Michigan Women's Hoops

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I know that name. He was tight with a few of the guys on the men’s team. I think he did a lot of workouts with them. Looks like he played with Duncan at Exeter.

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Coach Barnes-Arico continues to successfully recruit young women with great character along with great athletic skills. A season ticket at $60 is a steal for great sports entertainment. They play hard and have been very successful.

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Smart move!

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Michigan got a 2023 commit.

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She’s not ranked in ESPN’s Super 60 but one recruiting site I found has Eidle ranked #45 in the country and an Illinois recruiting site has her ranked #2 in the state.

She looks pretty quick and apparently can shoot the lights out.

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So I see Naz got co-preseason POTY, justifiably, and Michigan was ranked 3rd and 4th in the preseason polls (I think we’ll be better whatever), but I’m sort of shocked that Leigha Brown, who was 4th in the conference in scoring last year, didn’t warrant a mention on either the coach or media All-Conference (they named 10 players).

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That is strange, regarding Brown.

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It’s so strange that I actually double-checked the roster to make sure she hadn’t left.

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Use that slight, Leigha!

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I hope they’re a top 5 team. They weren’t quite there last year, why do we think we’ll be significantly better? Naz and Brown are already really good, how do they improve?

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I think one of the biggest areas of improvement would be Amy Dilk valuing the ball a bit more. Her A:TO ratio has never been good so maybe too much to ask to have a 3:1 or 4:1 A:TO, but a 2:1 might not be crazy.

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I don’t follow closely but thanks to this blog I at least learned something last year…what about shooting? It felt last year like they lost a few games due to poor shooting and with Naz in the middle those shots will be open.

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For those interested, there is a nice two part interview with Kim Barnes Arico on Sam’s show from this morning available on the podcast.

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I obviously don’t want t speak ill of any of our players, but I think there are two pretty clear areas for improvement:

  1. Akienreh Johnson attempted the 3rd most shots on the team, and the 2nd most 3’s, and really struggled hitting from anywhere, she has departed (admittedly this is balanced by Hailey Brown, one of our 2 consistent outside shooters, graduating). Again - Johnson took lots of shots and did no not very well.

  2. Amy Dilk went from being a 43% shooter to a 31% shooter from sophomore to junior year (39.5% as a freshman). I’m thinking there is at least the strong chance she improves greatly from that mark.

There are also some promising additions in terms of young players getting more minutes and newcomers:

Maddie Nolan was a very good shooter in limited minutes last year, I think her addition to the lineup as, possibly, the 3rd scoring banana, will be an improvement over Johnson.

Izabel Varajeo showed promise as a big in her first season at Michigan, but due to Covid was never able to join the team last year.

We have two rising sophomores - Cameron Williams and Whitney Sollom - who were top 100 recruits (Williams was a McDonalds All-American, and a 5 star)

Another Freshman (Ari Wiggins) was a Mcdonalds All American and 5 star recruit (and Indiana Ms. Basketball) and another (Taylor Gibson) who was extremely highly regarded as a Junior before her school cancelled the season wholesale last year.

The incoming young depth has NEVER been this highly touted in the 20 years I’ve seen (could be wrong) - not even Naz was. So while I know we’ll see some familiar faces step into larger roles, like Kiser, I think more minutes for Nolan, and the array of highly talented underclassmen will be able to replace Johnson and Brown.

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For those interested in whether Naz will get better go to the 11 minute mark of part 1 on the podcast and listen to KBA. High, high praise for Naz, and why not! If you get a chance just listen. We are so fortunate to have a coach like KBA, too!

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I was going to add it to my post, but since you mentioned, I’ll just reply here…

I think it will be hard for her to be a better scorer and rebounder than she is (though I expect her to maintain that quality) - but obviously as good as she is, we know the defense is going to collapse on her. One thing she HASN’T been that good is passing out these situations to find the shooters - she’s about 1 assist a game. Someone above said that you’d think her presence would provide open shots for others…that’s true. I think there is a greater opportunity for her to find them! (I don’t know if this is what KBA said! She knows better!)

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She said she has never seen a player in all her years of coaching who wants to improve so much and is willing and even almost demanding of her coaches to help her improve. She said Naz absorbs things and processes things faster than any player she has ever seen! She also said Naz stays after practice literally every night watching video and asking questions of what she can do differently to improve her game in every aspect. She’s already told her staff to be prepared to stay after practice every night because Naz will want them to be there coaching her and helping her get better.

She also talked about “role” players which I think was great because that’s a HUGE thing for me, the importance to the team of those who don’t get all the notoriety.

And finally, in that first segment (I haven’t listened to part 2 yet), she talked about the quality of the young women on this team. Did you know that two days ago, on their day off, the women’s team helped build a playground for kids in AA? I mean, and I am admittedly a bit sentimental and can be kind of emotional, but I teared up a bit just thinking about that. And KBA didn’t know they were going to do that. She found out at the end of her busy day when she checked her phone that her girls were out there building that playground on their “day off.” Pretty selfless, and it’s what I think sports, especially high school and college sports, should be all about!

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I think @mgl was saying that Michigan was picked to finish 3rd or 4th in the B1G, not the country. Is that correct?
Nationally, I think they’ll probably be ranked somewhere in the top-15 to start the season, maybe as high as #10.

The player losses they had were starters Akienreh Johnson and Hailey Brown. Johnson was their 3rd best scorer and Brown was one of their better 3-point shooters. They also lost seldom-used freshman Megan Fiso to the transfer portal.

Michigan also lost several coaches, with Toyelle Wilson taking the SMU Head Coaching position and bringing Danielle Edwards with her. Assistant Yvonne Sanchez took a similar position at Arizona State and Wesley Brooks took an assistant coaching job at…TSDS.

What they gain: A return of Izabel Varejao, who was stuck in Brazil for most of the season and wasn’t active (or DNP) when she returned for the last handful of games. She had some meaningful minutes as a freshman in '19-'20 and could start at C with Hailey Brown gone. I’d guess either she starts or senior Emily Kiser does. A dark horse candidate could be sophomore Cameron Williams. Williams was a top-50 recruit who had a quiet freshman year last winter but that may have been partially due to a knee-injury.

A good recruiting class, including a top-30 (ESPN) guard in Laila Phelia, and a top-70 guard in Ariana Wiggins. Also joining the class are 6’3" Jordan Hobbs, and 6’2" Taylor Gibson.

The coaches they’ve added are: Carrie Moore, who came over from UNC, and former Fordham assistant Val Nainima. They also promoted support staff member (and former G-Leaguer) Harry Rafferty.

So, while they lost some key pieces to last year’s team, I think they added some shot-blocking and post-play with the return of Varejao, as well as some team speed and ball-handling with their freshman.
I’ll also be interested in seeing if junior Maddie Nolan continues to push for playing time. If I recall correctly, she started over Dilk a couple of times towards the end of last season and did well.

EDIT: It was Danielle Rauch who subbed in for Dilk.

I also expect Naz to keep improving because that’s just who she is. If she’s added a mid-range J to her game, she’ll be all the more dangerous.

I think Maryland is still the team to beat in the B1G until proven otherwise. Second place in the conference is where I’d put Michigan.

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