Portal Watch: What do Tate Walters and DaiJa Turner add to Northwestern women’s basketball?

NU’s transfer acquisitions have both positives and negatives.

Northwestern women’s basketball has certainly been active in the transfer portal in recent weeks.

Wildcat head coach Joe McKeown recently brought in two new players for his farewell season, welcoming 5’9 Furman guard Tate Walters and 6’3 TCU forward DaiJa Turner to Evanston. The incoming pair will attempt to fill the shoes of Kyla Jones, Taylor Williams, Caileigh Walsh and outgoing Virginia Tech graduate transfer Melannie Daley. Those departures have left the ‘Cats with major holes on a roster that already finished 2-16 in the Big Ten last season.

The 2024-25 season’s relative lack of success makes the development of Walters and Turner all the more crucial for next year. Here’s what we can expect from both players in 2025-26.

Tate Walters

It’s fair to start with Walters, a graduate transfer with a far superior statistical pedigree to Turner, with the caveat that the former did play in the less-competitive Southern Conference. In all four seasons with the Paladins, Walters averaged at least 9.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. She put up remarkably similar numbers each season, culminating in a senior campaign where she averaged 12.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.9 steals and 2.7 turnovers per contest.

There’s plenty to be optimistic about based on last season’s performance. In a best-case scenario, Walters could be the top combo guard on the ‘Cats. The Georgia native doesn’t have the passing ability of incumbent point guard Caroline Lau, but she does have a better shooting stroke, putting up a career-high 39.3% field goal percentage in 2024-25 (far exceeding Lau’s 28.1%).

In particular, Walters’ ability to pull up off the dribble often stands out in her game. In the clips below, the grad transfer demonstrates her ability to utilize a screen, stop on a dime and knock down a jump shot. Those types of sequences are ones we rarely saw out of Northwestern guards at all in 2024-25.

Walters also excels when driving to the basket, something NU guards struggled heavily with last year. In the first clip below, Walters uses a sneaky burst of speed to turn the corner on her on-ball defender. She then commits to a textbook Euro step, splitting through the help defense before calmly converting her layup. The second clip isn’t as fancy, but it’s still great recognition from Walters, who runs her defender onto the perimeter before making a quick pivot. In doing so, she prevents her defender from recovering, allowing her to slice through two extra Wofford players with her weak hand en route to a huge fourth-quarter bucket.

Last but not least, here’s a great example of Walters’ passing acumen. In the assists department, she’s certainly no Lau. However, her ability to distribute the basketball will still pay dividends for a Wildcat squad that could use another solid secondary passer.

Despite the flashy highlights, Walters’ game has concerns that need to be addressed. The ex-Paladin shot 129 threes in 32 games last season but made just 27.1% of them, the worst mark of her four-year career. In her final 11 games in 2024-25, Walters shot a woeful 11.1% from three, a massive cold stretch that the Wildcats simply cannot afford to have next year.

NU’s 28.6% three-point percentage was easily the lowest in the Big Ten a season ago, and although Walters shot 37.3% from three in 2021-22, there’s clearly still work to be done for her to regain her form. It’s worth noting that Walters tore her Achilles tendon and missed all of 2022-23, which could account for part of the subsequent drop-off. Still, she did shoot 32.7% from beyond the arc in 2023-24, so the injury certainly wasn’t the sole factor hampering her performance last season.

Finally, Walters’ 2.7 turnovers per game last season marked her only year below 3.3 in that category. While 2024-25’s numbers are similar to those of Caroline Lau (2.8) and Taylor Williams (2.7), Walters’ averages from the other three years would’ve easily led last year’s Wildcats in turnovers.

To be fair, Walters’ game has certainly developed since then, and a high turnover rate isn’t necessarily surprising given her central role in Furman’s offense. However, avoiding turnovers was a rare strong suit for NU, as it averaged 14.3 per contest last campaign (fifth-lowest in the conference). Because of that, there’s plenty of room for team-wide regression in that department. If giveaways pile up, even more offensive inefficiency could be the result.

DaiJa Turner

Turner, an incoming redshirt senior, saw limited action in 2024-25 behind a star-studded lineup that propelled TCU to the Elite Eight. However, that wasn’t necessarily an indictment of her abilities. The Horned Frogs nearly always trotted out a relatively tall four-guard starting lineup with 6’7 center Sedona Prince as the lone big. In fact, because Prince wasn’t listed as a forward, TCU forwards ended up starting just two games combined all season.

Turner appeared in just nine games last season, logging 17 minutes and no starts. Given TCU’s dominance, it’s fair to say her lack of playing time was partially due to bad luck. The North Carolina native saw 18 appearances in 2023-24, making three starts and averaging 2.2 points and 3.0 rebounds per game before a season-ending ankle injury. Despite the limited sample size, there are certainly positive aspects to Turner’s game that stood out.

First and foremost is her rebounding ability. Turner logged 14 rebounds in her first-ever start against Prairie View A&M in 2023. At 6’3, she adds much-needed size to the Wildcats’ roster after the exits of Williams and Walsh. In particular, the TCU transfer stands out on the offensive glass, as 44% of her career rebounds have come on that end.

As a team, just 29% of NU’s rebounds were offensive last year. The only ‘Cats player (minimum seven boards) who exceeded Turner’s offensive-rebound percentage was Daley (45%). If Turner can scale up her raw rebounding numbers while maintaining her propensity to grab offensive boards, she could be a unique force inside for the 2025-26 Wildcat squad.

Turner’s game certainly has its weaknesses as well. She’s a lifetime 9-of-24 free-throw shooter with a career-high of just seven points. While Turner saw meaningful Big 12 action (including two starts) in 2023-24, she didn’t play more than three minutes in any game — conference or otherwise — last year. However, despite these concerns, one would be remiss to omit mention of another tantalizing aspect of Turner’s game.

Despite having just eight blocks in her college career, the redshirt senior has legitimate potential to become one of the best shot-blockers for the Wildcats next season. As a high schooler at Village Christian Academy, Turner averaged — get this — 11.8 blocks per game.

Yes, you read that correctly. As a senior in high school, she nearly averaged a triple-double, putting up 16.4 points, 22.6 rebounds and 9.8 blocks per contest. The latter two statistics ranked first in the entire country that season.

With numbers like that, it’s no wonder Turner ended up committing to a power conference school. It’s fair to question her ceiling now, especially after the ankle injury that halted her 2023-24 campaign. Still, if the North Carolina native can regain some of her previous shot-blocking form, she could be a force to be reckoned with in the Big Ten.

The ‘Cats finished sixth in the conference in blocks last year, but the losses of Walsh (28 rejections) and Williams (18) leave them without two of their three top shot-blockers. Turner has a big void to fill in that regard, and she still has plenty to prove before fans can have confidence in her ability to consistently send back shots at the college level.

On the other hand, though, it’s no secret that college bigs often take a while to develop. Simply put, there’s still real potential on the table, and although fans should temper expectations dramatically, there’s at least some reason to be excited. To end the article on an optimistic note, the clip below shows off the best of what Turner could become in 2025-26.