Grace Grocholski gives Gophers women’s basketball another freshman standout

We’ve seen this before at the University of Minnesota. Just last season, in fact, when freshmen Mara Braun, Mallory Heyer and Amaya Battle were all in the top four in scoring for the women’s basketball team.

So it’s not unprecedented.

But, again this year, one of the most important players on the Gophers is a first-year player: Grace Grocholski. A Wisconsin native who won back-to-back high school titles at Kettle Moraine High School, Grocholski was originally set to play for Dawn Plitzuweit at West Virginia before Plitzuweit came here.

A top 100 player in the country, according to ESPN, Grocholski followed Plitzuweit to Minnesota. And she moved right from high school into the starting lineup.

“What Grace does a good job of is learning and growing,” Plitzuweit said. “She’s very competitive.”

And productive. A 5-10 guard/forward, Grocholski enters Saturday’s home game against Michigan State second on the team in scoring (10.9 points per game) and three-pointers made (38) and third in rebounding (4.5) and assists (2.2).

This kind of role wasn’t assumed, but it’s not necessarily unexpected.

“I just knew these coaches are the ones I want to be with and wanted to be coached by,” Grocholski said before Friday’s practice at Williams Arena. She was sporting a couple of stitches above her right eye, thanks to a collision with a practice player before Wednesday’s game at Indiana. Stitched up and bandaged, Grocholski went out and hit eight of nine shots, made three of four three-pointers and led the Gophers with 19 points in the loss. “And that speaks volumes to what they’ve taught me,” she said.

What stands out most is the confidence and poise.

Confidence? In a loss to a ranked UConn team earlier this season, Grocholski struggled with her shot. She went 4-for-17 overall, 3-for-15 on threes. But most of the shots were good ones. And, despite the misses, she kept taking them. When you scored 2,294 points, won two state titles and went 91-18 in four years in high school, you know the shots will eventually fall.

“You keep that mindset,” Grocholski said. “Sometimes that’s hard, but it makes you believe the next one is going in.”

They have. Grocholski has made five threes in a game three times this season, tied for third most in the nation among freshmen. She is 12th in the country in threes made by a freshman, third among freshmen on Power Five teams. She has scored in double figures in 11 of 17 games and averaged 12.3 points vs. ranked opponents. Grocholski trails only Nebraska’s Natalie Potts (11.3) in scoring among Big Ten freshmen.

And she has been one of the Gophers’ better players on the road, averaging 15 points per game and shooting 57.9% overall and 53.8% on threes (14-for-26).

“I’ve talked with Amaya and many of them, just about how coming into a big role like that in the Big Ten is really challenging,” Grocholski said. “But knowing they have confidence in me, my coaches have confidence in me, it helps.”

She contributes in many ways other than scoring, as her stats suggest. She is also asked to guard a fairly wide variety of players, on the perimeter and inside.

“She’s someone we rely a great deal on to make plays for us,” Plitzuweit said, “whether that means hitting shots, being a recipient [of a pass], to keeping a possession alive. She’s someone we think can get to the rim a little more than she is right now. She’s working on that. We think we can get her on the block a little more, and she’s working on that aspect of it.”

Grocholski is also trying very hard not to let the Gophers’ next game after Saturday occupy too much of her time. The Gophers will play next week at Wisconsin. Madison is about an hour’s drive from where she grew up, and Grocholski is expecting a slew of family, friends and former teammates to be there.

“I’m just so excited to see everybody in that gym,” she said.