Wisconsin Women’s Basketball Makes Splash Addition in the Transfer Portal

Player Bio

Name: Carter McCray
Height: 6-foot-1
Position: center/power forward
Hometown: Oberlin, Ohio
Previous school(s): Elyria Catholic High School; Northern Kentucky Norse
Year: sophomore
Other schools considered: Georgetown, UNLV, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, Bowling Green, George Washington

Player Stats (all stats via Her Hoops Stats)

Games: 29 played/29 started
Minutes: 31.7 per game
Points: 15.9 (137th in nation)
Rebounds: 11.3 (7th; she was 4th nationally in offensive boards with 4.9)
Assists: 1.7 (1,050th)
Steals: 1.5 (386th)
Blocks: 0.6 (532nd)
Turnovers: 2.5 (2,841st)

FG%: 56.2% (180-of-324; 92nd)
3P%: did not attempt any, lol
FT%: 62.2% (102-of-164; 1,836th)
FT rate: 18.8% (1,034th)
eFG%: 55.6% (231st)

PER: 30.6 (61st)
Win shares: 3.3 (198th)
Off. win shares: 3.0 (89th)
Def. win shares: 0.3 (1,175th)
Usage: 25.2% (463rd)
Points per play: 0.98 (232nd)

Here are some fun facts about McCray’s high school career: “McCray helped Elyria Catholic reach great heights after she transferred from Lake Ridge Academy. The Panthers went 20-5 in 2021-22 and 21-5 in her senior season. Elyria Catholic won back-to-back Great Lakes Conference championships.

McCray was awarded the GLC Player of the Year, and the Panthers appeared in two straight district finals. In those two years, she averaged a double-double.

McCray averaged 19.3 points per game, 14 rebounds, 2.7 steals and 3.9 blocks. She was named Division II first-team All-Ohio and was the Lorain County Division II Player of the Year.”

Player Overview

This was a really important get for Moseley and the Wisconsin women’s basketball coaching staff. After seeing multiple players enter the portal, bringing a new player in (somewhat) quickly was imperative and bringing in a player with as much potential as McCray? That’s a home run to be perfectly honest. 

While I think there is an argument to be heard about McCray and Serah Williams having redundant skill sets in certain areas, there is enough of a difference where playing both of them together won’t be a problem. Before we get into the “potential lineups” and “division of minutes,” let me just list some of McCray’s accomplishments from her one (1) season of college basketball. 

• McCray was the only Horizon League player to average a double-double (16.3 points, 11.0 rebounds) this season
• McCray earned Freshman of the Week honors seven times this season
• OVC Freshman of the Year
• All-OVC Second Team
• OVC All-Freshman Team
• 17 double-doubles
• Two games of 20+ rebounds
• Nine games of 20+ points
• Fifth in PER*MIN for freshmen (behind only Hannah Hidalgo, JuJu Watkins, Madison Booker, Audi Crooks)
• Sixth in off. WS (add Mia Moore, UAB)
• 10th in WS and WS/40
• 10th off. rating
• For freshmen she was: 1st in RPG, ORB per game, ORB%; 2nd DRB per game, TRB%; 5th DRB%

As you can tell by the stats listed above, McCray had an insane rebounding rate, especially for a freshman. Three of the six players ahead of her in rebounds per game were just drafted in the WNBA (Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Elizabeth Kitley) and she was the highest ranked first year player too.

While Williams is a monster rebounder too, having someone like McCray lined up next to her will make it so that opposing teams struggle to get any boards at all. In an ideal world, Ronnie Porter will not be the Wisconsin women’s basketball team’s second-leading rebounder next year. Watching clips of McCray shows you that she is tenacious going after the ball and she also knows where to be to corral errant shots. She isn’t the prototypical size for a big, especially in the Big Ten, but she makes up those couple of inches with superior effort and positioning.

McCray does just about all of her damage on offense from the paint. She did not attempt a three-pointer as a freshman and her free throw shooting is…fine. That’s an area where Williams likes to work too, but Williams is also working on expanding her game out to the three-point line and I think having another dominant interior scorer will help her development in that regard.

It’s tough to judge a player’s defense on highlight clips and, I’ll be honest with you here, I did not watch much NKU basketball last year, but her defensive stats suggest she’s, at worst, an average defender.

This is an exciting get for the Badgers and McCray should slot right into the Wisconsin women’s basketball team’s starting frontcourt next year. Now UW needs to find some shooting in the portal and the 2024-25 rotation will really start to take shape.