Once college basketball season rolls around, players like to talk about what they worked on with their games over the summer.

Sometimes the biggest gains come away from the court.

Several Marquette women’s players had interesting job internships, finding time to get experience in their areas of study while also working on their conditioning and jump shots.

“I think we’ve always preached having a balance between school and basketball,” MU head coach Megan Duffy said. “With a little bit of the COVID extra year, it’s allowed these kids have more time for internships and job-shadowing opportunities.

“I think the great thing about our veterans, our seniors, is that they’re so driven to be great on the court and then with their respective majors. They’ve all done internships.

"I tell them to slow down a little bit. I don’t know if this real-world stuff is what it’s cut out to be.”

Jordan King getting classroom experience

MU guard Jordan King definitely took advantage of her extra season of NCAA eligibility. She graduated in three years and then enrolled in a two-year program to get her master’s degree in school counseling.

Over the summer, she got classroom experience at a school in West Allis.

“I think the biggest thing is just being able to impact the youth,” King said. “There’s a lot of kids out there that struggle at home.

“There’s a lot of difficult situations, that they’re either born into and stuff like that. So making school a safe place for them. That’s really my passion right now. What I’m doing is making sure that kids are comfortable, safe and enjoy going to school and it’s a good time for them.”

That experience is ongoing, even as the Golden Eagles’ season has already tipped off. King needs 600 internship hours over two semesters, so even when she's not playing, the guard is hustling and reading situations.

“I think the biggest thing is empathy,” King said. “That’s something you obviously need to have in your daily life with any human interaction.

“But I think the kids are just so energetic. They really have a lot of energy. They love life. That brings a little bit to you as well. You might wake up in the morning and you’re like, oh my goodness, I need to go to my internship for four hours and I need to go to practice and I need to go to class. You’re almost walking in there like, OK, here we go. Then you see a kid that’s like, oh it’s so good to see you, and they kind of bring that life to you a little bit.”

Rose Nkumu learns about professional basketball with Bucks

MU guard Rose Nkumu joined a professional basketball team over the summer.

She is majoring in digital media with minors in both advertising and public relations, and there was an internship with the Milwaukee Bucks she really wanted. So she applied and got a spot with the Bucks’ digital team.

“The opportunity to work with a professional sports team is incredible and just seeing how the work flow is there,” Nkumu said. “Just getting to use my sports knowledge and my basketball knowledge in a different context is really, really cool.”

That internship also overlaps with her own season. As her schedule allows, Nkumu still helps design social media posts and do quick graphics for game updates. The MU senior loves the fast-paced game, and is definitely thinking it’s something she wants to do after graduating.

“I’d really like to do a WNBA team or just something in women’s sports in general just to give back to the coverage of women’s athletics,” she said.

Liza Karlen works the angles as engineering student

MU post player Liza Karlen is used to working the geometry on the court and finding the best ways to get good looks.

She also does that as an engineering major.

“I’m an extremely analytical thinker,” Karlen said. “I see very black and white. I love math. I love physics. I love to ask why things work the way they do.

“I ask a lot of questions. Very curious. So engineering is that perfect fit. Obviously I was very lucky to land on a school that has a great program. And a lot of athletic staff that helped push the hard major because, as you know, it’s hard to balance athletics and academics sometimes.”

Karlen got hands-on experience over the summer with the Briohn Building Corporation in Brookfield.

“It’s a very small construction company,” Karlen said. “It’s design-build, though, so that means all the engineers and architects work under the same roof as all the construction and product managers.

“So it’s not just engineering. Or just construction. They design all their own buildings and then build them. So that was really nice because I got to work with the engineers for six weeks, then I got to work with the project managers for six weeks.”

Now Karlen is trying to build a winner with her teammates on the court in her senior season.

“I think that maybe it’s helped me be like a problem solver,” she said. “I think that’s something they really try to teach you in engineering is how to think critically and solve problems.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette's Jordan King Liza Karlen and Rose Nkumu get internships