6'8" Canadian commits to Oregon | The Boneyard

6'8" Canadian commits to Oregon

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I saw her mentioned before here. Surprised she hadn't been talked about more, maybe because she's from Calgary while most of the recent attention to Canadian HS talent has been on Toronto? Physically on video she looks like she has just as much a scary combo of size/athleticism as McCowan or Soares. Video can be deceiving but her ceiling looks higher than any other post in the class of 2021.

 

bballnut90

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I saw her mentioned before here. Surprised she hadn't been talked about more, maybe because she's from Calgary while most of the recent attention to Canadian HS talent has been on Toronto? Physically on video she looks like she has just as much a scary combo of size/athleticism as McCowan or Soares. Video can be deceiving but her ceiling looks higher than any other post in the class of 2021.



Based on that highlight reel she looks like McCowan 2.0 but more nimble. Just sheer size and looks very strong too. Hard to say how well she'll develop, as McCowan took a couple of years and a LOT of hard work for her game to blossom. She made the U16 Canadian Camp invite but didn't make the final 12 player roster last summer. Probably is under the radar but hard to say how she'll play against bigger/more physical players. Definitely intriguing to see if she becomes a very good collegiate player.

I just looked at Oregon's roster and they are absolutely LOADED with bigs. Their roster currently has the following first year players:

6-7 Sedona Prince (pre injury was unbelievably coordinated and one of the most fluid 6-7 girls I've seen)
6-6 Arielle Wilson
6-5 Nyara Sabally
6-4 Angela Dugalic
6-4 Kylee Watson

Wont be easy to see court time early on but who knows. Look forward to seeing her play.
 

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Based on that highlight reel she looks like McCowan 2.0 but more nimble. Just sheer size and looks very strong too. Hard to say how well she'll develop, as McCowan took a couple of years and a LOT of hard work for her game to blossom. She made the U16 Canadian Camp invite but didn't make the final 12 player roster last summer. Probably is under the radar but hard to say how she'll play against bigger/more physical players. Definitely intriguing to see if she becomes a very good collegiate player.

I just looked at Oregon's roster and they are absolutely LOADED with bigs. Their roster currently has the following first year players:

6-7 Sedona Prince (pre injury was unbelievably coordinated and one of the most fluid 6-7 girls I've seen)
6-6 Arielle Wilson
6-5 Nyara Sabally
6-4 Angela Dugalic
6-4 Kylee Watson

Wont be easy to see court time early on but who knows. Look forward to seeing her play.
For Prince post injury, a very blurry video from practice:

 

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She also looks like she's in pretty good conditioning shape unlike other 6'5" and taller girls at many of these programs. I still like Liv at 6'5" whose actually played the last two years...just sayin' :rolleyes:
 
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Sedona has always had the hype as the real deal. Now we finally get to see her in action . She use to throw it down like Javale Mcgee !! Hopefully shes fully recovered and regained that athleticism .

 
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Raoul meant to say "2021 WBB prospect project Phillipina Kyei, 6-8 C, Crestwood Prep (ON) / Calgary, Alberta, has announced her commitment to Oregon..." Backup to Prince and practice squad inductee until she acclimates and improves. Has potential.
 
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Tall prospects err .....projects end up there but it has been a mad scientist expirement at this point.
Yeah "mad scientist experiment" with "projects" for sure, because Oregon State bringing in 6'9" Mitrovic, at one time the third ranked player in Europe and bringing in 6'9" Aquino, at one time the 7th ranked player in the nation (as per ESPN) was plainly a crazy, risky experiment rather than the skilled recruitment of bonified prospects. What was Rueck thinking? Somehow he should have just known that Mitrovic would sustain a season ending knee injury AFTER signing her, and he should have just known Aquino would be diagnosed with a heart condition that would prevent her from playing for 2 seasons (and counting), AFTER signing her. Mad scientist experiment with "projects" ??? Ahhhhh, WRONG, Guess again. If Mitrovic and Aquino are "projects", please fill my roster with players like them. I would agree that 6'7" Morris was more experimental, but hardly a "mad scientist experiment". Also, if previous centers like Gulich and Hamblin are other examples, the word "brilliant" might be a slightly closer word to the truth than "mad" when it comes to Oregon State's recent history with post players.

In contrast, Phillipina Kyei is not ranked anywhere....at least not anywhere Oregonlive or other media outlets can identify. "I think Phillipina has a chance to be a really good player," Graves said in a release. " Now this sounds like the definition of an experimental project. By the way, I would never refer to Kelly Graves et al. at Oregon as a "mad scientist" or what he does as a "mad scientist experiment" , but you have no problem calling Rueck et al. this even though Reuck is recognized as among the best coaches in the Nation (as is Graves). You sound unnecessarily disrespectful and heavily biased to me.
 
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Yeah "mad scientist experiment" with "projects" for sure, because Oregon State bringing in 6'9" Mitrovic, at one time the third ranked player in Europe and bringing in 6'9" Aquino, at one time the 7th ranked player in the nation (as per ESPN) was plainly a crazy, risky experiment rather than the skilled recruitment of bonified prospects. What was Rueck thinking? Somehow he should have just known that Mitrovic would sustain a season ending knee injury AFTER signing her, and he should have just known Aquino would be diagnosed with a heart condition that would prevent her from playing for 2 seasons (and counting), AFTER signing her. Mad scientist experiment with "projects" ??? Ahhhhh, WRONG, Guess again. If Mitrovic and Aquino are "projects", please fill my roster with players like them. I would agree that 6'7" Morris was more experimental, but hardly a "mad scientist experiment". Also, if previous centers like Gulich and Hamblin are other examples, the word "brilliant" might be a slightly closer word to the truth than "mad" when it comes to Oregon State's recent history with post players.

In contrast, Phillipina Kyei is not ranked anywhere....at least not anywhere Oregonlive or other media outlets can identify. "I think Phillipina has a chance to be a really good player," Graves said in a release. " Now this sounds like the definition of an experimental project. By the way, I would never refer to Kelly Graves et al. at Oregon as a "mad scientist" or what he does as a "mad scientist experiment" , but you have no problem calling Rueck et al. this even though Reuck is recognized as among the best coaches in the Nation (as is Graves). You sound unnecessarily disrespectful and heavily biased to me.
[/QUOTE

Yes you do. One needs to ask why?
 
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I get both newfrontier and Figurehead's opinions. Oregon State has done well in developing post players. Oregon has great success developing athletic bigs too.

The question will be whether Kyei can develop into what Graves' thinks she is. There have been a lot of sure fire ranked players who have flamed out. It's always going to be a guessing game to an extent.

In fairness to Kyei though, she hasn't had the same amount of exposure that others in Canada may have gotten from ranking services, but it doesn't speak to her potential. She also played in a province that doesn't have as many competitive "prep" teams for women's basketball. Her moving to Ontario to play for Crestwood could be a stepping stone in her development. From what I've seen, she's gotten better but we won't know until she plays in a game and that will depend on whether the OSBA league here ends up hosting competitions.

Our challenge is that the basketball hotbeds seem to be primarily ON, QC and BC, with AB and NS emerging. Kids from provinces outside of those areas have to move if they want to play at a higher level. It's not easy or cheap to do from what I've seen.

The talent pool for Canadian players continues to get better. If you look at 2020, top ranked teams like Arizona State, Gonzaga, Indiana, UConn and Louisville have Canadian recruits, with only 1 being ranked by any US service I've noticed. The 2021 class has great D1 talent coming too, but most only know of Lattimore and Day-Wilson due to the social media efforts and their school's ability to allow them to travel as much as they did to gain exposure. Crown Scout does provide rankings on Canadian players, but I don't know how many people in the US know about them.

But does ranking really matter? That's always going to be the question. The transfer numbers of recent years and some of the "sure bet" players that haven't panned out is common. Wasn't there a player from JMU who got drafted in the WNBA this season over others who probably had more media attention throughout their career? It's still going to be a guessing game.

We'll only know once Kyei's gotten on campus and starts to put in the work. I hope she does well.
 

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For those who might be interested there is additional information about Phillippina here:

WBB signee Phillipina Kyei's journey from obscurity to Oregon

A few highlights: 1) she only began playing basketball after moving from Ghana to Alberta 4 years ago, and then moved to Crestwood Prep last summer (thank you for the correction @cancontent); 2) her list of finalists is none too shabby despite all of that: Oregon, Maryland, Texas, and, I heard from another source, Louisville; 3) the leader of what is apparently the premier AAU Program in Canada says, among other things, that she is in the "90th percentile for big girls"--whatever that means--and predicts she will be "better" than Teaira McCowan by her senior year (time will tell on that one). Finally, the comment by Graves referenced above is something he says more often than not about incoming recruits.
 
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For those who might be interested there is additional information about Phillippina here:

WBB signee Phillipina Kyei's journey from obscurity to Oregon

A few highlights: 1) she only began playing basketball after moving from Ghana to Alberta 4 years ago, and then moved to Crestwood Prep about a year ago; 2) her list of finalists is none too shabby despite all of that: Oregon, Maryland, Texas, and, I heard from another source, Louisville; 3) the leader of what is apparently the premier AAU Program in Canada says, among other things, that she is in the "90th percentile for big girls"--whatever that means--and predicts she will be "better" than Teaira McCowan by her senior year (time will tell on that one). Finally, the comment by Graves referenced above is something he says more often than not about incoming recruits.


Sounds a lot like Pascal Siakam of the Raptors and makes more sense when I think back to previous Canada Basketball assessment camps. Considering she's only been in the sport for a few years, she's made decent strides in comparison to others who have been part of Canada Basketball's development stream for longer.

I do take a little umbrage to the knock against Calgary though. Granted, city and province isn't a hot bed, Brynn Maskewich is a freshman at UCLA and she isn't a slouch. Yvonne Ejim is a freshman at Gonzaga and has been part of Canada Basketball's U16, U17 and U19 squads along with Maskewich. They both come from basketball families which gave them an advantage, but Alberta isn't as bad as how they're portraying things. They just don't have the numbers of elite players to compete against each other consistently in comparison to Ontario, Quebec and BC.

The only clarification I would make is that she joined Crestwood this past summer. She wasn't part of their team last season. She's going to get a lot of good training over the next year though working with the coaches there. They don't mess around.
 
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My understanding is that her family moved to Toronto from Ghana. She has been playing for three years but only this summer went out to Crestwood to work with the coaching staff there. Oregon men have a couple of Crestwood alums and when a (Crestwood) coach came to Eugene to visit them, he happened to be there for the impressive Oregon v. USA win and sold out MKA. This convinced him (them) that Eugene was the place for Phillipina to develop and he started talking to Graves about her.
Is she a project? Probably...but will gain a lot learning the game from the deep and talented Oregon front court players.
 
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My understanding is that her family moved to Toronto from Ghana. She has been playing for three years but only this summer went out to Crestwood to work with the coaching staff there. Oregon men have a couple of Crestwood alums and when a (Crestwood) coach came to Eugene to visit them, he happened to be there for the impressive Oregon v. USA win and sold out MKA. This convinced him (them) that Eugene was the place for Phillipina to develop and he started talking to Graves about her.
Is she a project? Probably...but will gain a lot learning the game from the deep and talented Oregon front court players.

That's not exactly accurate. The family may have moved to Ontario this past summer, however Kyei's family lived in Alberta for several years. She's played for the Alberta provincial teams for the last few years and has been invited to Canada Basketball's assessment camps the last few years as she's a 2003.

I have no insight on Kyei's recruiting interest or process. If the men's coach at Crestwood was inspired and leveraged his contacts, that's possible. Personally, I would have thought it would have been Crestwood's women's coach as I'm sure he's talked to these programs when Edwards, Lattimore and Day-Wilson were there.
 
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That's not exactly accurate. The family may have moved to Ontario this past summer, however Kyei's family lived in Alberta for several years. She's played for the Alberta provincial teams for the last few years and has been invited to Canada Basketball's assessment camps the last few years as she's a 2003.

I have no insight on Kyei's recruiting interest or process. If the men's coach at Crestwood was inspired and leveraged his contacts, that's possible. Personally, I would have thought it would have been Crestwood's women's coach as I'm sure he's talked to these programs when Edwards, Lattimore and Day-Wilson were there.
Thanks for the correction. The information I presented was gleaned from local (Eugene) articles and I defer to those who know the story better than I (and they, apparently).

Glad to have her, however, and hope she develops into a force.
 
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Thanks for the correction. The information I presented was gleaned from local (Eugene) articles and I defer to those who know the story better than I (and they, apparently).

Glad to have her, however, and hope she develops into a force.

Glad to help out. I've had the benefit of seeing some of her play in the Canadian Nationals championships.

Making the move from Alberta to compete with Crestwood will help her development. It will be interesting to see how she fares if the OSBA league here can have some form of a season. She hasn't had the opportunity to play against the best in Canada like others in her age group consistently.

Moving to Ontario makes that possible. She'll finally be competing against bigs, while not 6'8", who are athletic, willing to bang in the paint and able stretch the floor. She'll definitely need to be able to play against that style heading into the PAC-12.

What I find unfortunate is that she has to leave Alberta to find the competition that she needs to get better. That's just how it is in Canada though. It's getting better as I've said in other posts, but it's a process that will take time. I just hope that there's a season so she can see what she can do.
 
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Curious is any Oregon fans on the forum have heard any updates on Kyei?

It's unclear per the Oregon roster page (see below) as they note "when she arrives" in the Bio section. Paperwork can be an issue sometimes, but I would have assumed (and hoped) it would have been resolved by now.

 

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Seems like she's on campus.. Next to Sedona in the back row...

 
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I saw her mentioned before here. Surprised she hadn't been talked about more, maybe because she's from Calgary while most of the recent attention to Canadian HS talent has been on Toronto?
Toronto is 1/6th of Canada's pop (16%) so it's going to dominate everything up north.
As comparison, California is not even 12%.
 

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