A new player for the Gophers women’s basketball team is returning to her home state of Minnesota.
This time: Taylor Woodson, a former standout forward for Hopkins, spent her freshman season at Michigan and used the NCAA transfer portal before deciding to play for Gophers coach Dawn Plitzuweit.
Woodson, a 6-0 power forward who can score at three levels, hit the boards hard, and defend with tenacity, was a teammate of current Gophers point guard Amaya Battle in high school. Together, they took home two 4A state titles from Hopkins.
Woodson has been a part of the Hopkins varsity team since the seventh grade. In 2019 and 2022, the team won state titles.
According to a press release from Plitzuweit, “Taylor is a great addition to our program.” She is a physical perimeter player with a variety of ways to influence the game. She moves the ball up the floor, gets to the hoop, and makes shots for her teammates or herself. She has good movement when not having the ball, and she plays excellent defense and rebounding.”
An ankle injury sidelined Woodson at the start of his senior year at Hopkins. However, she and Hopkins both had successful seasons, with the former making it to the 4A title game for the fourth time in her prep career and the latter scoring 18.7 points per game on average.
Woodson, who was ranked 59th in the country by ESPN for the 2023 recruiting class, decided to attend Michigan, where she played 8.9 minutes a night last season and averaged 1.9 points and 1.7 rebounds.
She joins Annika Stewart, a former standout player at Wayzata who last week declared her plan to transfer from Nebraska to the Gophers for her final year of eligibility.
Ajok Madol and Ayianna Johnson, reserve players, had already logged onto the transfer portal. McKynnlie Dalan, a 6-1 forward who just finished her freshman season and averaged 0.3 points, 0.7 rebounds, and 2.9 minutes per game while playing in 15 games, joined them on Thursday.
Woodson is a big addition for the Gophers, who persevered through injuries to make it to the WNIT tournament championship game this spring and are still assembling a roster that is heavily focused on Minnesota.
Four of the five starters from the previous season—Mara Braun, Battle, Mallory Heyer, and Sophie Hart—hailed from Minnesota. Nia Holloway and Maggie Czinano, both from Minnesota, came off the bench. Kennedy Klick (Maple Grove High School) will return next year following a summer knee injury.
The team has much more depth as well. The Gophers, who finished as the youngest team in the Big Ten the previous season, return every starter (Grace Grocholski of Wisconsin is the fifth). All five of these players were ranked in the top 100 by ESPN in their recruiting classes: Braun (28), Battle (39) and Heyer (55), in the class of 2022; Hart (64) in the class of 2021; and Grocholski (98) the previous year.
Then there is the incoming class of guards, which includes McKenna Johnson, a high-scoring guard from Wilmot, Wisconsin, who actually graduated early and signed a mid-season contract with the Gophers even though she did not play, and Tori McKinney from Minnetonka High School.
McKinney joins the Gophers with a strong defensive resume, having won the Prep Girls Hoops award for defensive player of the year the previous two seasons. In her final full high school season, Johnson averaged 26.1 points and 10 rebounds. ESPN ranked her 63rd in the 2024 class. Stewart will next, providing the post with much-needed depth.
And now Woodson, who, considering her familiarity with much of the team either through high school basketball or AAU play should get in quickly.
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