Courtney Ogden ‘wanted business,’ and Michigan fit the bill

Courtney Ogden ‘wanted business,’ and Michigan fit the bill Holly Burkhart/DAILY. Buy this photo. For most people, graduating from Stanford with a degree in Management Science & Engineering, averaging 12.9 points per game and winning the 2024 PAC-12 Championship in just three years would be enough. But for graduate guard Courtney Ogden, it’s only the opening act. In preparation for the 2026-27 season, Wolverines women’s basketball coach Kim Barnes Arico wasted little time in grabbing Ogden from the transfer portal back in April. But the roots of their coach-player relationship began long before Ogden became one of the newest additions to Michigan’s roster.  Ogden was always one step ahead. While her classmates were likely learning long division and memorizing multiplication tables, Ogden was making a name for herself on the court. As a third grader, she was the only girl to attend the annual Dell Curry Camp in Charlotte, N.C., and by sixth grade, she received her first offer to play college basketball at Georgia Tech.  From there, Ogden spent her high school years at Westminster refining her ball-handling and shooting skills, eventually catching the eye of Barnes Arico.  “Courtney’s a player that I recruited as a high school kid,” Barnes Arico said Oct 7. at Big Ten Media Days. “I had a prior relationship with her. I feel like I watched every one of her AAU games her last couple of summers. So when her name went into the transfer portal, I already knew her. I knew her family. I had recruited her.” Ranked 10th in the country, Ogden graduated from high school as a five-star recruit with an expansive resume. She won a gold medal at the 2022 FIBA U18 Americas Championship and was named a McDonald’s All-American in 2023. With the Cardinal, Ogden made 36 starts, appeared in 97 games and scored a total of 734 career points — all while earning a bachelor’s degree on an accelerated timeline.  With the NCAA’s new 5-in-5 rule, Ogden has two years of eligibility remaining. After wrapping up the 2025-2026 season, she entered the transfer portal in search of her next challenge, both in the classroom and on the court. This move presented Barnes Arico with a unique opportunity to check off two boxes at once: fill in the gaps that forwards graduate Ally VanTimmeren and senior Alyssa Crocket left in the frontcourt and seal the deal on a player she recruited years earlier.   “Plus she has a Stanford degree and is a highly academic kid who wanted business, and I knew Michigan would be just an absolute fit for her,” Barnes Arico said. “She has just been phenomenal, and like I said, I had a prior relationship with her, so it was an easy first call.” At 6-foot-1-inch, Ogden is not only a stifling presence on defense, but she is also a reliable shooter with a long list of accomplishments to back her up. Shooting 87.5% from the charity stripe, 51.3% from the floor and 37.2% from beyond the arc last season, she fits seamlessly on a Wolverines team that prides itself on its guard-dominant play style.  “Courtney’s ability to score the basketball and give us a physical presence has been really special,” Barnes Arico said. Ogden joins Michigan at a crucial point in their program history. For a team with high expectations for the upcoming season, adding another versatile, well-seasoned guard to their roster could be exactly what the Wolverines need to take the next step forward.  Related articles