Wisconsin is trying to catch up to its Big Ten rivals on the court by battling with them on the women’s basketball recruiting front.
Late Saturday, the Badgers became the sixth Big Ten team to make a scholarship offer to Ciera Toomey from the NEPA Elite Clark 17U team and the Dunmore Class of 2023.
Wisconsin is coming off a last-place finish, going 2-18 in the Big Ten and 5-19 overall.
Big Ten champion Maryland and other conference members Michigan, Northwestern, Ohio State and Penn State are also among the 22 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I schools to make offers to Toomey.
Wisconsin has made seven NCAA Tournament appearances, the last of which came in 2009-10.
Toomey has also received offers from Baylor and Oklahoma in the less than a week since she returned home from leading NEPA Elite to a successful defense of its Hoop Group Showcase League title in Atlantic City. The only non-senior on the roster led the team with 15.0 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.8 blocked shots and a 57.7 field goal percentage in five games in Atlantic City.
At Dunmore, Toomey was a third-team, Class 3A all-state selection as a freshman and a first-teamer in Class 4A as a sophomore.
Other Division I scholarship offers have come in from Boston College, Bucknell, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Northeastern, Pittsburgh, Rider, St. John’s, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. She also has invites to play at Columbia and Penn, members of the Ivy League, which does not allow athletic scholarships.
