(10-17-2020 06:58 AM)rockytop Wrote:  I believe ,if the MBB and FB programs were performing at the same level as WBB, most posters on this board would be calling for change.

Correct. But, I don’t want Cullop fired. She is such a great face for the program. She just needs to hit a homerun again in recruiting, run it to a sweet 16 appearance and then she can stay her for her career...

Might make a good AD.

(10-17-2020 02:38 PM)Rocket_Fanatic Wrote:  

(10-17-2020 06:58 AM)rockytop Wrote:  I believe ,if the MBB and FB programs were performing at the same level as WBB, most posters on this board would be calling for change.

Correct. But, I don’t want Cullop fired. She is such a great face for the program. She just needs to hit a homerun again in recruiting, run it to a sweet 16 appearance and then she can stay her for her career...

I agree. Cullop is a great advocate for women's basketball and has certainly played an important role in cultivating the fan base for the program. I do have concerns as I am sure others do about the where the program is going. My most recent complaint regards the way that Tayana Beacham was treated. IMO she was a player with a unique set of skills which were not appreciated and utilized during her time at UT. She was certainly not the best defender but I think her offensive skill set more than offset her weaknesses. However the coaches apparently disagreed with that assessment. The first two years she sat while players with marginal offensive abilities started and played more minutes. And to my amazement last year she sat while Whitaker started and played more minutes. Beacham only became a starter with major minutes when there was no other option. And the last half of the season she was a force on the floor and certainly one of the major reasons why UT was able to defeat CMU twice at the end of the season. And what did she do? She walked! IMO we lost her senior year because she was frustrated with the lack of appreciation for her talents which were reflected in her lack of playing time for the three years at Toledo. IMO Cullop and her assistants got it wrong and consequently have lost a player who would have been a critical part of this year's team which is seriously lacking in experienced players

Some vid from insta:

Also, they've been posting short "get to know" video interviews with the team members on twitter and instagram. Started with Bolser:

and Mikonowicz

and Colon

and Goss

and Perdue

and Idowu

So the WBB team gets 15 scholarships. That's enough to have three players at each position. That's what is called a balanced team and gives you good options if you have injuries or players don't work out. Unfortunately, of the 15 players, 7 are listed as guards and another 5 are listed as guard/forwards although all are small for the wing forward position. There are two forwards listed. One never plays and the other is just too small at 5-11. One freshman center is listed. Anyone else see a problem with this unbalanced team? How could a coaching staff keep recruiting guards and ignoring the other positions? And of the two signees for next season, one is a guard.

(11-22-2020 05:06 AM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  So the WBB team gets 15 scholarships. That's enough to have three players at each position. That's what is called a balanced team and gives you good options if you have injuries or players don't work out. Unfortunately, of the 15 players, 7 are listed as guards and another 5 are listed as guard/forwards although all are small for the wing forward position. There are two forwards listed. One never plays and the other is just too small at 5-11. One freshman center is listed. Anyone else see a problem with this unbalanced team? How could a coaching staff keep recruiting guards and ignoring the other positions? And of the two signees for next season, one is a guard.

I agree with you that it would be nice to see an experienced and talented post player on this team. We will miss Beacham a lot, I fear. On the other hand, Ohio has been very successful the last couple years without any inside presence. Of course, they have had a whole lot more perimeter talent than we currently have. I guess my point is that I would worry a lot less about the lack of size if we had proven talent among our guards.

(11-22-2020 09:39 AM)Lester Wrote:  

(11-22-2020 05:06 AM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  So the WBB team gets 15 scholarships. That's enough to have three players at each position. That's what is called a balanced team and gives you good options if you have injuries or players don't work out. Unfortunately, of the 15 players, 7 are listed as guards and another 5 are listed as guard/forwards although all are small for the wing forward position. There are two forwards listed. One never plays and the other is just too small at 5-11. One freshman center is listed. Anyone else see a problem with this unbalanced team? How could a coaching staff keep recruiting guards and ignoring the other positions? And of the two signees for next season, one is a guard.

I agree with you that it would be nice to see an experienced and talented post player on this team. We will miss Beacham a lot, I fear. On the other hand, Ohio has been very successful the last couple years without any inside presence. Of course, they have had a whole lot more perimeter talent than we currently have. I guess my point is that I would worry a lot less about the lack of size if we had proven talent among our guards.

Yep. No one plays the traditional 2G/2F/1C style anymore, especially in the MAC. In the MAC pretty much everyone plays 4G/C or 3G/SF/C. Ohio, like Lester points out plays essentially 5 guards. OU had 3 players 6' or over on the roster last year, and 1 redshirted, and the other 2 barely saw the floor. I also remember back when UT had a power forward named Lecretia Smith who was (maybe generously) listed as 5'9 and did pretty darn well banging inside, getting rebounds and the like.

I'm not happy with the height of this team either, but it's what coach has to work with. I am guessing the Beacham transfer caught them off-guard (no pun intended.) In a different year, maybe UT could have found a late grad transfer to add some depth, but with COVID and not even knowing there would be a season til very late, I'm thinking maybe they didn't try too hard to find one. (I assume Mikonowicz is still a walk-on and so there is an open scholly, but I am not sure).

This team will have a lot more speed than recent years which will help a lot against teams like Ohio. If they can manufacture post minutes from some combination of Lance/Idowu/Bolser/Morgan-Elliott the height might not be that much of an issue. The team is still really young though, which is probably the bigger issue, and I think they will really miss Nitra Perry, since she was the brains behind the defensive schemes which stymied teams like CMU last season.

This discussion made me curious, so having nothing better to do this morning, I did some calculations looking at last year's MAC rosters. Buffalo had by far the tallest roster, but the tallest players don't play much. So, if you look at height weighted to playing time, the league looks like this (assuming I did that calcs correctly):

Ball St 5'11.2
NIU 5'10.4
Toledo 5'10.0
Akron 5'10.0
Ohio 5'9.8
BGSU 5'9.8
Buffalo 5'9.6
KSU 5'9.6
WMU 5'9.5
Miami 5'9.5
CMU 5'9.4
EMU 5'8.9

I was a little surprised at this. Not looking I would have expected the top three to be Buffalo, Ball State and Miami, and the bottom three to be BGSU, UT and Ohio. EMU is at the bottom, despite having the tallest player in the league in 6'5 Amber Hudson. Also note where CMU falls. This supports my point above that even accounting for the tall post players most teams have, they typically have 3 or 4 pretty small players on the floor at the same time. Speed (and shooting 3s) kills in this league.

Now, I used last year's listed heights for UT. Several players heights were down-graded this year, so maybe it would come out different with those. Of course, you can never really trust listed heights anyway. I do see Morgan-Elliott is back to being listed at 5'11 again, so there's that.

Interesting stats. Unexpected. The women's game will follow the men's. Taller women becoming mobile ball-handlers. There's still static at the lower levels that need rebounders. Howard when at Waite had a setting in which there were three others, 6'2"-6'3" not as athletic and used in the paint and she was able to use all of her abilities at a younger age. More of that now, matriculating on up.

The basketball media guides are out on the website. WBB is here:
https://utrockets.com/documents/2020/11/..._Guide.pdf

It says Mariah Copeland is out for the season after tearing her ACL in practice. Was not likely to be a big contributor, but hate to see anyone injured like that.