When Grace Sullivan transferred to Northwestern in 2024, the decision felt almost too perfect. The Wildcats offered her a chance to compete at the Power Four level she longed for, just 50 minutes from her hometown of Antioch, Illinois, surrounded by the family and friends who shaped her journey.
“It’s super rare to finish off your last final two years of college in your home city,” Sullivan said. “When I got this opportunity, I wanted to take it immediately.” From travel softball fields to a mid-major
school’s hardwood, where she felt like a “newbie”, to leading the Wildcats in scoring her senior year, Sullivan’s story is a triumph.
Now with just 12 games left in the regular season, Northwestern’s hopes for a Big Ten tournament bid rest heavily on Sullivan’s unlikely shoulders.
From Diamond to Hardwood
Before focusing on basketball, softball was Sullivan’s primary sport growing up. She started travel softball when she was five, and though she played basketball in the meantime, she never devoted serious time to the sport.
Everything changed in 2017 when she joined Carmel Catholic’s basketball program as an eighth-grader under coach Ben Berg. Berg immediately saw collegiate potential in her.
“As a coach, I never suggest kids not to play multiple sports,” Berg said. “But I did tell [Sullivan], ‘If you wanted to be a scholarship-type basketball player, you are a couple of years behind other players, and as far as playing travel.’”
The dilemma weighed heavily on young Sullivan. Her softball coach wanted her to continue, while Berg pushed for her to join the varsity basketball team. Diamond sports also ran in her family: her sister also played softball, while her cousins played baseball.
But after playing with the girls’ basketball varsity team during her freshman year at Carmel Catholic High School, Sullivan made a life-altering decision — committing full-time to basketball and giving up the sport she’d played her entire life. The choice shocked everyone around her.
“I didn’t want to give [softball] up,” Sullivan said. “I think it was hard being that young and being told ‘you really should pick a sport, and this is where your future looks the most bright,’ which was in basketball. It was tough in the moment, but looking back, I obviously wouldn’t change it for anything.”
The transition proved smoother than expected, largely due to Sullivan’s athleticism from softball training. Berg said her large hands allowed her to dominate the glass. But what Berg believed Sullivan needed most was travel basketball experience. So Sullivan joined Illinois Elite, a local AAU program, after her freshman season in the spring of 2019, before moving to the Chicago-based EYBL team Midwest Elite a year later.
Sullivan’s growth path culminated in 2022 when she served as one of the team captains at Carmel Catholic. She averaged 14.5 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.2 blocks during her senior year, setting school records for career points (1,222), rebounds (817) and blocks (102) while leading the Corsairs to the program’s first-ever IHSA state championship.
For someone who never missed a practice or game, Sullivan’s improved game and major contributions to the championship felt reasonable to Berg.
“I tell the story about Grace to other kids who aspired to be college players,” Berg said. “She’s a wonderful example of work ethic and persistence.”
Building the Foundation
Berg noticed Sullivan was different from other forwards who preferred facing the basket — Sullivan always played with her back to the rim. He believed she truly honed her turnaround jumper during junior year, and it kept improving. The high release point on her shot made her unguardable.
But that wasn’t enough to be a good college player.
Bucknell head coach Trevor Woodruff was impressed by Sullivan’s physicality when he first scouted her in high school, but he viewed her as a “blank sheet of paper,” lacking the post moves necessary to excel at the next level. Woodruff still took a chance on Sullivan, and she signed her letter of intent to Bucknell in November of 2021.
In her freshman season, Sullivan averaged 3.3 points and 2.7 rebounds in 28 appearances without a start.
“She was a completely unmolded product, an unmolded piece of clay,” Woodruff said.
While working more on footwork and on-post positioning under the coaching staff, Sullivan jokingly called herself a “newbie” in her rookie season. Though she had years of basketball experience under her belt already, she still felt she lacked basketball IQ.
“Freshman year was a learning experience for me because I lacked most basketball experience that my teammates had,” Sullivan said. “Just like gaining knowledge within the sport again at the collegiate level.”
By sophomore year, all that effort came to fruition. Starting 20 of 24 games in the 2023-24 season, Sullivan averaged 8.8 points and 4.9 rebounds, scoring a then-career-high 28 points against Loyola Maryland.
“When we returned for summer workouts going into her sophomore year, she looked like a completely different player,” Woodruff said. “She was able to move around the court much more freely. Her athleticism was able to come out much more because she didn’t have to think about all the things that we were drilling with her the first year; they had become her habits.”
The Homecoming
Sullivan’s transfer to Northwestern felt inevitable once she made the leap. Her clear talent had opened the possibility of taking the leap to a Power Five conference, and Evanston’s proximity to her hometown of Antioch made the ‘Cats a clear choice.
“It was heartbreaking,” Woodruff said. “I was in tears in my office when she told me that she was leaving. I tell people all the time, if she were my daughter, she’d be at Northwestern, too. She definitely has surpassed what I thought she would probably be able to do in such a high-caliber league.”
Woodruff said Northwestern gained a transformed version of Sullivan, combining every offensive concept she’d learned with her natural size. Last season, Sullivan fit into Northwestern’s program quickly, averaging 10.1 points per game in her 15 games as a starter despite some early growing pains during Big Ten play.
Northwestern coach Joe McKeown and his staff encouraged Sullivan to shoot more early in her Wildcat career. Sullivan said she found herself left open in her mid-range sweet spots far more often than she expected.
“A mid-range turnaround is like a layup for me because that’s just how many times I’ve repped it out and how much confidence I have in myself that I can take and make those shots,” Sullivan said.
Just as she learned the game at Bucknell, Sullivan absorbed more during her junior season while playing underneath seniors. Entering her senior year with soaring confidence, she translated those experiences into becoming the Big Ten’s leading scorer.
The Wildcats entered the 2025-26 season with a six-game winning streak, but then encountered a 10-game losing streak at the onset of conference play.
During the tough stretch, Sullivan said she would remind teammates what Northwestern’s real strength is: the struggle last season, missing the conference tournament with a 2-16 Big Ten record, helped her and the team develop a better mindset for facing adversity.
“We don’t want to repeat what happened [last year],” Sullivan said. “We all know that we have the talent to compete with any team in the Big Ten. I think it’s understanding where we can get better and even what we’re good at.”
With Sullivan at the helm, Northwestern is well on its way to improvement. The ‘Cats matched last season’s conference win total in mid-January, earning back-to-back victories over Rutgers and Wisconsin. Three days after taking down the Badgers, Northwestern was three points short of pulling off an upset road victory over No. 25 Illinois.
For Sullivan, playing at Northwestern carries more weight than a homecoming — her final year in Evanston means fulfilling the higher goals she set when she transitioned to the Big Ten level, honoring her sacrifice from that early decision to now.
Yet with one month left to end the season, Sullivan’s main goal remains clear: reaching the Big Ten Tournament.
