Talia von Oelhoffen 2021

[MilfordHusky]

UConn over Vandy and Stanford for Sue Bird.

And Rebecca Lobo chose UConn over Stanford. She's now in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

 

[Huskie02]

Please explain to me the purpose of this tweet about Talia. it’s not like she gave a verbal commitment to UConn. Considering UConn is one thing but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d rather focus on Fudd. Does Talia even have an offer from UConn at this point? Does anyone know? If Fudd accepts why would Talia accept a UConn offer. She will be playing behind Page and Fudd for 2/3 years. I’d rather go to another where I could get more playing time and still be in a position to win a NC.

 

[Jingo]

Win some, lose some. Liv also was also recruited at Stanford before choosing the Huskies.

While we’re at it, let’s talk about just how difficult it is to get into Stanford. If we’re talking about the general student body, Stanford is one of the most difficult schools in the world to gain admission to. But when we are talking about scholarship athletes, assuming recruits meet the minimum criteria for admissions (GPA, test scores, core courses) each Stanford coach is allowed a specific number of recruits that they can designate for acceptance. I submit that the two most important criteria for an athlete to be accepted at Stanford are 1) How good are they? & 2) Is Stanford their first choice?

Our good friend TheFarmFan has suggested that some of the players who reportedly were interested in Stanford but eventually ended up in Storrs, may not have been accepted at Stanford. He may be correct. However, all that KML, Lou, Gabby, Liv and any other top UConn recruit needed to do to insure acceptance at Stanford was to assure Tara that Stanford was their first choice.

My daughter graduated from Christ the King High School the year after Chamique. My daughter was first team All-City in New York but opted to go Ivy League instead of a basketball school. She wasn't planning to play professional basketball like her sister, who was also a CK grad.
My daughter graduated from UPenn but was accepted into Yale and Princeton as well. We were told if a coach really wanted a player at an Ivy League school, that all the player needed was an 1100 SAT, a 90 GPA and the coaches recommendation. I believe the median SAT for Penn that year was 1490, eh? I'm sure similar standards were in place for Stanford.

 

[cferraro04]

UConn has held their own vs Stanford in recruiting going all the way back to Rebecca. More recently, UConn has persuaded KML, Gabby & Lou all to head East from out west.

We mustn't forget that Stanford was in the running for Sue Bird...but, we all know how that turned out.

 

[CocoHusky]

I can't speak about Stanford but if you are a talented male football/basketball player there are prep schools that specialize in tutoring athletes into acceptable numbers for admission to college. Some of UConn's star mbb players came that route. There's a reason a lot of those stars are 20 year old freshmen. And in today's one and done world you can be steered through a semester. I don't think Duke's star freshmen bb players go there for the degree.

We were speaking about Stanford.

 

[victor64]

Please explain to me the purpose of this tweet about Talia. it’s not like she gave a verbal commitment to UConn. Considering UConn is one thing but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d rather focus on Fudd. Does Talia even have an offer from UConn at this point? Does anyone know? If Fudd accepts why would Talia accept a UConn offer. She will be playing behind Page and Fudd for 2/3 years. I’d rather go to another where I could get more playing time and still be in a position to win a NC.

Let me try to address this.

I think the purpose of showing the tweet is to indicate that the Huskies made her final five-sounds obvious but not really any cause for excitement. It is unclear whether she has an offer. It is clear, based on her videos and her rankings that she is a really good player.

It is also leads to other questions that are unanswerable but still fun to discuss. Are the Huskies going to take four for 21? Is Uconn protecting themselves in case Fudd goes elsewhere? I have not seen anything on this board indicating where Fudd is going. Many think Fudd is Uconn bound because of her friendship with Paige Bueckers.

I think if Fudd was the third and final commit, almost all would consider that a great class. Fudd and a great player like TVO would put 21 in the fabulous category. No Fudd but two other great players (like TVO, Payton Verhulst or Aaliyah Moore) to go with the two already committed would still be awfully good.

 

[j66kicker]

Please explain to me the purpose of this tweet about Talia. it’s not like she gave a verbal commitment to UConn. Considering UConn is one thing but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d rather focus on Fudd. Does Talia even have an offer from UConn at this point? Does anyone know? If Fudd accepts why would Talia accept a UConn offer. She will be playing behind Page and Fudd for 2/3 years. I’d rather go to another where I could get more playing time and still be in a position to win a NC.

You might get more playing time, but where you gonna go where you’ll still be in a position to win an NC playing AGAINST Paige & Fudd?

 

[CocoHusky]

You need to go back and reread his post. He specifically mentions KML & Lou. As for your personal experience, unless you work in the Stanford Admissions Department, you don’t know how they weigh various admissions criteria including athletic ability and racial diversity to name a few. I would be shocked if Stanford evaluated all 45,000-50,000 annual admissions applications solely based on academic criteria.

He specifically mentions KLS in the affirmative stating " Although never documented, everyone has always assumed KLS was admitted/admissible but chose Storrs instead".
You don't have to work in the Stanford Admissions department to know how Stanford weight various admissions criteria. You simply have to ask Stanford. I ask on a yearly basis.

 

[Sluconn Husky]

Please explain to me the purpose of this tweet about Talia. it’s not like she gave a verbal commitment to UConn. Considering UConn is one thing but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d rather focus on Fudd. Does Talia even have an offer from UConn at this point? Does anyone know? If Fudd accepts why would Talia accept a UConn offer. She will be playing behind Page and Fudd for 2/3 years. I’d rather go to another where I could get more playing time and still be in a position to win a NC.

This is Reason A why everyone who is interested in recruits should...read the recruit thread. Yes, Von Oelhoffen has an offer.

Also, TVO is likely a wing as anything at the college level. She could certainly play alongside a PG and 2-guard.

 

[CocoHusky]

Please explain to me the purpose of this tweet about Talia. it’s not like she gave a verbal commitment to UConn. Considering UConn is one thing but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d rather focus on Fudd. Does Talia even have an offer from UConn at this point? Does anyone know? If Fudd accepts why would Talia accept a UConn offer. She will be playing behind Page and Fudd for 2/3 years. I’d rather go to another where I could get more playing time and still be in a position to win a NC.

One additional point not mentioned by either @Sluconn Husky @victor64 is that TVO is a wing/big guard and UCONN already has a verbal from another very talented wing/big guard Saylor Poffenbarger in the class of 2021.

 

[oldude]

He specifically mentions KLS in the affirmative stating " Although never documented, everyone has always assumed KLS was admitted/admissible but chose Storrs instead".
You don't have to work in the Stanford Admissions department to know how Stanford weight various admissions criteria. You simply have to ask Stanford. I ask on a yearly basis.

We’re sort of talking around each other as to who was or wasn’t accepted at Stanford. So let me suggest that we set that issue aside to focus on my key point. If admissions to Stanford is entirely independent of Tara, as you suggest, then Tara has to recruit in the dark, hoping that Admissions accepts those recruits that have the talent to play at Stanford and really want to come.

I have some familiarity with the Ivy’s and I know that’s not how they do it. I am reasonably certain that Stanford follows a similar process. Tara and her coaching staff have a solid understanding of the academic requirements for an athlete to be admitted to Stanford. As I indicated in another post, athletes don’t have to be the HS valedictorian or have twin 800’s on their SAT’s. In addition, there are other weighted factors including racial and geographic diversity.

So if the Stanford coaches come across a talented recruit who demonstrates some interest in Stanford they do some initial academic screening. Specifically, they ask for a transcript which they run by Admissions If there is any question. Assuming that the recruit passes the initial screening the coaches encourage them to apply, take whatever standardized tests are required, all in coordination with Admissions.

There are a couple tools that Stanford can use to lock in recruits: Early Admissions and Early Acceptance. I suspect WBB uses both tools whenever they can. Like most schools, Stanford’s recruiting looks like a funnel. There are more potential recruits 4 years out vs 3 years out vs 2 years out and so on.

As I indicated, Stanford gets 45,000-50,000 applicants per year and accepts slightly less than 5%. The majority of those applicants all meet the minimum academic requirements to attend Stanford. So Admissions has to make some tough decisions. Add in the fact that 15 endowed scholarships for WBB are funded by some pretty important alums who want those scholarships utilized and Admissions has some even tougher decisions to make.

Throughout the process Tara and her coaches stay in contact with Admissions to insure that the players they want, who want to come to Stanford and have also met the academic requirements, are exactly the ones Admissions accepts. While the admissions requirements for Stanford or the Ivy’s may be more rigid than other schools, the process I just described happens at just about every other college in the country.

 

[Sakibomb25]

Yes KLS was accepted to Stanford and chose to carve her own path at UConn.

 

[Cedar]

Tara has been explicit in saying that in any given season, there are roughly 5-10 of the top 100 recruits who could be admitted to Stanford.

Tara's comment seems reasonable. Data from the Class of 2022 show that Stanford was more selective than all of the Ivies, with an admissions rate of just 4.3%.

However, all that KML, Lou, Gabby, Liv and any other top UConn recruit needed to do to insure acceptance at Stanford was to assure Tara that Stanford was their first choice.

A dubious assertion.

 

[Mdoggie]

Visited the farm, kid said "Dad I want out of California" Ended up at Cuse. Whoda thunk. SAT was good enough for anywhere. Turn down the golden domers. Who knows why and where these kid decide to go.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Olddude, I think a lot of your admitted conjecture may be right and certainly is not wrong, but some of it doesn't conform to the realities of Stanford admissions and Stanford WBB recruiting, specifically:

I have some familiarity with the Ivy’s and I know that’s not how they do it.

Interesting, but others have said Stanford doesn't recruit or admit the way the Ivies do, including not using the AI matrix the Ivies use. See, for example, this thread.

There are a couple tools that Stanford can use to lock in recruits: Early Admissions and Early Acceptance. I suspect WBB uses both tools whenever they can.

This is almost entirely moot for early NLI signing sports like basketball. I can't remember the last time we've had a recruit commit to Stanford in women's basketball who waited until after the Early Admissions notification date, which is December of their senior year. For essentially all of our WCBB recruits, they've been given the unofficial official green light long before then, and many recruited Stanford athletes across a number of sports sign their letters of intent prior to the formal early admissions process that applies to non-athletic recruits.

Add in the fact that 15 endowed scholarships for WBB are funded by some pretty important alums who want those scholarships utilized and Admissions has some even tougher decisions to make.

This is a non-sequiter - Tara can fill all 15 spots every year, no problem, and often they get filled with non-top 100 recruits like Shannon Coffee, Alexa Romano, and Mikaela Brewer, just to name a few recent ones. Other years we've promoted walk-ons like Bri Roberson and Mikaela Ruef when unexpected openings emerge. That, of all things, is not the issue. And you surely don't think Tara couldn't find any top 100 recruits to take those spots if admissions criteria weren't a serious hurdle, do you?

Throughout the process Tara and her coaches stay in contact with Admissions to insure that the players they want, who . . . have also met the academic requirements, are exactly the ones Admissions accepts. While the admissions requirements for Stanford or the Ivy’s may be more rigid than other schools, the process I just described happens at just about every other college in the country.

All true, but this obscures my main point: that the total pool of players who have met the academic requirements by their senior year ultimately ends up being approximately 5-10 top 100 recruits per year, max. And more than that many often list Stanford among the schools they're interested in. It begs credulity to think every one of those recruits could be admitted if Tara simply snapped her fingers.

Which brings us back full circle: nice to see TVO be excited about Stanford, and I'd be glad to see her land there if the interest is mutual and compatible, but I won't hold my breath at this stage.

 

[Alydar]

The possibility of having Poffenbarger, Wolfenbarger and Oelhoffen on the floor together? Priceless.

 

[MilfordHusky]

The possibility of having Poffenbarger, Wolfenbarger and Oelhoffen on the floor together? Priceless.

The polysylballic trio: Polly 1, Polly 2, and Polly 3.

 

[MilfordHusky]

My son went to Rice, but looked at Stanford, and we attended the Admissions Office presentation and Q & A session together 20+ years ago. They made it clear that the Admissions Office maintains flexibility. There are no GPA/SAT combos that guarantee admission. And they are willing to go to lower GPA/SAT combos for people who are exceptional/world-class in something meaningful. It could be developing iPhone apps, playing the cello, or being an Olympic medalist in gymnastics. Several sources suggest that admission for athletes at Stanford is as difficult as any Division I school and comparable to the Ivies. It is more difficult, as I understand it, than Duke.

I did alumni interviews for Brown for about a decade. One of the applicants was a legacy candidate whose father had attended Brown as an undergrad. The baseball coach at Brown really wanted him to be their next catcher. However, his application did not get by the Admissions Office. He wound up going to a State school closer to home. My son, also a legacy applicant (at the graduate level), was not accepted there, though he got into all the other universities to which he applied, including Penn.

 

[kat0189]

KML committed too early to have been admitted to Stanford at the time. Though Stanford handles the recruiting process differently these days.

When Brooke Smith transferred from Duke to Stanford, Tara mentioned only four other recruits had turned down *official scholarship offers* from Stanford. These were the four:

Rebecca Lobo - UConn
Sue Bird - UConn
Nicole Kaczmarski - UCLA > Georgia
Kristen Mann - UC Santa Barbara

Since then, there have been others, with Skylar Diggins and Katie Lou-Samuelson being perhaps the most notable. Chloe Wells (Duke) is a lesser known one.

Stanford is tougher than Duke, as there have been specific recruits who did not get admitted to Stanford and Duke was the subsequent beneficiary. But overall Stanford was the bigger beneficiary when Goestenkors left Duke.

 

[CocoHusky]

We’re sort of talking around each other as to who was or wasn’t accepted at Stanford. So let me suggest that we set that issue aside to focus on my key point. If admissions to Stanford is entirely independent of Tara, as you suggest, then Tara has to recruit in the dark, hoping that Admissions accepts those recruits that have the talent to play at Stanford and really want to come.

I have some familiarity with the Ivy’s and I know that’s not how they do it. I am reasonably certain that Stanford follows a similar process. Tara and her coaching staff have a solid understanding of the academic requirements for an athlete to be admitted to Stanford. As I indicated in another post, athletes don’t have to be the HS valedictorian or have twin 800’s on their SAT’s. In addition, there are other weighted factors including racial and geographic diversity.

So if the Stanford coaches come across a talented recruit who demonstrates some interest in Stanford they do some initial academic screening. Specifically, they ask for a transcript which they run by Admissions If there is any question. Assuming that the recruit passes the initial screening the coaches encourage them to apply, take whatever standardized tests are required, all in coordination with Admissions.

There are a couple tools that Stanford can use to lock in recruits: Early Admissions and Early Acceptance. I suspect WBB uses both tools whenever they can. Like most schools, Stanford’s recruiting looks like a funnel. There are more potential recruits 4 years out vs 3 years out vs 2 years out and so on.

As I indicated, Stanford gets 45,000-50,000 applicants per year and accepts slightly less than 5%. The majority of those applicants all meet the minimum academic requirements to attend Stanford. So Admissions has to make some tough decisions. Add in the fact that 15 endowed scholarships for WBB are funded by some pretty important alums who want those scholarships utilized and Admissions has some even tougher decisions to make.

Throughout the process Tara and her coaches stay in contact with Admissions to insure that the players they want, who want to come to Stanford and have also met the academic requirements, are exactly the ones Admissions accepts. While the admissions requirements for Stanford or the Ivy’s may be more rigid than other schools, the process I just described happens at just about every other college in the country.

Your prior statement was "All that KML, Lou, Gabby, Liv and any other top UConn recruit needed to do to insure acceptance at Stanford was to assure Tara that Stanford was their first choice." My apologies for characterizing this statement as misleading. This statement is patently false and irresponsible.

 

[oldude]

Your prior statement was "All that KML, Lou, Gabby, Liv and any other top UConn recruit needed to do to insure acceptance at Stanford was to assure Tara that Stanford was their first choice." My apologies for characterizing this statement as misleading. This statement is patently false and irresponsible.

So if I acknowledge that my prior statement was a bit of hyperbole, do you acknowledge that your prior statement that, “Admissions to Stanford is entirely independent of Tara” is incorrect and misleading?

 

[oldude]

Olddude, I think a lot of your admitted conjecture may be right and certainly is not wrong, but some of it doesn't conform to the realities of Stanford admissions and Stanford WBB recruiting, specifically:


Interesting, but others have said Stanford doesn't recruit or admit the way the Ivies do, including not using the AI matrix the Ivies use. See, for example, this thread.



This is almost entirely moot for early NLI signing sports like basketball. I can't remember the last time we've had a recruit commit to Stanford in women's basketball who waited until after the Early Admissions notification date, which is December of their senior year. For essentially all of our WCBB recruits, they've been given the unofficial official green light long before then, and many recruited Stanford athletes across a number of sports sign their letters of intent prior to the formal early admissions process that applies to non-athletic recruits.


This is a non-sequiter - Tara can fill all 15 spots every year, no problem, and often they get filled with non-top 100 recruits like Shannon Coffee, Alexa Romano, and Mikaela Brewer, just to name a few recent ones. Other years we've promoted walk-ons like Bri Roberson and Mikaela Ruef when unexpected openings emerge. That, of all things, is not the issue. And you surely don't think Tara couldn't find any top 100 recruits to take those spots if admissions criteria weren't a serious hurdle, do you?


All true, but this obscures my main point: that the total pool of players who have met the academic requirements by their senior year ultimately ends up being approximately 5-10 top 100 recruits per year, max. And more than that many often list Stanford among the schools they're interested in. It begs credulity to think every one of those recruits could be admitted if Tara simply snapped her fingers.

Which brings us back full circle: nice to see TVO be excited about Stanford, and I'd be glad to see her land there if the interest is mutual and compatible, but I won't hold my breath at this stage.

I appreciate your thoughts. Let me just clarify a few points. I have no doubt that there are subtle differences between Stanford and the Ivy’s. There is also one big difference. The Ivy’s don’t offer athletic scholarships. My main point is that at both Stanford as well as the Ivy’s, the respective coaches are heavily involved with Admissions when it comes to which recruits are accepted.

My use of the terms “Early Admissions” and “Early Acceptance” probably has more to do with my understanding of the Ivy’s who don’t offer athletic scholarships and who don’t provide general admissions notification until May. You reference an “unofficial, official green light” which I believe may also entail some type of letter from Stanford Admissions. Essentially, this green light is the recruiting tool I was attempting to describe using my own frame of reference. When Cameron Brink declared for Stanford prior to her junior year, I suspect she had an unofficial, official green light from Stanford in hand.

I have no doubt Tara can fill all 15 scholarship spots. So could Geno and every other D1 WBB Coach. The fact that Stanford’s scholarships are endowed by alumni does place more pressure on Stanford to actually carry 15 scholarship players, which most WBB teams do not. Obviously, if you’re going to carry 15 players, you would like those players to be able to actually play in games beyond mop-up minutes.

I acknowledge that Stanford recruits a smaller pool of players than just about all other D1 programs. I do believe that KML, Gabby, Lou, Liv and other UConn players were most assuredly in that pool. They may have leaned towards UConn early on in the recruiting process. Noting that Lou appears to have been accepted at Stanford, had the other players I mentioned leaned more decidedly towards Stanford, I strongly believe they would also have been accepted.

Finally, like you, I’m glad to see that TVO has an interest in UConn. But if she ends up in Palo Alto, I will wish her all the best and look forward to her head to head matchup with Azzi Fudd when Stanford meets UConn in the FF in a couple years.

 

[CocoHusky]

So if I acknowledge that my prior statement was a bit of hyperbole, do you acknowledge that your prior statement that, “Admissions to Stanford is entirely independent of Tara” is incorrect and misleading?

No.

 

[oldude]

No.

That’s mighty big of you especially considering that we have a Stanford grad and BY poster who acknowledges that Tara is involved in the Admissions process.

 

[CocoHusky]

That’s big of you especially considering that we have a Stanford grad and BY poster who acknowledges that Tara is involved in the Admissions process.

We have some very knowledgeable posters on the BY.