I was gonna say it is weird if she’s so close to a Stanford degree and leaving now. Makes more sense if she is a grad transfer
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I mean xaivian lee left princeton a year short of graduation to lose to iowa on the first weekend, so
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Seems like that wasn’t very smart! But at least he made a lot of money to lose to Iowa though.
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Welp, unfortunately that one seemed obvious
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Honestly I was sort of surprised when a highly touted guard committed the class behind three freshman guards who started every game of their initial season
Also, just because nobody goes early to the WNBA, it can take awhile to get tick at big programs - like Emily Kiser and Jordan Hobbs didn’t really until their fourth seasons.
Finally - Marhurin’s mom is FAR from the worst example but it’s wild to me parents see fit to intervene like this in their 18+ year olds life. I have a strict personal policy with my kids coach’s to limit all engagement to “thanks coach” and “hi coach”, and leave everything else to my kid. Imagine calling your 18 year olds teachers about their grade on an English paper (much less taking to twitter), I don’t know man.
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While I agree with you in principle, it probably feels like Hobbs got less run than she did in reality when you look at the numbers. While she was the cornerstone of the team as a senior, she was averaging 15 mpg as a sophomore and 29 mpg as a junior. It was really only her freshman year where she played so little: < 5 mpg and only 19 game appearances.
That said, Mathurin appeared in 25 games this year and averaged just under 9 mpg, so she was already ahead of where Jordan was as a freshman. Sure, most of that was frontloaded, but that’s expected. KBA has always tightened her rotation down the stretch (as many teams do). Of course, Mathurin was also a more highly-rated recruit than Hobbs, so she probably expected more.
I imagine she’ll be pretty successful wherever she goes. Wish she would have stuck it out, but can’t fault her for wanting to play more. Seems like she could have been first off the bench this next year, but she can probably start for a lot of other programs.
Really does make me appreciate the Alyssa Crocketts and Macy Browns of the world. Seeing Macy go off in overtime a couple times this year and watching Crockett nail that three at the end of the NC State game were both such fun moments. The cheers Crockett got when she hit that shot were a testament to how much fans of this program appreciate the grit and fortitude it takes to stick it out. Was so happy for her!
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Does anyone else panic every time they open the board to see there are new posts in this thread? That 2023 offseason with all of the transfers still haunts and lingers, and you know there are going to be programs trying to poach pretty much all of the sophomores.
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I’m honestly sort of sanguine. In the middle of last year, Olivia Olson gave one of the most impressive interviews I’ve seen from any college kid, much less a (young!) freshman, where she detailed how she decided she wanted to win a title somewhere it had never been done, for a coach she admired who had never won one - and then committed and basically took that pitch on the recruiting road, getting Swords and Holloway. I think that group is literally on a mission, and take the long view.
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I am much more confident that those three stay and continue to be the core going forward, but these days I just don’t count anything as a given. While they seem very committed to the program and to KBA (and to each other), I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still nervous knowing how programs are almost certainly trying to lure them away.
I hope that Delfosse is a part of that core group as well. She definitely looks to be in line to take BQD’s starting spot next year, but, again, I’m sure there are programs that would love to poach her away.
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Yeah, you won’t find many larger admirers of BQD than me, but Delfosse seems like she can bring many of the same qualities without the physical limitations (in an actually imposing physical frame). I think if this group’s mission is to win a title, we have now concluded the “fun, cute upstart” portion of their career and are now starting the “winning time” portion (not that they haven’t been winning).
They’re the B10 favorite if nothing else next year, right?
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Man, it’s so hard to say. The B1G is so tough. It’s not like Iowa’s going anywhere, and Ohio State is always a threat.
With everyone graduating at UCLA, it will be interesting to see what happens there. I kind of expect Cori Close to retire after having heard her recent interview about being pretty tired of coaching in this new landscape and then winning the national championship and graduating all of those players.
MSU and Maryland continue to be good programs. Washington and Illinois certainly have some nice pieces as well.
And then you are also going to have both Jazzy Davidson and Juju Watkins on the same team at USC next year (at least as of right now).
So, I’d like to say they’ll be the favorite, but the B1G is just so dang deep.
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Not yet but I take your point…that was very peculiar
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I think USC is the favorite. They were the #1 seed with Juju, and Juju is back next season, along with Jazzy. They also have the top G coming in. The issue for Gottlieb is how to manage 3 ball-dominant guards when there’s only one ball to share?
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my USC hot take is that Jazzy Davidson’s numbers are mostly a product of usage (she was really inefficient) - now part of that is just circumstance (they needed her to do it, she’ll be better I’d imagine on lower usage), but I have a hard time seeing her season as “good”. Juju obviously is awesome.
Do they have anyone left other than shoot-first guards though? They were a poor rebounding team, and lose their leading rebounder. I know they have a hot shot guard coming in, but that feels like a hat on a hat. I know they have money, and I know the portal and all, but it REALLY seems like they need basically any sort of beef they can get to be a cromulent team. When they were last dominant, they had Iriafan and another big too mashing people out under the hoop.
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When I saw that there were 12 new posts I figured that it had to do something with player movement. I had a sliver of hope that it was positive recruiting news but expected portal.
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USC should be really strong.
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I would be really surprised if any of the Juniors-to-be (including Dudley) left.
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Juju rules, but pending some heavy portal work, I don’t really like USC’s team. It really smells like Hidalgo on ND to me at the moment.
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Obviously people can say what they want and people’s feelings arent always consistent with their actions or how they perceive their actions, but it’s funny to hear her say this when the only contributors on her title winner who weren’t portal adds were Kiki Rice and Gabriela Jacquez. Like, they dropped a 19 ppg scorer who was 1st team all Big 12 last year (her 3rd time making all-conference) onto their roster as a FOURTH option as a fifth year senior this year.