to the Gauchos next season.
Anderson was ranked as high as No. 25 on ESPN’s list of top 100 high recruits when she was leading Ellensburg High School to back-to-back Washington state championships.
She never found a significant role with the Huskies, however. That, along with injuries, limited her to just 10 games in each of the last two years.
“She asked what all recruits ask: ‘Where do you see me playing? … How am I going to fit?’” Jimenez said. “I went, ‘Look, just by your sheer height, you’re going to be a problem in our conference because we don’t see 6-6.’”
She said Anderson’s size won’t limit UCSB’s desire to play at a fast pace.
“She’s not one of those thick post players,” Jimenez said. “It was, ‘We want to really develop your perimeter play, your ability to knock down a three from the perimeter’ — just honing in on some things that we could see in film that she could do but just hadn’t done at Washington.”
Frosh Approach
The high school recruits — Flores in particular — should provide UCSB with immediate firepower.
Flores completed her high school career with 2,174 points to rank fourth in Ventura County history.
She showed her shooting prowess by making all seven of her three-point attempts and scoring 27 points in a State Tournament Open Division victory over La Jolla Country Day.
She played at Oak Park for coach April McDivitt Schilling, the point guard for UCSB’s NCAA Sweet 16 team of 2004.
“She’s a big one for us,” Jimenez said. “She’s a two-three who obviously shoots the lights out.
“Everyone in our freshman group has the potential to play — I’m excited about all four of them.”
She is keeping the roster at 13 instead of the full-limit of 15 because, ‘We’ve got to play these young guys.”
“That’s really important to their development,” she continued. “If you watched Chauncey Anderson and what she did with her opportunities this year, that’s what you hope that the four freshmen can do.
“We want to make sure that they’re game-ready and getting game-ready minutes.
“In this day and age, in terms of player retention, you want to give them hope that they’re going to be a part of it.”
Albanese helped Incarnate Word, 29-2 overall, win its last 25 games to capture the Missouri State Championship.
The team was ranked No. 7 nationally in the final MaxPreps rating.
“She’s 6-2 but she’s a little bit like Olivia Bradley — a four that can run the floor and shoot it,” Jimenez said. “She has great length and size.”
Heyn averaged 18.0 points, 5.4 assists and 5.6 rebounds for San Diego’s Westview High.
“She’s a point guard who’ll back up Maddie,” Jimenez said.
Lipkin, the daughter of former Gaucho star Erika Kienast Lipkin, is perhaps the most versatile newcomer.
“She’s a jack of all trades,” Jimenez said.
Lipkin averaged 19.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.9 steals for Bothell (Washington) High School. Her club coach, Mia Fisher, is another former UCSB star.
“When we saw Charlotte, Mia was like, ‘Her mom’s an alum,’ and I’m like, ‘Wait … what?’” Jimenez recalled.
“Everyone around here has been like, ‘Erika was just so tough,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, that’s Charlotte,’” she added. “We first saw her when she was young, when we first got the job, and we knew she was going to be good.
“She reminds me of Zoe Borter, just smaller.”
And nothing is bigger than that these days for the Gauchos.
