Courtney Banghart Details Traits of UNC WBB's Transfer Portal Additions

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina didn’t undergo a massive overhaul with transfer portal recruiters, but it did pick up a pair of Power Four players to fill some team needs going into the 2025-26 season.

UNC women’s basketball picked up forward Nyla Harris from Louisville and guard Elina Aarnisalo from UCLA. The Tar Heels picked up both players in April.

“The transfer portal has been so good to us in that we haven’t had sort of the max exodus and the mass addition,” Courtney Banghart said on Tuesday in a summer update press conference. “Had basically one to two a year, and all of those people have added so much to our team. It happened pretty quick, because we were really targeted in who we were looking for.”

North Carolina sought to add to its depth at the ‘4’ with the loss of Alyssa Ustby, and the experienced Harris gives the team the ability to do so. Harris played three seasons at Louisville and has one year of eligibility remaining. She averaged 8.6 points and 5.3 rebounds this season at Louisville while shooting 54% from the field and 77.6% from the free throw line.

Harris scored a season-high 18 points in an overtime win against Wake Forest in January. She recorded two double-doubles this season, one against Grambling State and another against Syracuse.

Harris has faced UNC three times in her career as an ACC foe, posting averages of 10.7 points and seven rebounds in those games. North Carolina defeated Louisville on the road this past season, and Harris finished with 10 points and six rebounds in 21 minutes for the Cardinals.

“Nyla Harris, she’s been a bear to handle on the other team for so long, and when her name went in the portal, especially with the graduation of Alyssa, we were like, ‘Whoa,'” Banghart said. “Just a really good experienced (player), Elite Eight, lots of starting experience in our league. And she was really targeted on what she wanted. She wanted to have an enhanced offensive role. She wanted to be developed in a way that Alyssa had really expanded her game with us.”

When it came to Aarnisalo, Banghart said she and the staff wanted to add a facilitating point guard to the mix. Grace Townsend played her last collegiate season last year, but the team returns Reniya Kelly and Lanie Grant in the backcourt from last season.

Banghart recruited Aarnisalo before the guard ultimately played her freshman season at UCLA, saying that she talked to her once a week for two years during the recruitment process. The Bruins reached the Final Four in her first year and finished the season with a 34-3 record. Aarnisalo, standing 5-foot-10, originally hails from Finland.

Aarnisalo averaged 5.1 points, 3.4 assists and 2.2 rebounds in 37 games as a freshman with the Bruins last season while shooting 43.7% from the field, 27% from three and 77.4% from the free throw line. She started in 10 of those outings and played 20.9 minutes per game. Aarnisalo, who finished second on the team in assists per game to Kiki Rice’s season average of five, recorded five or more assists 12 times as a freshman.

“I’ve loved her game for a long time,” Banghart said. “She’s really shifty. She makes really good decisions, she has great floor vision, can pass on the move. Can kind of pass all different ways, on all different planes. And so I think she’ll really help (by) helping other people play to their strengths. We sometimes lacked facilitators last year across the guard spot. And she can dribble, shoot and pass in so many different ways. She can play on the ball, off the ball, as many of our guards now can. So I think the ball will move a little bit more.”

North Carolina finished the season with a 29-8 record and ranked fifth in the ACC with a 13-7 record. The team earned a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and lost to Duke in the Sweet Sixteen.

UNC will add five-star recruits Nyla Brooks and Taliyah Henderson, along with four-star Taissa Queiroz, who enrolled early this spring to practice with the team. The team lost Ustby, Townsend, Maria Gakdeng and Lexi Donarski from last season.

North Carolina’s full schedule hasn’t been announced yet, but the team agreed to play a preseason exhibition against South Carolina in Atlanta on Oct. 30 in State Farm Arena.

UNC is 125-64 through six seasons with Banghart at the helm. The Tar Heels have made the NCAA Tournament five seasons in a row.