It turns out, the secret to rebounding is simple, according to Mary Schleusner. Washington and Lee athletics photo by Erik Drost

By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com

“I’m 6-2 with basketball shoes on and I can jump pretty high.”

That’s the secret to rebounding according to the new NCAA Division III women’s basketball career rebounding leader, Mary Schleusner, the All-American senior from No. 6 Washington and Lee.

She pulled down 21 rebounds in a 63-57 home win over Bridgewater on Jan. 21 to take over the top spot, passing Jordan Holmes of Denison, who finished her career in 2017 with 1,711 total boards. At 1,713 and counting, Schleusner is more than 400 rebounds ahead of any active player in any division and if she maintains her career average of more than 16 per game through the rest of the season, will trail only Courtney Paris of Oklahoma on the NCAA overall charts (with a chance to be first there, as well, if the Generals make a deep tourney run).

Coach Brittney Kemp arrived just two summers ago, but cites the joy and unity of the team, that almost everyone attributes to Schleusner’s presence as one of the key reasons behind her decision. “Every team will tell you that they love each other,” notes Kemp; “This team really does.”

“Mary has a way of making the most boring tasks fun,” remembers Hanna Malik, point guard for Schleusner’s first two years with the Generals and now a graduate assistant at Emory. “No matter if it was the most mundane drill or the worst day, Mary came in with a smile on her face, trying to bring joy and laughter to everyone around her.”

It really is infectious. You can see it come through the screen in a Hoopsville interview and you can see it on the court. Schleusner enjoys the game and she enjoys the people around her. That’s given an uncommon lift to the Washington & Lee program, which made a surprise run to the Elite Eight two years ago, behind Schleusner’s re-writing of the postseason record book.

She broke the tournament rebounding record in her third game, a record 33-rebound performance at Rhode Island College, which broke the single game record of 29 she’d set two rounds before. Her 104 rebounds in four tournament games is 23 more than anyone else has ever gotten in six.

The dominance she’s shown has led to breaking a record that was already dominant. Holmes’s record is 10% beyond now-third place and Schleusner is on pace to be at least 10% ahead of Holmes by the end of the year.

“There’s a little sadness,” says Holmes about losing the record, “But I’m content. It shows that women’s basketball is growing, it’s finally being invested in. We might not get as much attention as Division I basketball, but Division III is good and it’s only going to get better from here on out. I haven’t seen Mary play, but she seems like an exceptional basketball player and I’m happy she’s carrying things forward.”

In January of 2017, Denison's Jordan Holmes surpassed the previous record holder, Gallaudet's Ronda Jo Miller. 2017 Denison athletics photo by Jace Delgado

Holmes, who is now working towards a PhD in psychology at Michigan State, was a dominant force at Denison and remains the Division III career blocks leader, whose 642 rejections trails only Brittney Griner across all divisions and are still more than double what Schleusner (the active Division III leader) has amassed. She gets to see not only her record fall this season, but her Big Red jump out to a 17-0 start, the best in program history.

“We had our alumni weekend in November. They were honoring our 2016 at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Coming home to a nice welcome home was amazing and it’s so great to see how things have evolved in a positive way.”

Despite the individual numbers, Schleusner has the same sense of belonging to a larger whole at W&L.

“It’s an honor to be a part of this program, especially as it's getting the wheels under it. I got to meet the woman who started women’s basketball here, got the first team together, found a conference for us to play in. She’s obviously done so much more for the program than I ever could; I’m just glad to be one step on the journey.”

This perspective is probably why Schleusner is such a good teammate.

Notes Malik, “Other players may see rebounding as a chore, but Mary seems to approach it like an opportunity — an opportunity to create for her and her teammates.”

Schleusner says essentially the same thing herself. “My favorite rebounds are when I’m not going back up with the ball, but when we can send it out for a three. I’m not chasing assists, but threes are worth more than two and turning a rebound into a three pointer, that’s the epitome of basketball.”

“Mary gives her teammates so much confidence,” adds Kemp. “They know if they miss she’s going to get it for them.”

Schleusner has scored a lot of points as well, more than 2,100, but it’s the blue-collar hard work it takes to be a good rebounder that’s been at the center of everything. She says, “Some nights your shots won’t drop, but rebounding is about toughness.”

That’s definitely a common trait for success; Holmes said much the same thing about herself. “In high school some of my teammates went Division I, one played at Notre Dame, my job was as the cleanup person. My job was always defensive focused.”

Those contributions weren’t even noticed initially. Holmes expected to be a practice player all four years. Her coach, Sara Lee, thought she’d need several years to contribute. “I was wrong. She started the first game of her first year and had 10 rebounds and three blocked shots. The very next game she had 15 rebounds, and seven blocked shots.”

Schleusner had a similarly unique origin story: Initially planning to run cross country at the Division I level, she tried basketball at Washington and Lee as almost a backup plan - and while the numbers have been mind-boggling from the beginning, she’s done a lot of learning.

“Katheryn Vandiver was my high school teammate, a senior my freshman year. She showed me what life could look like here, what basketball could look like at the D-III level. She taught me so much.”

Schleusner proceeded to list, I believe, every single teammate she’d had over four years, with a kind and touching comment about each. She reflected on the impact her parents had, taking her to camps and games all her life, and the toughness instilled by two older brothers.

Mary Schleusner is a fun player to celebrate, because she epitomizes everything you want to see from Division III athletes, not just excellence during competition, but commitment to life and academics and the school itself.

“She is such a fantastic ambassador for the program,” notes Kemp, “But not just for the program, for the whole school. She doesn’t just love the team, she loves this place.”

She’s also not quite ready to move on. No immediate plans in the works, other than to play Guilford on Friday, where she’s almost certain to tie the Division III career record for double-doubles at 83, and for the Generals to finish out the season as best they can. Nobody at W&L is talking about national titles, at least not out loud, certainly not to a reporter, but it’s a real possibility and would be quite the storied ending to an historically storied career.

“It doesn’t feel real,” reflects Schleusner, 20 minutes after securing the record. 

It is real, of course, and someday she’ll know that, but I can’t help wishing her particular brand of exuberant disbelief lasts as long as humanly possible.