Great article. As you (and KBA) note, it’s easily to lose track of how good Holloway has been this year in a sport that probably has even MORE tenure than the men’s game. She’s probably our best point guard (at least offensively) since Flaherty (a totally different sort of player admittedly). She obviously grabs the headline, but I think if not for Kampschroeder’s shooting in the first half and Daniels’ defense in the second, we aren’t here - pretty special to get a game won, in large part, by two role players.
I still can’t over the fact that our backup PG from the past few years is now for the most part drawing the defensive assignment on the opponent’s best bigs.
This season is so huge for the program - the way the off-season went it was extremely easy to fret that KBA was done here, we even entered the season without really any viable post players (still don’t have any!) and no returnee had ever cracked 10 ppg at a HM - a messy roster after an extremely messy off-season.
There is still work to do (get Olson, Swords and Holloway some NIL!) and replacing Jordan Hobbs’ contributions next year while apparently breaking in some freshman bigs will be a challenge, but the future is so bright here.
They have Fields coming in. What other bugs do they have? I say at least one has to be found in the portal and maybe another 3/4 type.
Great write up. Please find a way to keep Swords, Holloway and Olson playing together!! Get them their NIL money!! They all have unbelievable fearlessness and feel for the game for such young players. Also, I think game time for Thursday is a typo, it will be a 2:30 p.m. game time.
I still can’t over the fact that our backup PG from the past few years is now for the most part drawing the defensive assignment on the opponent’s best bigs.
Same. Greta gets major props for this.
whispers This part needs correcting as well:
The Wolverines will play the winner of the #12 Washington and #13 Minnesota game on Thursday at 2:30 p.m.
Thanks for the article, Megan! Love the women getting some coverage!
Ciara Byars is 6’3". She is supposed to be pretty versatile (she does score in the post but faces up too).
I know I keep saying this to you, but I’m not sure the positional distinctions between the 2, 3, and 4 (and this year the 5 but that’s not ideal) really exist for this team. Swords is a guard who leads us in total and offensive rebounding. Olivia Olson (a guard) is our leading shotblocker. Outside of Grabovskia, we play nobody bigger than 6’3" (Jordan Hobbs, who does not play as a big whatsoever) and after her, nobody bigger than 6’1". I think Swords/Olson/Hobbs/DeLafosse/Brown all sort of play the same basic role.
They play hard and surprisingly advanced for such a young core of players. The future looks bright.
Definitely a rebounding 4 who plays some defense IMO. Scour the portal.
I sort of think our only portal is a starting 5 (I remaing skeptical regarding how much NIL we have for the program after this off-season)
The other slot is battle royale between Delfosse, Brown, Mathurin
Then you have the two losers of that, Daniels, Grabovskaia, and the freshmen forwards as reserves
I like the idea of Delfosse