Former Green Bay Southwest basketball star Lucas Stieber proved he's an NCAA Division I player

Lucas Stieber didn’t have a single scholarship offer coming out of Green Bay Southwest in 2019.

There was no interest from basketball coaches at the Division I level. Not much of a peep from DII.

It was either go DIII and pay his own way or bet on himself when nobody else would.

Stieber bet on himself.

Five years later, it has become clear he won.

The 6-foot-3 guard started his career as a walk-on at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and never stopped working to prove himself.

Stieber redshirted his first season, started 18 games and made the Horizon League all-freshman team as a rookie and earned a scholarship entering his sophomore year.

He put his name in the NCAA transfer portal after three years in Green Bay and landed at Gardner-Webb University, a DI school in Boiling Springs, North Carolina.

Stieber has started 78 of 116 games in his career, an impressive number for a former walk-on nobody really wanted.

Recruiters clearly missed something when it came to evaluating Stieber.

He’s the wrong person to ask about it, always far too self-deprecating to waste time patting himself on the back.

Stieber points out that perhaps coaches weren’t impressed with his athleticism, or lack of it. Some of them might not have been inspired by the overall ability they didn’t believe he had.

He might even argue they were right, that they can’t be blamed for looking at other players who graded higher.

“Some of them probably didn’t miss on me, they were probably spot on,” Stieber said. “I just think doing things the right way doesn’t get as much credit as it should. I think you see some of that stuff in the transfer portal now, some of it in college. Kids going from Division III to Division II, Division II to Division I. Division III to Division I.

“Doing things the right way, and playing unselfishly, translates at any level. That’s something I took pride in, I really tried to do. I didn’t score the most. I didn’t probably shoot the best. But I just tried to always do things the right way and be a great teammate.”

Stieber left an impression during his time at Southwest. It might not have been appreciated by outsiders but was noticed by those around him every day.

He was a big reason the Trojans captured the Fox River Classic Conference title during his senior year before he went down with a hip injury, the first of any league championship won by the program in almost two decades.

Stieber averaged 13.7 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.5 assists and was named the top senior defender in the state as part of the Wisconsin Sports Network Senior Basketball Awards.

Still, not one scholarship offer.

“Lucas is the most selfless player I’ve ever coached,” said Pulaski boys coach John Polkowski, who spent 10 seasons leading the Trojans before stepping down last year. “His awareness of what his team needs, along with understanding his teammates, allows Lucas to make everyone be successful.

“This could be said about a lot of players, but the profound impact Lucas has by modeling this leadership every day may have been misunderstood. I’m grateful to play a role in his journey. Lucas will continue to influence people around him.”

Stieber makes big move transferring from UWGB

It’s often not noteworthy anymore when a player enters the transfer portal, but Stieber was an interesting case.

Not just because he earned a scholarship at UWGB and not because he was the first Green Bay public school product to play a game for the Phoenix since East guard Kevin Olm did from 1994 to 1998.

It also was because of the history his family has at the school.

His grandfather, Dick Bennett, remains a legendary figure as the former Phoenix coach who put the program on the map in the 1980s.

His uncle, Tony Bennett, is UWGB’s all-time leading scorer and still considered the best player in program history.

Stieber also was coming off a sophomore season in which he started 21 of 28 games while playing 24.2 minutes per contest.

He already had graduated by that spring, and he felt it was time to continue to build connections in the game for what he hopes is a future in coaching. He also wanted to see what else was out there for him away from home.

“Green Bay was really great for me,” Stieber said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have basketball success that I wanted to have. Some of my relationships with the coaches were a little different. But the coaches treated me really well and they did things the right way. It just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to.

“For me, it was just about seeing more. Talking to more people. New relationships.”

Stieber was familiar with Gardner-Webb before landing there, at least in one notable way.

He watched Uncle Tony coach No. 1 seed Virginia during the NCAA Tournament in 2019 and sweated out a win from the stands in the first round after No. 16 seed Gardner-Webb led by double figures.

It turned out to be the first victory in what ended with a national championship for the Cavaliers.

Stieber played 31 games and started seven during his first season with Gardner-Webb in 2022-23, but it was nothing compared to this past season.

He had the best year of his career in what might be his final one.

Stieber started all 32 games, averaging career highs in points (7.3 ppg), rebounds (3.9 rpg), minutes (28.3 mpg) and 3-point shooting percentage (41.2%) while leading the team to a 17-16 record and a third-place finish in the Big South Conference.

He also hit a game-winning 3-pointer in the final seconds to beat Winthrop earlier this month.

Stieber was even better off the court.

He was named the Big South’s scholar athlete of the year after earning a 4.0 grade-point average for the second straight year, this after he had a 3.88 during his time at UWGB while earning a communications degree.

Doing well in the classroom always was a priority. That tends to happen when your mother is a teacher.

“You get to college, and you find a way to manage your time,” Stieber said. “For me, it’s just been about doing things as early as I can. Not push them off. That gives me plenty of time to work on my basketball and improving that way.”

It’s about as much as someone can expect from a Stieber acceptance speech.

Remember, the man is really self-deprecating.

“I’m not extremely gifted,” he said. “I work really hard in the classroom, but I’m not Einstein. I just try to do things the right way.”

Lucas Stieber has future in basketball

A decision on Stieber’s future likely will come in the next few weeks.

He could play one more season thanks to an additional year of eligibility granted to student-athletes by the NCAA in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also could start working on his goal of being the next basketball coach in his family.

Along with his grandfather and uncle, Stieber’s aunt, Kathi Bennett, is the former women’s coach at Indiana and Northern Illinois.

“I still really want to coach,” said Stieber, who will earn his master’s degree this spring in sports management. “That is the ideal spot that I could be in. Either as a graduate assistant trying to find an operational role, a player development role. Just keeping my options open with playing.

“A lot of people talk to me about that stuff. My family. My girlfriend. All the coaches I’ve ever had. Just telling me to leave all my options available. Just continue to think about that stuff, pray about it. I can’t say I know for certain what is next. Does that make me nervous as heck? Yes.”

Stieber plans to continue to speak to as many in the game as he can, from assistant coaches to those in operational roles to former players who have moved into the profession.

His uncle has been a great resource, as has other family and friends.

Stieber’s dream is to coach at the DI level, the same level he once searched for an opportunity to play in.

There is a good chance he won’t have quite as many doubters this time.

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“It’s the route I want to go,” Stieber said. “Obviously, I’m not knocking coaching in high school. I don’t have my teaching degree, which would look at this differently.

“For me, I want to coach in college. Having played now at the Division I level, having played in college, that is an interest of mine. … I really want to coach, and coaching at the college level is the dream.”

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Former Green Bay Southwest basketball star Lucas Stieber proved he's an NCAA Division I player