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MARQUETTE — 2021 could be considered a “free” year.

That’s how Northern Michigan University women’s basketball coach Troy Mattson looked at it during a season recap during a Zoom interview last week and said he’s not really looking back on what happened after the Wildcats were upset in the first round of the GLIAC Tournament by Davenport.

“Actually, I’m not,” he said. “I’m actually looking ahead. There’s nothing else we could do in the situation that we were in. We had already started our meetings for the upcoming year to get people to understand the importance of changing their bodies. We need to get physically stronger and the mental game will come along with it as they get more and more reps next year, which we were unable to do this year.

Northern Michigan University's Makaylee Kuhn, center, drives between Davenport's Claire Borsheim, left, and Scout Nelson during the first quarter of their GLIAC Tournament first-round game played March 2 at the PEIF gym in Marquette. (Journal photo by Ryan Stieg)

“I looked at it the whole way, it was a free year. Some of these people are going to play 20 extra games in their college career and that’s incredible. We’ve got a lot of freshmen that played, we had four freshmen playing major minutes all season long. They’re only going to get better because of it.

“Now they understand what they need to do with their bodies and with their minds and we’ll come back that much stronger next year, I believe.”

NMU had four freshmen that got a significant amount of playing time and Mattson said all of them impressed him during the season.

“All four of them did actually at times,” he said about being impressed. “I guess Kayla Tierney was probably playing the best of them all. She got into the starting lineup on a consistent basis coming down the stretch, had some huge nights for us shooting the basketball.

“And Vivianne Jende was playing major, major minutes coming down the stretch and she had some huge games throughout the year.

Northern Michigan University's Makaylee Kuhn, top left, puts up a shot as Purdue Northwest's Brittany Barnard tries to block her shot during the second quarter of their GLIAC game played at the PEIF gym in Marquette on Feb. 26. (Journal photo by Ryan Stieg)

“Ana Rhude, we had to limit her minutes coming down the stretch, unfortunately, just because of the way we were feeling about the way she was playing. But again, I don’t know if I’ve ever had freshmen that scored 20 points in a game and she should’ve did it twice. She had 19 one night and if she makes free throws, she probably has about 25 or 26.

“And then Taya Stevenson had huge nights, she became a real defensive stalwart for us out there, and during the season made shots for us.

“They all played well. I was impressed with all four of them. I just keep reverting back to one thing, they did not practice this year. We started on Jan. 1 and we were expected to play within about a week. For what those girls did with no practice, I was impressed and it’s only going to lead to good things in the future.”

Overall, though, Northern’s offense pretty much ran through Makaylee Kuhn, who was named to the All-GLIAC First Team. She finished second in the conference in points per game (19.4), was tied for sixth in total points (423) and was sixth in rebounds per game (6.5). In fact, she was the only Wildcat to average in double-figures scoring for the season.

Kuhn also dropped in 39 points in a game against Purdue Northwest, which tied for the fifth-most in NCAA Division II.

Despite that kind of season, Mattson said that Kuhn could get even better.

“Her whole game could get better,” he said. “I just talked with her the other day about it. Her potential is off the charts. She’s not near the player she’s going to be in two or three years. She’s scored really well for us. She’s starting, she’s understanding the game from the offensive end to make all her players around her better and she can get a lot better at that.

“She’s playing with her physical talent right now and I need her to play with the physical and mental talent, and she’s a super smart girl. She’ll figure it out. She wants to be good.

“On the defensive end, she was at times maybe breaking down and I didn’t really get on her about it that much, because she had such a burden on her after Emily Mueller got injured to do everything for us.

“So I did not get on her because I knew she was going to have to play 35 or 36 minutes a night. I understood she was going to make some mistakes on the defensive end. I just talked to her about it the other day again. That’s the next step in her progress is can you understand, we’ve got to get you to understand the total team concept. Getting everybody involved because she has the talent to and then her defensive side needs to get way better.

“I’ve been through this before. A great example for me is Alyssa Colla. We’d butt heads a lot during her freshman and sophomore years to get her to play better defense, and lo and behold, her junior and senior years, she’s a First Team All-Defensive Player.

“Makaylee has the capabilities of doing all of this. We need to limit her role a little bit next year. We’re bringing two really good point guards to take some pressure off of her doing so much for us. Limit her role, but her efficiency needs to go up.”

Looking to next year, Mattson said he just hopes that his team can get some reps in to get better defensively before the season starts and said that his team could take a big step forward next winter.

“Yeah, I’d like to practice,” he said with a laugh. “People think you just go out there and throw the ball around and play basketball.

“It doesn’t work that way. It’s not a pickup game when you get to this level. Every team in our conference is practicing other than Wayne State and Davenport, and it was us, the other one. There were three of us that did not get a chance to practice. I want to practice. I want to be able to teach them things that are going to make them successful as a team.

“Like I said, it was a free year. The great thing about the free year was everybody is going to get that one back and we’ve got four freshmen that played major minutes for us that are going to learn from what happened this past year and we’ll move forward for sure.

“This team has got (the) potential to be off the chart. This team, we’ll make strides next year as long as injuries don’t jump in there. Getting Emily Mueller back is gonna be huge for us. Adding three freshmen, that I think they are close to ready, and our depth is going to be incredible.

“Our knowledge of what happened this past year is going to be better. I was really impressed with the way Elena Alaix played this year. I was impressed obviously with Makaylee, a couple other people. We were playing all freshmen and sophomores and Elena was the only one that was really out there that was getting anything done.

“I’ve got total confidence in where we’re going to get as long as injuries stay out of our system. It’s been tough the last couple years, but we’ve got to get a break here pretty soon.”

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.