Around the nation

By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com

“I’m 6-2 with basketball shoes on and I can jump pretty high.”

That’s the secret to rebounding according to new NCAA Division III women’s basketball career rebounding leader Mary Schleusner, the All-American senior from No. 6 Washington and Lee.

She grabbed 21 rebounds in a 63-57 home win over Bridgewater on Jan. 21 to take over the top spot, passing Denison’s Jordan Holmes, who finished her career in 2017 with 1,711 total boards. At 1,713 and counting, Schleusner is more than 400 rebounds ahead of any active player in any division, and if she maintains her career average of more than 16 per game through the remainder of the season, she will trail only Oklahoma’s Courtney Paris in the overall NCAA charts (with a chance to be first there as well if the Generals make a deep tournament run).

Coach Brittney Kemp arrived just two summers ago, but cites the team’s joy and unity, which almost everyone attributes to Schleusner’s presence, as one of the main reasons behind her decision. “Every team will tell you they love each other,” Kemp notes; “This team really does it.”

“Mary has a way of making the most boring tasks fun,” recalls Hanna Malik, point guard for Schleusner’s first two years with the Generals and now a graduate assistant at Emory. “No matter if it was the most mundane exercise or the worst day, Mary came in with a smile on her face and tried to bring joy and laughter to everyone around her.”

It’s really contagious. You can see it coming through the screen in a Hoopsville interview and you can see it on the field. Schleusner enjoys the game and she enjoys the people around her. That has given an unusual boost to the Washington & Lee program, which made a surprising run to the Elite Eight two years ago following Schleusner’s rewrite of the postseason record book.

She broke the tournament’s rebound record in her third match, a record 33 rebound performance at Rhode Island College, breaking the single game record of 29 she had set two rounds earlier. Her 104 rebounds in four tournament games are 23 more than anyone has ever had in six.

The dominance she has shown has led to breaking a record that was already dominant. Holmes’ record is 10% above now third place and Schleusner is on track to be at least 10% ahead of Holmes by the end of the year.

“There’s a little bit of sadness,” Holmes said of losing the record, “but I’m pleased. It shows that women’s basketball is growing and finally being invested in. We may not get as much attention as Division I basketball, but Division III is good and it will only get better from here. I haven’t seen Mary play, but she seems like an exceptional basketball player and I’m glad she’s moving things forward.”

In January 2017, Denison’s Jordan Holmes surpassed the previous record holder, Ronda Jo Miller of Gallaudet. 2017 Denison athletics photo by Jace Delgado

Holmes, now working on a doctorate in psychology at Michigan State, was a dominant force at Denison and remains the Division III career blocks leader, whose 642 rejections trail only Brittney Griner across all divisions and are still more than double what Schleusner (the active Division III leader) has amassed. Not only does she see her record fall this season, but her Big Red jumps to a 17-0 start, the best in program history.

“We had our alumni weekend in November. They honored our 2016 at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Coming home to a nice welcome home was wonderful and it’s so great to see how things have developed in a positive way.”

Despite the individual figures, Schleusner has the same feeling of being part of a bigger picture at W&L.

“It’s an honor to be a part of this program, especially as it gets the wheels under its feet. I met the woman who started women’s basketball here, put the first team together, found a conference for us to play in. She’s obviously done so much more for the program than I ever could; I’m just happy to be able to take a step on the journey.”

This perspective is probably why Schleusner is such a good teammate.

Malik notes, “Other players may see rebounding as a chore, but Mary seems to approach it as an opportunity – a chance to create for her and her teammates.”

Schleusner himself says essentially the same thing. “My favorite rebounds are when I don’t go back up with the ball, but when we can send it out for a three. I’m not looking for assists, but threes are worth more than two and converting a rebound into a three-pointer, that’s the epitome of basketball.”

“Mary gives her teammates so much confidence,” Kemp added. “They know if they miss, she will get it for them.”

Schleusner has also scored a lot of points, over 2,100, but the hard work it takes to be a good rebounder is at the center of it all. She says, “Some nights your shots aren’t falling, but rebounding is about strength.”

That’s definitely a common trait of success; Holmes said much the same about himself. “In high school, some of my teammates went to Division I, one played at Notre Dame, my job was as a clean-up guy. My job was always defense-oriented.”

These contributions were not even noticed initially. Holmes expected to be a practice player all four years. Her coach, Sara Lee, thought she would need several years to contribute. “I was wrong. She started the first game her freshman year and had 10 rebounds and three blocked shots. The next game she had 15 rebounds and seven blocked shots.”

Schleusner had a similarly unique origin story: She initially planned to run cross country at the Division I level, but she tried basketball at Washington and Lee as almost a backup plan — and while the numbers were mind-boggling from the start, she learned a lot.

“Katheryn Vandiver was my high school teammate, a senior my freshman year. She showed me what life could be like here, what basketball could be like at the D-III level. She taught me so much.”

Schleusner went on to list, I believe, every teammate she’s had over the past four years, with a kind and moving comment about each. She reflected on the impact her parents had, taking her to camps and games throughout her life, and the toughness two older brothers had instilled in her.

Mary Schleusner is a fun player to celebrate because she embodies everything you want to see from Division III athletes, not just excellence in competition, but dedication to life, academics and the school itself.

“She’s such a great ambassador for the program,” Kemp notes, “but not just for the program, for the entire school. She doesn’t just love the team, she loves this place.”

She’s also not quite ready to move on. There are no immediate plans in the works, other than to play Guilford on Friday, where she will almost certainly tie the Division III career record for double-doubles at 83, and for the Generals to close out the season on the best possible note. No one at W&L talks about national titles, at least not out loud, and certainly not to a reporter, but it is a real possibility and would be a pretty legendary end to a historically storied career.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Schleusner reflects, twenty minutes after achieving the record.

It’s real, of course, and one day she’ll know that, but I can’t help wishing that her particular brand of exuberant disbelief continues for as long as humanly possible.

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