When Division 1 college basketball players step on campus, their student-athlete lifestyles change in an instant.
Just ask Anna Foley, Meg Olbrys and Abigail Wright. Foley, a former MIAA state champion at Andover High, averaged double figures in each of three seasons at Quinnipiac and just transferred to Villanova. Olbrys (Norwood, Mass.), played two years at Villanova, transferred to UMass and became a leader for the Minutewomen before graduating this spring. Wright (Newton, Mass.) made the NCAA Tournament as a sophomore at Harvard and broke out as a starter this winter as a junior.
The three Massachusetts natives have succeeded while adapting to the demands of that elite level.
“Obviously we can say the high school season is long, but from the second you get to school in the summer until the second you leave in the spring, you're basically in season,” Foley said.
What were their most important lessons learned as they moved through college? Here’s what they shared.
Time management is everything
In the Ivy League, Wright learned quickly that she had very little control over her rigorous athletic and academic schedule.
Being a Div. 1 student-athlete doesn’t mean revolving between practice and class. In high school, Wright would get in weightlifting sessions roughly 2-3 times per week, but at Harvard, that jumped to four times per week year-round. She learned quickly to build in time for sleep and recovery, which was necessary for both her on-court performance and overall health.
“It's almost like you're working a full-time job in terms of the hours that you're putting in on the court, off the court, for treatment (and) traveling,” Wright said. “Your communication skills and your ability to adapt to that, whether that's communicating with your coaches, with your professors, with your teaching fellows, with whoever it may be, really has to skyrocket within the very beginning weeks of you being on campus.”
Travel is a different beast at the Div. 1 level. Conference play can often mean long bus rides to play regional opponents, and nonconference play can mean flights to all areas of the country and beyond. That also takes a toll on the body and academic schedule.
One niche tip from Foley: Learn how to pack efficiently.
“There's always going to be a bag; you're always traveling,” she said. “You're always going to bring extra stuff to the first year of college, but at this point (I have) a system down.”
Olbrys noted that, with so much of her energy obliged to school and basketball, finding a routine can help ease the stress. She often made sure to eat breakfast and call one of her parents in the morning to give herself a positive start to the day.
“I love that I was able to gain a routine wherever I was able, and I think that just for life, in the morning, just having a simple routine and being able to stick to something (helps) just discipline with a lot of things,” Olbrys said.
Advocate for yourself
Div. 1 college players were typically stars of their high school teams. As freshmen, as Olbrys put it, “you go right to the bottom of the barrel.”
But playing time, like development, isn’t linear. Foley, Olbrys and Wright all saw their minutes per game decrease for various reasons as sophomores. They learned that keeping an open dialogue with coaches can help them understand their roles and put themselves in better situations down the line.
Quinnipiac thrust Foley into major minutes right away, and she averaged 13.1 points and 7.1 rebounds while starting every contest as a freshman. That roster was also extremely young and inexperienced; by January of that season, Foley had lost more games than in her entire high school career at Andover. It was her first lesson in being focused on the development process.
Sophomore year arrived and Foley’s role diminished slightly — but Quinnipiac was also winning more. She said that season was difficult because she struggled with understanding what the coaching staff needed from her.
“Self-advocacy is a big lesson I learned,” Foley said. “There's definitely moments where I didn't feel clear of what was being asked of me, and I let that kind of eat away at me, whereas if you have a good coach, and even if you don't, it's so important to really ask questions and have good communication. The role, yes, you have to adjust to whatever they're asking of you, but I definitely found times where I would kind of shy away in that — from not asking for more, you (or) being clear about what my responsibilities were.”
Junior year was the first time Foley dropped out of the starting lineup. She accepted the change and also had a better dialogue with her coaches about her role, and it led to almost no dropoff in production while Quinnipiac went 27-7 this winter.
“I think it definitely is something that you have to work on yourself — to really be willing to accept any role — but it's not a bad thing to really advocate for yourself either,” Foley said.
At Harvard, Wright played 18 minutes per game off the bench as a freshman but dropped to 13.5 minutes on average as a sophomore as the Crimson surged to the 2025 NCAA Tournament. She believes the coaching staff kept her in the mindset of thinking about development and when her minutes would come (closing vs. starting games, for example) instead of just volume of playing time.
Wright felt she could talk to the coaching staff anytime, and that kept her faith in the program fit. As a junior, she soared, averaging 13.3 points and 6.3 rebounds while starting every game.
“I think that in season, when there's ebbs and flows and your performance is kind of going up and down, their ability to just have those conversations with me — and for me to also approach them when I had questions or when I felt like I needed a little bit more guidance — those relationships that we've been able to build, I think, is kind of the foundation of why I was able to kind of keep myself in a very positive mindset throughout the entirety of that (sophomore) season,” Wright said.
Focusing on fit
Olbrys’ sophomore season was marred by a broken foot that required surgery. She felt isolated during her recovery, lost that year of eligibility, and, though Olbrys holds no ill will towards Villanova, she realized she wanted something different for her final two years of college.
Olbrys entered the transfer portal, and her first call was with UMass head coach Mike Leflar — her No. 2 choice as a high school recruit. Olbrys wanted a better culture fit and a program that could give her a clear vision for her development as a player. When Leflar started showing Olbrys clips of how she’d slot seamlessly into UMass’ offense, she felt confident in her next home.
“That summer, I completely saw a new development of myself that I don't even think that I would have experienced at Villanova,” she said.
Olbrys averaged 14 points across her two years at UMass and now hopes to play professionally overseas. She helped flip the Minutewomen from a five-win team before her arrival to a 23-7 team as a senior.
Wright, Foley and Olbrys compared their approaches to college recruiting to how they’ve lived out the Div. 1 level so far. Wright and Olbrys mentioned the same theme: recruits feel significant pressure to go to the biggest platform and not the best fit.
“Even maybe social media pressure, it sounds so stupid, but the pressure to just want to go to the best team, or the best league, or Power Five. The pressure to always go to the best conference or team, and not wanting to ‘disappoint people,’ when you weren't ever going to do that,” Olbrys said.
Wright added that with NIL and revenue sharing becoming such a dominant conversation in basketball recruiting, it can distract athletes from finding a school where they can see themselves happy.
“Do you feel like it's a place that you would fit in outside of basketball too, I think, is something that people should really focus on, too, and probably doesn't get as much attention as it deserves,” she said. “In the current environment that we're in in terms of college basketball, the focus is a lot on the financial aspect and these big-name brands, and I think that's naturally what people are focusing their energy on.”
Foley put her name in the transfer portal this spring, but she still had a positive outlook on her time at Quinnipiac. She remembers being worried when some of the staff that recruited her had left the program when she arrived as a freshman. But Foley stuck it out through adversity and scored 1,107 points in three years as a Bobcat.
Her advice: college basketball isn’t going to unfold as planned, and sometimes, you have to be determined to make it work.
“It was scary before going in. You know, there were assistant coaches that had left that I had been recruited by for years,” she said. “But if you buy in, once I got there, I loved it. And I think the same thing goes (for) now.
“I don't know much about Villanova. I just got here yesterday. But I'm committed to making it the right experience, the right year for me, and I think that's what's most important once you make your decision.”
