Love It When Geno Gets a Burr In His Saddle

[RockyMTblue2]

Stumbled into this. Over a year old but still fresh and very topical. Hopefully I am not the only one who missed it.

 

[Longtime fan]

The law of large numbers. But UCONN needs to pay attention. Morrow at LSU. Paopao at South Carolina. And we had Lopez from Fairfield ( without whom we would have not won half as many games. ). He ( and most ) may hate the portal, but it is a season changer for some.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Look at the National Championship teams of the past several years and their key transfers:

2017. South Carolina. Allisha Gray and Kaela Davis.

2018. Notre Dame. Jessica Shepard.

2019. Baylor. Chloe Jackson.

2020. No tournament.

2021. Stanford. None.

2022. South Carolina. Kamilla Cardoso and Destiny Littleton.

2023. LSU. Angel Reese, LaDazhia Williams, Alexis Morris, Jasmine Carson, Last-Tear Poa, and Kateri Poole.

Obviously, Stanford was not affected. I'd say that some or all of the other winners would not have won without the transfers.

 

[DefenseBB]

With the increased coaching staff, I would hope a better effort for both Portal and HS recruiting can be achieved. You need BOTH to be effective if you want to succeed. Frankly this off-season we failed in not trying to get an experienced front court player to help Aaliyah. Even if all our players were healthy, you could not rely on 2 first year players (Ice and Jana) and a second year player coming off of surgery (Ayanna) to help you. Yes, the roster was almost full at 14 but a grad player for 1 year would have inspired competition at worst and provided injury insurance at best.

We still have this same problem for next year so I am hoping Geno and staff have learned something so we can be better prepared.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Look at the National Championship teams of the past several years and their key transfers:

2017. South Carolina. Allisha Gray and Kaela Davis.

2018. Notre Dame. Jessica Shepard.

2019. Baylor. Chloe Jackson.

2020. No tournament.

2021. Stanford. None.

2022. South Carolina. Kamilla Cardoso and Destiny Littleton.

2023. LSU. Angel Reese, LaDazhia Williams, Alexis Morris, Jasmine Carson, Last-Tear Poa, and Kateri Poole.

Obviously, Stanford was not affected. I'd say that some or all of the other winners would not have won without the transfers.

I would expect this to continue and accelerate.

 

[reelfan]

Coaches can ignore the Portal at their own peril.

 

[MilfordHusky]

I would expect this to continue and accelerate.

I would as well. Maybe not to the extent that LSU used the portal, but 2-3 key transfers—who don’t have to sit out—will find their way to several top-10 teams.

 

[Plebe]

Hopefully Geno is getting these portal rants out of his system. I'm not big fan of transfer culture either, but the portal is here to stay, and as Mulkey said in 2019 after winning a title with Chloe Jackson, coaches can either adapt to it or get left behind.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Look at the National Championship teams of the past several years and their key transfers:

2023. LSU. Angel Reese, LaDazhia Williams, Alexis Morris, Jasmine Carson, Last-Tear Poa, and Kateri Poole.

Obviously, Stanford was not affected. I'd say that some one or all of the other winners would not have won a dozen games without the transfers.

Fixed it for you.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Hopefully Geno is getting these portal rants out of his system. I'm not big fan of transfer culture either, but the portal is here to stay, and as Mulkey said in 2019 after winning a title with Chloe Jackson, coaches can either adapt to it or get left behind.

Or they can coach at a school whose admissions practices all but rule out in-transfers and therefore pray that "40-year-decisions" and the appeal of freshman year mentoring sessions with Condeleeza Rice can close that gap...

 

[Reypl21]

Can you really blame him for not hitting the portal last summer? He recruited a full roster and then injuries hit the team hard. The only type of player I thought yall could have used was a true 5. I'm sure this next year he will hit the portal, he has a good track record of getting players prepared for the next level. Lou and Dorka come to mind.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Can you really blame him for not hitting the portal last summer? He recruited a full roster and then injuries hit the team hard. The only type of player I thought yall could have used was a true 5. I'm sure this next year he will hit the portal, he has a good track record of getting players prepared for the next level. Lou and Dorka come to mind.

I respect the man precisely because his rant has nothing to do with whether he can benefit from the portal and everything to do with principle and calling it as he sees it. Yet one more reason why I'm an unapologetic Geno stan.

 

[Boreifs]

With the increased coaching staff, I would hope a better effort for both Portal and HS recruiting can be achieved. You need BOTH to be effective if you want to succeed. Frankly this off-season we failed in not trying to get an experienced front court player to help Aaliyah. Even if all our players were healthy, you could not rely on 2 first year players (Ice and Jana) and a second year player coming off of surgery (Ayanna) to help you. Yes, the roster was almost full at 14 but a grad player for 1 year would have inspired competition at worst and provided injury insurance at best.

We still have this same problem for next year so I am hoping Geno and staff have learned something so we can be better prepared.

Who, pray tell, was available as an experienced big who can score, rebound, pass and play defense? Centers don’t grow on trees. Blaming the coaching staff for not finding a nonexistent player seems counterintuitive.

 

[Eweconn]

With the increased coaching staff, I would hope a better effort for both Portal and HS recruiting can be achieved. You need BOTH to be effective if you want to succeed. Frankly this off-season we failed in not trying to get an experienced front court player to help Aaliyah. Even if all our players were healthy, you could not rely on 2 first year players (Ice and Jana) and a second year player coming off of surgery (Ayanna) to help you. Yes, the roster was almost full at 14 but a grad player for 1 year would have inspired competition at worst and provided injury insurance at best.

We still have this same problem for next year so I am hoping Geno and staff have learned something so we can be better prepared.

During the off season, Geno didn't know he would have 5 players out for the season.

 

[Skeets]

Geno does a pretty good job with the other portal called "The Rest of the World".

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Or they can coach at a school whose admissions practices all but rule out in-transfers and therefore pray that "40-year-decisions" and the appeal of freshman year mentoring sessions with Condeleeza Rice can close that gap...

You forgot the piano lessons!

 

[ctkaiser]

With the increased coaching staff, I would hope a better effort for both Portal and HS recruiting can be achieved. You need BOTH to be effective if you want to succeed. Frankly this off-season we failed in not trying to get an experienced front court player to help Aaliyah. Even if all our players were healthy, you could not rely on 2 first year players (Ice and Jana) and a second year player coming off of surgery (Ayanna) to help you. Yes, the roster was almost full at 14 but a grad player for 1 year would have inspired competition at worst and provided injury insurance at best.

We still have this same problem for next year so I am hoping Geno and staff have learned something so we can be better prepared.

There were a few out there including Lauren Ware who I thought would have worked.

 

[savoy33]

Even with 14 on the roster I hoped that the Huskies would try to enlist Kaitlyn Davis, a Norwalk kid (6-2 F) who grad transferred from Columbia to USC. I believe she's been a pretty regular starter out there, and they're not a bad team.

I don't think that move would have hurt the Huskies, and it might have helped... a lot.

 

[Rowdy831]

Who was in the Portal that was better than what UConn already has on the roster? UConn has an issue with injuries, not quality of the players on the roster. The portal in women's sports hasn't really become what it is for football or Men's BB, yet.

Right now UConn has 2 number one recruits and several more top ten recruits so Geno is in a position where the risk of losing a player is much greater than adding one that would make a difference. To me once you enter the portal wars you have no way of getting out of them and that for UConn could be a net loss. Graduate Transfers like Lou are a different animal altogether so I would say add all you can with that program but wait out the portal, maybe a healthy year is just around the corner.