Why Purdue Women's Basketball is 'Ahead of Schedule' as Season Approaches

With 10 new faces on the roster, you might believe the Purdue women's basketball team is playing a lot of "catch-up" with the season just around the corner. Head coach Katie Gearlds says that's not the case, and believes this group is actually ahead of schedule with the first game just one month away.

Purdue's roster looks drastically different from one season ago, bringing in six players from the NCAA transfer portal, three freshman and bringing back Madison Layden-Zay, who played for the Boilermakers from 2020-24, but was not on last year's squad.

Building team chemistry certainly takes time, but in terms of practice planning and preseason preparations, Gearlds says her team might be further along at this point in the year than the 2022-23 team, which reached the NCAA Tournament.

"For us to not really touch a lot of defense over the summer, and here we are starting practice No. 8 — I go back a few years ago looking at practice plans, I think we're a little ahead of schedule," Gearlds said. "I think we caught on even a little quicker than the team that went [to the NCAA] tournament.

"We have a lot of high IQ kids that have caught on to it quicker than we have in the past."

Purdue had to recalibrate after the 2024-25 campaign concluded. The Boilermakers finished the season with a 10-19 record and missed out on the Big Ten Tournament. Gearlds and her staff were purposeful when attacking the transfer portal and on the recruiting trail, bringing in players who fit the program stylistically and culturally.

The Boilermakers open their season on Nov. 3 against Fairleigh Dickinson. While the team may be ahead of where Gearlds expected, she says there's still plenty of work to be done until that first tipoff of the year.

"We're not doing things until we get it right, we're doing them until we don't get them wrong," Gearlds said. "And we're not there yet, but we're further along that I anticipated."

Purdue learned a lot over summer months

Purdue used the summer to help develop team chemistry and get new players acclimated with the program. Gearlds knew she brought in a lot of skilled players from the transfer portal and on the recruiting front, but those summer months are when she began noticing this would be a group that could learn quickly.

"As the summer went on and you got to talk basketball with them, got to talk sports with them, got to talk about life, you could just see that they were high-IQ individuals," Gearlds said. "We start to implement some offensive tendencies or set plays, whatever it is we're doing, and they grabbed on to it."

For a team looking to bounce back from a down year, having a group of players who can learn quickly and understand the process is a major benefit. It allows Purdue to accomplish more during these fall practices in preparation for the upcoming season.

Purdue has a roster that understands what it needs to do in order to be successful. Now, it's a matter of operating at a high level consistently throughout the course of the season.

Purdue learned a lot over summer months

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