Are Transfers Bad for Women's Basketball?

[mbr33ct]

Don't hear much about the "student" athlete anymore since the transfer portal came to be.

 

[cabbie191]

I don't think transfers have any more to do with fairness to "many hard-working players" than a coach that recruits a top freshman in the same position as a player already on the team. If a player on the roster is welcoming of hard work and a challenge, they would see new talented players on their team as a good thing. If, since you used Shook as an example I will too, someone like Rickea Jackson decided on Louisville instead of MSU, she would have had the opportunity of taking over Shook's playing time. Shook also went to Louisville in the same class as (according to Hoopgurlz) higher ranked Cierra Johnson. Part of playing a team sport is competing with your teammates for playing time and all that. Shook should, and probably will, embrace the challenge of competing with Dixon and others to improve and earn her spot. I doubt she'd want it given to her because she is a senior and because she put in the time. There just isn't anything fair about D1 athletics or competitive athletics in general. Transfer or no transfers isn't going to change that.

I think it's important to pay attention to Oldude's thread title - are transfers bad for women's basketball?

While he perhaps didn't directly state it this way, I read his post to pose the core question whether the transfers of top players are helping maintain a disparity between a small number of elite teams versus the majority of teams who will almost always be after thoughts - which is why Iowa's success last year was so refreshing. It really doesn't have much to do with fairness of players - there will always IMO be cases of unfairness.

(And for the player who loses playing time to either a transfer or an incoming freshman, well to excuse a terrible pun, that's the way the ball bounces. Players are getting scholarships and thus a free education for their services; no guarantee of playing time.)

Much has been written about increasing parity in the women's game and I think that most on this forum, as much as we'd like to see the Huskies continue to hoist championship banner and banner, understand that it is best for the overall health of the sport if others get to share in the glory now and then. I personally think the increase in transfer hurts in this regard.

 

[oldude]

To be clear, I have no problem with players transferring anywhere for any reason. They did not set up the current system. If they can benefit from that system, more power to them. My problem is with the system itself that is being employed by top programs to maintain their dominance in WBB. While a number of coaches have taken full advantage of the current player transfer process, I would be surprised if there is a single D1 college coach that likes the way the present system is set up.

 

[Carnac]

Don’t get me wrong. As a fan of UConn WBB I am delighted that Evina and Evelyn will be Huskies next season, and I would have been even happier if Prince had joined them. But as a fan of WBB in general, I’m not so sure that all these transfers are a good thing.

According to Raoul’s blog, there are currently 473 transfers listed for all of D1 WBB. Only 352 of those transfers have now found a new school, with 121 still searching for a new home. The vast majority of these transfers are moving on from their current school for one reason and one reason only, playing time (PT). They are transferring to lesser D1 schools, DII’s, NAIA’s and JUCO’s. I have absolutely no problem with any of these transfers. D1 college basketball is far too demanding a sport not to experience the enjoyment and satisfaction that comes from actually playing meaningful minutes in real games.

But there is a growing subset of D1 transfers that are not necessarily interested in more PT. These are top level players, including a number of McD AA’s who are frequently transferring to WBB’s powerhouse programs like UConn, Baylor, Oregon, ND, MS St, SC, MD & Louisville. There is clearly a second recruiting season in WBB right after the end of the Big Dance that encompasses both undergrad and graduate transfers, as well as international players, which is effectively eliminating the requirement that any top program go through a rebuilding phase. Basically, the rich are getting richer at the expense of the rest of WBB.

In prior threads, it has been pointed out that each of the last 3 WBB National Champions fielded a team with one or more transfers and/or international players in their respective starting lineups. This past year, three out of four FF teams had one or more transfers/international players in their starting lineup. When asked about integrating transfer/FF MOP Chloe Jackson into her lineup, Kim Mulkey astutely pointed out, “Unfortunately, we are in the transfer business.” You could argue that these top teams are simply attempting to replace transfers they lose, but it almost always appears to be the case that the inbound transfers are a lot better than the outbound transfers. In effect, top programs are trading up.

Just about every top team has loaded up on transfers for this coming season with two notable exceptions. Stanford remains the one real exception to the current transfer model. As I’ve mentioned before, Stanford is unique among top WBB programs. The prestige of a Stanford education brings top talent to Palo Alto and keeps them there to earn their degrees. In addition, Baylor has yet to announce any incoming transfers, although they kicked the tires on Te’a Cooper from SC.

On the other side we have a loaded Oregon team, that was slated to be the preseason #1 even before they brought in Minyon Moore, a talented combo guard and grad transfer from USC, who should plug right into the one open spot in the Duck’s starting lineup. If recent Oregon transfer Sedona Prince is healthy and eligible this coming season, Oregon will be incredibly difficult to beat.

MS St, a team that Vic Schaefer built from the ground up into a national power by recruiting and developing lower ranked HS players has now gone all in on top transfers. At last count, the Bulldogs have 5 players 6’4” or greater who could all be eligible at the same time for at least two seasons. That won’t happen because several will be in the transfer portal in the years to come. But I get it. Vic is so close to a national championship, he can probably taste it, and he doesn’t want to come up short because of an injury or foul trouble to a key player.

Another issue with transfers is one of fairness. There are many hard-working players that put in their time with a program from their freshman year who lose out on PT or the opportunity to start when a transfer essentially is inserted ahead of them in the rotation. UConn certainly is not immune to such occurrences, but my poster girl for the unfairness of WBB transfers is Louisville’s Kylee Shook. Shook has been a solid frontcourt reserve for the Cardinals in each of the past 3 seasons behind Hines-Allen & Feuring. After a tough loss vs UConn in the Elite 8, Shook probably took some comfort in the fact that. “Next year as a senior will be my chance to start and lead this team.” Within a matter of a week or so, Jeff Walz brought in several transfers including talented sophomore center Elizabeth Dixon who should gain immediate eligibility due to the “hot mess” she left at Georgia Tech.

Finally, the best story in WBB this past season was not UConn making it to their 12th straight FF, ND making it to their 2nd straight championship game or even Baylor winning their 3rd national championship. IMO, the best story in WBB this past season was a tough group of largely “home grown” players, led by their gritty NPOY leading the Iowa Hawkeyes to the Big10 title and a nice run in the Big Dance before losing to eventual champion Baylor in the Elite 8. In the first two rounds of the Big Dance the fans packed the arena in Iowa City, outdrawing every other major WBB powerhouse program. WBB desperately needs more teams like Iowa in order to begin to approach the popularity of MBB. Unfortunately, between transfers and international players, the system in WBB is rigged so that teams like the Iowa Hawkeyes will be few and far between.

 

[Carnac]

In the first two rounds of the Big Dance the fans packed the arena in Iowa City, outdrawing every other major WBB powerhouse program. WBB desperately needs more teams like Iowa in order to begin to approach the popularity of MBB. Unfortunately, between transfers and international players, the system in WBB is rigged so that teams like the Iowa Hawkeyes will be few and far between.

Is there anything that UConn can do to reach this level of fan interest and support ? I'm not talking about during conference and NCAA tournaments, I'm talking about for every home game during the OOC and regular season.