GREEN BAY – Natalie McNeal has never been one of the tallest basketball players on the court.
It was that way for the 5-foot-8 guard during her two seasons at St. Louis University before transferring to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in 2022.
It’s been the same at UWGB, where the only teammate she towers over is point guard Bailey Butler.
By an inch.
So, how the heck is McNeal so good at rebounding?
She was a standout at Germantown while in high school and led the team with 9.6 rebounds per game as a senior. She was first as a junior with 10.1, first as a sophomore with 7.5 and second as a freshman with 5.8.
McNeal ranked third in her one season as a starter at St. Louis, behind only 6-5 Brooke Flowers and 5-10 Julie Martinez.
She was third at UWGB in her first season despite being a reserve who averaged only 17.9 minutes per game. She was the top rebounder for the Phoenix in 2023-24 and ranks second this season.
“She is really athletic, anybody can see she is really bouncy,” UWGB coach Kayla Karius said. “But there is a lot of coaches who would tell you that rebounding is a lot more about do you want it or not? If you have the desire and the will to go get it, then nothing stops you.
“I think there are two schools of thought on that. You can work on rebounding and you can work on the technique of it, and at the end of the day, if you want the ball you are going to go get it. So much of Nat is that she wants the ball in her hands and she wants to then lead the break and bring it up. The extra motivation to do that is to go get that rebound.”
Karius has watched her pupil snatch rebounds completely out of her area, coming up with the ball among opposing players 4 or 5 inches taller.
McNeal has averaged more than 5.0 boards a contest during her five collegiate seasons and entered a game against Detroit on Thursday at the Kress Center with 656 career rebounds.
Had she spent her entire career at UWGB, that number would rank eighth all-time in the program’s Division I history and 19 behind Karius for seventh. She would be in line to finish among the top five by the end of the season.
Natalie McNeal thrives on the boards
McNeal doesn’t have some big reason why she is so effective in the rebounding department. Sometimes she believes the ball just happens to bounce her way. A little bit of luck on certain nights, and it helps to box out and beat her player to the ball. She simply tracks it down and has a desire to be the first to get it.
No, there is no secret sauce for her like the detailed explanations often given by all-time NBA great Dennis Rodman, the undersized forward who would study the trajectory of shots and put himself in the proper position by figuring out in the moment whether a miss was going to be short or long.
“I don’t really know,” McNeal said. “I try to find ways to be effective. Obviously, rebounding is a big thing for our team. We are not the tallest team in the conference, so everyone has got to contribute in the ways they can. I know when my shot is not falling, I just try to find a different detail I can work on. I know rebounding helps a lot, and it’s one of our team goals to outrebound the other team every game. The effort I can put in to help our team there is important to me.”
McNeal contributes far more than just rebounding for the Phoenix. Since the NCAA transfer portal opened in October 2018, she arguably is the best player UWGB has landed.
It certainly has had other big hits, including former guard Sydney Levy, who was one of the team’s top scorers after transferring from in-state rival UW-Milwaukee.
McNeal was an important bench player her first season with the Phoenix and has been one of the top players in the Horizon last season and this season.
She led the team with 13.2 points and 6.8 rebounds in 2023-24 and entered the week leading the team in scoring again this season at 14.1 points along with 6.3 rebounds.
Natalie McNeal stepping up in a big way for UWGB
McNeal was named the Horizon’s player of the week Monday for the second time this season and the third time in her career.
She had 17 points in a win against Youngstown State and had the 10th double-double of her career and her eighth at UWGB with 22 points and 18 rebounds. It was the first time a Phoenix player finished with at least 18 boards in a game since Jessica Lindstrom had 21 in February 2018.
McNeal ranks in the top 10 in the conference in scoring, rebounding and shooting percentage.
She’s helped UWGB overcome some key injuries — that list includes a broken wrist that will keep fellow starter Maddy Schreiber out a while — by averaging 17.3 points and 9.3 rebounds in the first four games of January.
While McNeal is not a threat from 3-point range, she is as dangerous as anybody when it comes to her pull-up jumper.
“A huge piece of this puzzle,” Karius said. “I think the difference-maker now is that everyone knew she had the ability to score and just lately she has had something in her, I don’t know if it’s the senior window that is closing, she is just super extra motivated than she was even before. You watch her play, and she just has a mindset that nobody is going to stop me. It was impressive what she did this last weekend, not just in scoring but the rebounding aspect.
“Defensively, I really give her a lot of credit. This summer, I felt like she really stepped up and became a better defender. We need her to be, especially with her athleticism. She is more than capable. It’s exciting what she is doing. She already was a special player, and just try to keep putting her in the right spots and let her go. She is really producing well.”
McNeal was a key figure in leading the Phoenix to the NCAA Tournament last season for the first time since 2018, scoring a career-high 32 points and shooting 15-for-21 in the Horizon title game win over Cleveland State. She received a huge ovation from Phoenix fans who made the trip to Indianapolis after coming out of the game in the final minute.
It would be the perfect end to McNeal’s career to go dancing one more time.
“I think it would be wrong of me to say that’s not a goal,” McNeal said. “I think that’s everybody’s goal. Right now, I think we are just focusing on being the best version of our team so that come March we can kind of just play loose and just play hard.
“It would be great to end on that high. But being part of Green Bay and playing for this program and just the way this program and this community has adopted me, it’s so rewarding. I feel being able to play for them, I don’t think it could go wrong either way.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Natalie McNeal enjoying final season with UWGB women’s basketball
