State of the Roster: Where Can UConn Women’s Basketball Add Depth?

[Carnac]

The Huskies have a thin roster, so where can they look to add a player or two?

In part one of the series, we examined what led to UConn women’s basketball having so little depth. In part two, we look at the present roster and how the Huskies could fill some holes. Nobody in women’s college basketball is feeling sorry for UConn.

UConn Women’s Basketball Outlook For 2019-20

Even though the Huskies only have nine scholarship players, six of those are McDonalds’ All-Americans. But regardless of how much talent any team has, only having nine players is tempting fate. If the injury bug hits hard, the Huskies could find themselves without a bench.

Take into account Batouly Camara’s injury history and UConn isn’t far off from an eight-player roster. Notre Dame lost four players to season-ending injuries in 2017-18. That level of devastation would leave the Huskies with only five players.

Article

 

[veryolddog]

How about 3 six foot 10 inch freshman posts for starters and two 6 foot 3 inch forwards? That would kind of round out the bench. I am joking, but I am not joking. Maybe cynical. Whatever.

 

[eebmg]

Ok. I will state the obvious. Perhaps Geno does not want to strain his neck as much as when he was younger. I don;t know how Scott Rueck does it.

 

[oldude]

As I suggested on another thread, I’m certain Geno has a plan to add at least two more players to next year’s team from a pool of players he is recruiting that includes grad transfers, regular transfers that UConn will petition the NCAA for immediate eligibility and overseas players. I expect that we will know who those players are by mid-May at the latest.

 

[Triad]

The Huskies have a thin roster, so where can they look to add a player or two?

In part one of the series, we examined what led to UConn women’s basketball having so little depth. In part two, we look at the present roster and how the Huskies could fill some holes. Nobody in women’s college basketball is feeling sorry for UConn.

UConn Women’s Basketball Outlook For 2019-20

Even though the Huskies only have nine scholarship players, six of those are McDonalds’ All-Americans. But regardless of how much talent any team has, only having nine players is tempting fate. If the injury bug hits hard, the Huskies could find themselves without a bench.

View attachment 42472

Take into account Batouly Camara’s injury history and UConn isn’t far off from an eight-player roster. Notre Dame lost four players to season-ending injuries in 2017-18. That level of devastation would leave the Huskies with only five players.

Article

Really fine article--I agree with nearly all of it. The final phrase, paraphrasing: IF Uconn chooses it can roll with the punches and stay with those Geno has. True, very true and probably the most likely scenario. I was hoping for more in HOW Uconn got to this predicament. I have my thoughts on that, so does Charlie, I think.
Geno isn't going to change much of the methods and styles that got him 11 NC's etc. The best of the best will still come, those not exactly the best may choose Louisville. (kidding). If Geno had gotten Butler or Z as frosh those 2 could have spelled CHAMPIONSHIP.

 

[bmayuc]

Not filling scholarships is really silly, and has been a problem for years. Miss on a couple kids, get a couple injuries, and all the sudden you are playing 5-6 players 35+ minutes a game. Not ideal.

 

[EricSD]

Not filling scholarships is really silly, and has been a problem for years. Miss on a couple kids, get a couple injuries, and all the sudden you are playing 5-6 players 35+ minutes a game. Not ideal.

And yet people have questioned for years now why Geno recruits players like Molly and Kyla. It's a no-win really.

The only kids who REALLY will ever be starters are the ones ranked in the top 10 coming out of high school. Anything lower than that will likely have to be satisfied with coming off the bench, or will transfer due to lack of PT.

Brianna Banks, Samarie Walker (tho not PT related), Sadie Edwards, Dejanae Boykin, Andra Espinosa Hunter. All were rated by various services in the 10-20 range (a few had them lower), but point is, they wanted more PT, or couldn't handle the intensity of UCONN hoops, team rules, or had chemistry issues. Courtney Ekmark, Michala Johnson and Lauren Engeln were rated lower but left for similar PT issues.

I'm so grateful to Mikayla Coombs for sticking it out - she's a horrible shooter/scorer, but has a solid handle, is a good passer, has good court vision, and is a tenacious defender. Unless she improves her offense, she will never be more than a short term reserve. But she could play a lot more at a different program.

Point is it's great to have depth, but there appears to be a huge dropoff in talent and abilities from kids in the top 10 and kids outside it. So what's the answer? It's a conundrum for sure!

 

[Ct Dog]

Not filling scholarships is really silly, and has been a problem for years. Miss on a couple kids, get a couple injuries, and all the sudden you are playing 5-6 players 35+ minutes a game. Not ideal.

You mean like we usually do?

 

[JonathanXIV]

And yet people have questioned for years now why Geno recruits players like Molly and Kyla. It's a no-win really.

The only kids who REALLY will ever be starters are the ones ranked in the top 10 coming out of high school. Anything lower than that will likely have to be satisfied with coming off the bench, or will transfer due to lack of PT.

Brianna Banks, Samarie Walker (tho not PT related), Sadie Edwards, Dejanae Boykin, Andra Espinosa Hunter. All were rated by various services in the 10-20 range (a few had them lower), but point is, they wanted more PT, or couldn't handle the intensity of UCONN hoops, team rules, or had chemistry issues. Courtney Ekmark, Michala Johnson and Lauren Engeln were rated lower but left for similar PT issues.

I'm so grateful to Mikayla Coombs for sticking it out - she's a horrible shooter/scorer, but has a solid handle, is a good passer, has good court vision, and is a tenacious defender. Unless she improves her offense, she will never be more than a short term reserve. But she could play a lot more at a different program.

Point is it's great to have depth, but there appears to be a huge dropoff in talent and abilities from kids in the top 10 and kids outside it. So what's the answer? It's a conundrum for sure!

As has been pointed out previously, a number of players ranked outside of the top 10 have gone on to be starters for Uconn, and some have ended up on the Wall.

 

[JonathanXIV]

Not filling scholarships is really silly, and has been a problem for years. Miss on a couple kids, get a couple injuries, and all the sudden you are playing 5-6 players 35+ minutes a game. Not ideal.

Geno has never used all of his scholarships, and many coaches do not. Unrealistic to have 15 scholarship players for a sport that only plays 5 players at a time

 

[GoingPostal]

As I suggested on another thread, I’m certain Geno has a plan to add at least two more players to next year’s team from a pool of players he is recruiting that includes grad transfers, regular transfers that UConn will petition the NCAA for immediate eligibility and overseas players. I expect that we will know who those players are by mid-May at the latest.

I love your confidence!

 

[oldude]

I love your confidence!

When a team makes it to 12 straight FF’s it’s pretty easy to be confident. Quite frankly, I find it difficult to understand how some BY’ers continue to offer negative assessments in the face of continuous, overwhelming success by UConn WBB.

 

[bmayuc]

And yet people have questioned for years now why Geno recruits players like Molly and Kyla. It's a no-win really.

The only kids who REALLY will ever be starters are the ones ranked in the top 10 coming out of high school. Anything lower than that will likely have to be satisfied with coming off the bench, or will transfer due to lack of PT.

Brianna Banks, Samarie Walker (tho not PT related), Sadie Edwards, Dejanae Boykin, Andra Espinosa Hunter. All were rated by various services in the 10-20 range (a few had them lower), but point is, they wanted more PT, or couldn't handle the intensity of UCONN hoops, team rules, or had chemistry issues. Courtney Ekmark, Michala Johnson and Lauren Engeln were rated lower but left for similar PT issues.

I'm so grateful to Mikayla Coombs for sticking it out - she's a horrible shooter/scorer, but has a solid handle, is a good passer, has good court vision, and is a tenacious defender. Unless she improves her offense, she will never be more than a short term reserve. But she could play a lot more at a different program.

Point is it's great to have depth, but there appears to be a huge dropoff in talent and abilities from kids in the top 10 and kids outside it. So what's the answer? It's a conundrum for sure!

Look, this isn't complicated and it may not be the new normal, but our lack of depth has been particularly hurtful the past 3 years or so. The staff picked some under-recruited program players and a couple kids with reputations that haven't developed, and many of them didn't pan out for various reasons. You can make excuses and blame it on the kids if you want but please understand that the coaches responsibility is to scout and recruit kids that will be successful here. So if the kid fails **whispers** its the staff's fault.

So if they are rated in the 10-20 range and they didn't turn out good and/or left, its the staffs fault for either mis-evaluating them or not developing them. Now compound that by the fact that we only ever use 10 of our 15 scholarships and the staff's failure here to both scout and develop appropriately for roster spots 6-15 means the errors of commission(players washing out) and omission(not filling roster spots with viable players) compound to the situation we are in.

I mean, we still have gotten huge top-end talent so we win alot, but it reallllllllly costs us when we lack the amount of options and stamina at the end of top-level games.

I mean, this program has won like a million 'chips so its not like we all have the right to get upset about it but does seem a dumb unforced strategic error.

 

[bmayuc]

You mean like we usually do?

uh, yes. Exactly.

 

[bmayuc]

Geno has never used all of his scholarships, and many coaches do not. Unrealistic to have 15 scholarship players for a sport that only plays 5 players at a time

Not saying you have to use 15. How about we try a full complement of 12 to start. Until someone can provide one single reason not to have more players in a sport where there is a propensity for players to have season ending injuries and sometimes players leave and/or turn out to not be very good.

 

[oldude]

Look, this isn't complicated and it may not be the new normal, but our lack of depth has been particularly hurtful the past 3 years or so. The staff picked some under-recruited program players and a couple kids with reputations that haven't developed, and many of them didn't pan out for various reasons. You can make excuses and blame it on the kids if you want but please understand that the coaches responsibility is to scout and recruit kids that will be successful here. So if the kid fails **whispers** its the staff's fault.

So if they are rated in the 10-20 range and they didn't turn out good and/or left, its the staffs fault for either mis-evaluating them or not developing them. Now compound that by the fact that we only ever use 10 of our 15 scholarships and the staff's failure here to both scout and develop appropriately for roster spots 6-15 means the errors of commission(players washing out) and omission(not filling roster spots with viable players) compound to the situation we are in.

I mean, we still have gotten huge top-end talent so we win alot, but it reallllllllly costs us when we lack the amount of options and stamina at the end of top-level games.

I mean, this program has won like a million 'chips so its not like we all have the right to get upset about it but does seem a dumb unforced strategic error.

I must sound like a broken record, but once again I have to ask the increasingly rhetorical question; Other than Stanford, name me another top program that has any significant depth they can use in big games? It doesn’t matter whether or not they have 15 players on their roster, if only 5-6 can play in big games. All of the FF teams basically went about 6 deep + or -.

Top players don’t want to ride the bench so they can maybe get 5-10 minutes of PT. That’s why there’s something like 600 players listed in the transfer portal.

 

[Crossover]

Not saying you have to use 15. How about we try a full complement of 12 to start. Until someone can provide one single reason not to have more players in a sport where there is a propensity for players to have season ending injuries and sometimes players leave and/or turn out to not be very good.

Geno has provided at least one reason -- that it is difficult to develop that many players at the same time. You may disagree, but it takes a lot of chutzpah to label Geno's reasoning "silly" as you did in an earlier post.

 

[bmayuc]

Geno has provided at least one reason -- that it is difficult to develop that many players at the same time. You may disagree, but it takes a lot of chutzpah to label Geno's reasoning "silly" as you did in an earlier post.

Bro this is an internet message board. Chutzpah is the reason internet message boards exist.

And Geno is the goat but is not immune to criticism. I wonder if "difficulty developing that many players at the same time" is a risk or effort worth undertaking when the downside risk that we have experienced the last 3 years is "not enough healthy good basketball players to maintain our standard of play."

But I think that question that even Geno would agree answers itself. You do anything to maintain yoru standards. Adding extra basketball players to a basketball team because you are allowed to have more players seems like a good and worthy risk to take.

 

[Carnac]

Look, this isn't complicated and it may not be the new normal, but our lack of depth has been particularly hurtful the past 3 years or so. The staff picked some under-recruited program players and a couple kids with reputations that haven't developed, and many of them didn't pan out for various reasons. You can make excuses and blame it on the kids if you want but please understand that the coaches responsibility is to scout and recruit kids that will be successful here. So if the kid fails **whispers** its the staff's fault.

So if they are rated in the 10-20 range and they didn't turn out good and/or left, its the staffs fault for either mis-evaluating them or not developing them. Now compound that by the fact that we only ever use 10 of our 15 scholarships and the staff's failure here to both scout and develop appropriately for roster spots 6-15 means the errors of commission(players washing out) and omission(not filling roster spots with viable players) compound to the situation we are in.

I mean, we still have gotten huge top-end talent so we win alot, but it reallllllllly costs us when we lack the amount of options and stamina at the end of top-level games.

I mean, this program has won like a million 'chips so its not like we all have the right to get upset about it but does seem a dumb unforced strategic error.

It's a delicate operation to be sure.......................recruiting that is. Some folks are very good at evaluating talent, and some aren't. Jerry West, Bill Belichick and Bill Walsh come to mind as excellent talent evaluators.

Sometimes All-world players in college that look like they're "can't miss", do. I give you JaMarcus Rusell, Ryan Leaf and Tony Mandarich. All were top 5 first round draft picks, everyone of them a bust. None of the great football minds (coaches), scouts, outside consultants or expert evaluators in those organizations (Raiders, Chargers and Packers) saw or recognized their deficiencies until it was too late.

Just because a person does a thing everyday or on a regular basis means they're good at it. How many bad a** drivers did you encounter last week? They've all been driving for years, and still can't drive worth a crap.

 

[EricSD]

I must sound like a broken record, but once again I have to ask the increasingly rhetorical question; Other than Stanford, name me another top program that has any significant depth they can use in big games? It doesn’t matter whether or not they have 15 players on their roster, if only 5-6 can play in big games. All of the FF teams basically went about 6 deep + or -.

Top players don’t want to ride the bench so they can maybe get 5-10 minutes of PT. That’s why there’s something like 600 players listed in the transfer portal.

You nailed it OD. Even Baylor this past year barely went over 6 deep in big games. In the NC game, Nylissa Smith played 17 minutes and fouled out. That left 8 minutes for Moon Ursin, the only other player to see the floor. And the only reason they saw that much time was because of Cox's injury.

The point people don't seem to be grasping is that having depth is great when you are playing the Podunk U's of the world. Subs can get upwards of 15-20 minutes in those blowouts. But in big games, almost no team will go more than 6 or 7 deep. It was similar for UCONN, Oregon, and Notre Dame. Which you pointed out. Teams like ASU are nice because of the hockey line substitution and everyone gets more PT, but they lost a lot of games this year. And don't have the talent.

I love that we have Mikayla, Molly, Kyla and Batouly off the bench. In a perfect world, UCONN would recruit 2 top 10 kids every year so that 2 seniors, 2 juniors and 1 sophomore could start while 1 sophomore and 2 freshmen could come off the bench and develop at their own pace. I think Geno is not done recruiting 2019 (I know you feel the same way), and that will give us even more depth.

 

[Charliebball]

And yet people have questioned for years now why Geno recruits players like Molly and Kyla. It's a no-win really.

The only kids who REALLY will ever be starters are the ones ranked in the top 10 coming out of high school. Anything lower than that will likely have to be satisfied with coming off the bench, or will transfer due to lack of PT

Point is it's great to have depth, but there appears to be a huge dropoff in talent and abilities from kids in the top 10 and kids outside it. So what's the answer? It's a conundrum for sure!

not necessarily so..........................there are plenty of excellent players rated outside of the top ten that have thrived such as: Rhyne Howard (#32), Hebard (#40), Sabally (#36), Mabrey (#24), Mompremier (#20), Cunningham (#28), Fuehring (#60) and my favorite Gustafson (#80)

 

[huskyd]

As the little redhead says, "The sun will come up tomorrow." We trust that Geno will sort things out having had some experience at most situations that arise. It's difficult to argue that UConn doesn't get its fair share of top players; in fact, most insist that we get ALL of the best players. Well, we don't get them all. Recently we've missed out on several top flight bigs, and that has caused the (temporary) lull in NCs. But life goes on. The challenges that face our Huskies will be dealt with if not overcome. Somewhere another Stewie is waiting in the wings. Time to turn the Paige.

 

[EricSD]

not necessarily so......there are plenty of excellent players rated outside of the top ten that have thrived such as: Rhyne Howard (#32), Hebard (#40), Sabally (#36), Mabrey (#24), Mompremier (#20), Cunningham (#28), Fuehring (#60) and my favorite Gustafson (#80)

I'm talking about at UCONN. Aside from Jessica Moore, and then before her in the old days players like Maria Conlon, I don't think we've ever had an outside the top 20 kid ever start multiple years and be a "star" at UCONN.

By the way Dolson was rated #12 by ASGR, so before you throw her name at me, I just wanted to throw that out there (yeah HG had her at 39 and 2 others at 24 and 25...)

 

[BroadwayVa]

And yet people have questioned for years now why Geno recruits players like Molly and Kyla. It's a no-win really.

The only kids who REALLY will ever be starters are the ones ranked in the top 10 coming out of high school. Anything lower than that will likely have to be satisfied with coming off the bench, or will transfer due to lack of PT.

Brianna Banks, Samarie Walker (tho not PT related), Sadie Edwards, Dejanae Boykin, Andra Espinosa Hunter. All were rated by various services in the 10-20 range (a few had them lower), but point is, they wanted more PT, or couldn't handle the intensity of UCONN hoops, team rules, or had chemistry issues. Courtney Ekmark, Michala Johnson and Lauren Engeln were rated lower but left for similar PT issues.

I'm so grateful to Mikayla Coombs for sticking it out - she's a horrible shooter/scorer, but has a solid handle, is a good passer, has good court vision, and is a tenacious defender. Unless she improves her offense, she will never be more than a short term reserve. But she could play a lot more at a different program.

Point is it's great to have depth, but there appears to be a huge dropoff in talent and abilities from kids in the top 10 and kids outside it. So what's the answer? It's a conundrum for sure!

@EricLA I usually agree with 99 percent of your postings. Not this time.
The last 3 you mentioned were injured and saw top recruits coming in. Johnson and Engeln rarely got PT Johnson was so injured. Engeln failed to meet MY expectations and I believe Geno whispered in 3 sets of ears--transfer.
AEH, I'm one of her top supporters here on the BY. But you don't mouth off to Geno often, or fail to meet standards or fail to put effort in practice (none of this is verifiable by me as specific to AEH). As a BB player she has talent Uconn could have used. I'm sorry she left. But knocking head with Geno--you have to have the talent of SVETA or DT to get away with that.
I believe if Geno and AEH had that whole issue as a "do-over" both would have done it differently. I don't fault Geno, the Coach is the boss only one person can steer the ship at a time and AEH didn't have the experience to do it.
Kyla and Bent, good kids with BB IQ but lacked athletism. Geno isn't unhappy with their performance to date. They gave him nearly everything he expected from them and being a top Div 1 player never was in their cards. I too have moaned and groaned about them not performing well in games--Im not GENO, so I have a fans expectation--they are what they shall be.

 

[BroadwayVa]

I'm talking about at UCONN. Aside from Jessica Moore, and then before her in the old days players like Maria Conlon, I don't think we've ever had an outside the top 20 kid ever start multiple years and be a "star" at UCONN.

Thank you--some may argue that Maria was a STAR, not me. Maria was a good to very good PG, played in DT's shadow, sunk 3's --so much so I moaned that she should have been given 7.5 of DT' s missed 15 3's in the ND defeat when DT was a frosh--I believed then as now--Maria would have made them. yet Geno's lasting impression--she was not fast and was slow to make up for it. The year after she left he said (words to this effect) --Who'd of thought I'd miss Maria Conlon (I'll tell you who, I would have and did).

 

[BroadwayVa]

I must sound like a broken record, but once again I have to ask the increasingly rhetorical question; Other than Stanford, name me another top program that has any significant depth they can use in big games? It doesn’t matter whether or not they have 15 players on their roster, if only 5-6 can play in big games. All of the FF teams basically went about 6 deep + or -.

Top players don’t want to ride the bench so they can maybe get 5-10 minutes of PT. That’s why there’s something like 600 players listed in the transfer portal.

I differ a bit: Ms St has used up to 9 players in many games over the last 3 years (the game UC lost to them). Even Baylor used many. ND pushed some frosh in games. Other teams as well. Point is: They had players that spent time on the bench but gave those teams pretty dumb free minutes. There are bench sitter and there are players, Uconn had too many of the former and to few of the latter recently. I agree when in tight games most top 10 teams stay with their starters

 

[BroadwayVa]

not necessarily so......there are plenty of excellent players rated outside of the top ten that have thrived such as: Rhyne Howard (#32), Hebard (#40), Sabally (#36), Mabrey (#24), Mompremier (#20), Cunningham (#28), Fuehring (#60) and my favorite Gustafson (#80)

Not a single one of them played for Geno. I think @EricLA was aluding to Starting for Geno. Still I like your list, how many will transfer into Uconn??? I'd take WNBA's rejects.

 

[Charliebball]

Not a single one of them played for Geno. I think @EricLA was aluding to Starting for Geno. Still I like your list, how many will transfer into Uconn??? I'd take WNBA's rejects.

ohhhhhh.........could be........I wonder if Geno even looked at anyone on that list................

 

[EricSD]

@EricLA I usually agree with 99 percent of your postings. Not this time.
The last 3 you mentioned were injured and saw top recruits coming in. Johnson and Engeln rarely got PT Johnson was so injured. Engeln failed to meet MY expectations and I believe Geno whispered in 3 sets of ears--transfer.
AEH, I'm one of her top supporters here on the BY. But you don't mouth off to Geno often, or fail to meet standards or fail to put effort in practice (none of this is verifiable by me as specific to AEH). As a BB player she has talent Uconn could have used. I'm sorry she left. But knocking head with Geno--you have to have the talent of SVETA or DT to get away with that.
I believe if Geno and AEH had that whole issue as a "do-over" both would have done it differently. I don't fault Geno, the Coach is the boss only one person can steer the ship at a time and AEH didn't have the experience to do it.
Kyla and Bent, good kids with BB IQ but lacked athletism. Geno isn't unhappy with their performance to date. They gave him nearly everything he expected from them and being a top Div 1 player never was in their cards. I too have moaned and groaned about them not performing well in games--Im not GENO, so I have a fans expectation--they are what they shall be.

Ummm... I'm not seeing what you disagree with...

 

[Gus Mahler]

Thank you--some may argue that Maria was a STAR, not me. Maria was a good to very good PG, played in DT's shadow, sunk 3's --so much so I moaned that she should have been given 7.5 of DT' s missed 15 3's in the ND defeat when DT was a frosh--I believed then as now--Maria would have made them. yet Geno's lasting impression--she was not fast and was slow to make up for it. The year after she left he said (words to this effect) --Who'd of thought I'd miss Maria Conlon (I'll tell you who, I would have and did).

In his book, Geno was very complimentary of Conlon.