One of the best college lacrosse players in the country will play women’s basketball in the Big Ten
In his final season at the helm of Northwestern, Joe McKeown will get a boost from the lacrosse team in Sammy White.
In his final season at the helm of Northwestern’s women’s basketball program, coach Joe McKeown is getting a boost from the lacrosse team.
The Wildcats recently announced that Sammy White, one of the most decorated lacrosse players in the country, will join the women’s basketball team for the upcoming season. White played a crucial role in helping Northwestern win the 2023 national championship in women’s lacrosse and is a two-time All-American.
“We are really excited to have Sammy as part of our program,” McKeown said in a statement. “She brings incredible passion, along with a highly competitive attitude to the court. Sammy is one of the best lacrosse players Northwestern has ever seen and enjoyed a terrific high school basketball career in Maryland. Her toughness and leadership will be a great addition to the Wildcats.”
As McKeown mentioned, White does have some real basketball bonafides. A 5-foot-6 guard, she scored more than 1,000 points in just three seasons for Dulaney High School in Cockeysville, Maryland. As a junior, she averaged north of 23 points per game.
“Northwestern has done so much for me as a school that there’s no other place that I honestly would rather be playing basketball,” White told USA Lacrosse Magazine. “I’m grateful that I’m going to have my lacrosse teammates and everyone there to support me because they’re even more excited than me. They made me realize this was the right decision.”
White isn’t the first Northwestern product to make this move. Pat Spencer, the 2019 Tewaaraton Award winner — akin to a Heisman Trophy for lacrosse — joined Northwestern’s men’s team and averaged 10.4 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game in the 2019-20 campaign. He’s still hooping, appearing in 39 games this past NBA season for the Golden State Warriors.
According to USA Lacrosse Magazine, White intended to enter the transfer portal at the end of this lacrosse season to use her graduate year of eligibility to play basketball. NCAA rules allow athletes who have exhausted their eligibility in one sport to play another for one year while pursuing a postgraduate degree. Northwestern lacrosse coach Kelly Amonte Hiller had a conversation with McKeown though, and that led to White staying in Wildcat purple to pursue a season on the hardwood.
White will be the shortest player on the Wildcats’ basketball roster, but her height never stopped her from excelling at lacrosse. She piled up 210 draw controls, 153 ground balls and 101 caused turnovers in 81 games for the Wildcats.
A defensive specialist, she also scored 17 goals and had 12 assists for Northwestern. White was also recently named to the United States roster for the upcoming Pan-American Lacrosse Association Women’s Championship. Northwestern made the Final Four in each of White’s four seasons on the lacrosse team.
When she was named Female Athlete of the Year by the Baltimore Sun in 2020, White’s high school coach had major compliments for her basketball skills.
“She is quick and we are really lucky that we can look for her up the floor, outlet her the ball, or she’ll beat people down the floor just dribbling,” Dulaney coach Jess Szymanski told the Sun. “She is super athletic and it creates another dimension for us, that’s for sure.”
White isn’t the only women’s lacrosse player making the transition to basketball for the upcoming season. Emma LoPinto, an All-American attack for Boston College, will join the Eagles’ women’s basketball team after scoring 136 goals for the lacrosse team. LoPinto helped the Eagles capture a lacrosse national championship in 2024 and was a two-time All-American.
For Northwestern, this season is shaping up to be an eventful one as it’s a farewell tour of sorts for McKeown, who announced he would retire at the end of the 2025-26 season. The 69-year-old has been the coach of the Wildcats since 2008 and led them to a Big Ten regular season crown in 2020, a year in which he was also named the conference’s Coach of the Year.
McKeown is just 23 wins away from his 800th, but Northwestern hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2021 and has just eight combined Big Ten victories in the past three seasons. The hope is that players like White can help turn things around. The Wildcats also added transfers in DaiJa Turner from TCU and Tate Walters from Furman, the latter of whom averaged 12.6 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game last season.