The Athletic - (Very Early) Preseason Top 10

[Orangutan]

Notre Dame heads our (very early) women's basketball...

This article is paywalled. For those who don't know, The Athletic is a new-ish subscription sports website that has hired a whole raft of writers, some of them very prominent names.

One of the folks on their roster is Richard Deitsch, media critic/women's basketball writer, formerly of SI. I won't post from the article itself so as to respect the paywall, but for the purposes of discussion here's Deitsch's early top 10.

1. Notre Dame
2. Oregon
3. UConn
4. Baylor
5. Louisville
6. Stanford
7. Maryland
8. Texas
9. Mississippi State
10. Missouri

 

[UConnCat]

Interesting.

Below are Richard's preseason picks for last season. His picks for Stanford and Ohio State and a couple others made little sense at the time.

1. Connecticut
2. Stanford
3. Texas
4. Louisville
5. Mississippi State
6. Ohio State
7. Notre Dame
8. Baylor
9. Duke
10. South Carolina

 

[Orangutan]

Interesting.

Below are Richard's preseason picks for last season. His picks for Stanford and Ohio State and a couple others made little sense at the time.

I feel like some others were on the Ohio State hype train last year. As for Stanford, I cannot begin to reverse engineer what he was thinking on that one. This year's picks look logical to me. I think he's got the right top 5. I might switch UConn and Oregon out of a healthy fear of what Geno is capable of but I can't knock Oregon as #2. On paper, they're scary.

 

[Alydar]

Some might put Oregon on top simply due to having arguably the best point guard in the country entering her third year as a starter. Who will be the Irish point guard next season if their starting 5 is Sheppard, Turner, Vaugn, Ogubowale and Mabrey? I really don't see one among that group. Mabrey I guess but not her best role.

 

[Dillon77]

Some might put Oregon on top simply due to having arguably the best point guard in the country entering her third year as a starter. Who will be the Irish point guard next season if their starting 5 is Sheppard, Turner, Vaugn, Ogubowale and Mabrey? I really don't see one among that group. Mabrey I guess but not her best role.

The starting five for the Irish will probably be Jessica Shepard, Jackie Young, Marina Mabrey, Arike Ogunbowale and Bri Turner, taking the place of Kat Westbeld.
I can't see MM messing with collective success and Mabrey will continue to the the "lead" guard (as she calls it) at the beginning of the games. Knowing Mabrey, she's probably already working in the off-season on ways to to improve in this role.

However, expect to see freshmen Jordan Nixon (a true point guard) or Katlyn Gilbert (a combo guard) coming off the bench to be the point guard. This is somewhat similar to what Lili Thompson was doing around the UConn-ND regular season game in 2017.

 

[stwainfan]

I don't think Ohio State is a top ten team.

 

[Dillon77]

If the poll is meant to indicate the rankings at the beginning of the season, I think the top four teams look right. Relative to other teams, some of the other "usual suspects" might look right in a Top 20 list, but I've got some questions on:
- Stanford. Is incoming freshman Lexie Hull going to play at Brittany McPhee's level? Is soph. forward Maya Dodson going to take the next step? If not, where's the consistent scoring and leadership coming from? Tara will no doubt get them better as the season goes on but it will take a bit.
- Louisville: It's probably just me but Pitt transfer Diop or Kylee Shook ares not Myisha Hines-Allen. H-A's overall blend of scoring, rebounding, athletic ability and toughness will be very difficult to replace for that team.
- Mississippi State: Question mark. If Ms. Howard joins, that's a lot of rebounds and possible second chances. If not, who makes up for Vivians?
- Missouri: The only other double-digit point scorer besides Ms. Cunningham graduated and this was a very thin team (depth-wise) to begin with.

On the other hand, expecting some noise from:
- Oregon State. Yes, Marie Gulich is graduated, but Rueck is grooming another round of posts. Plus, he's got Destiny Slocum ready to run the whole show, which has all the other starters and main subs back. Maybe not top Ten in the beginning, but very shortly thereafter.

 

[wallman]

Alas no UCLA. Oregon lost some pieces that bolstered their line up. I see Stanford being better as a team with more passing as in their prior years.

 

[bballnut90]

No one in their right mind should pay for this if one of the lead writers projected Stanford at 2 going into last season. Stanford had one of their worst teams in years and there was zero argument for it.

I don’t think this year’s top 10 list is nearly as bad...but no Oregon State is a big miss. I also think Missouri is overranked at 10, but they could surprise me.

 

[bballnut90]

I don't think Ohio State is a top ten team.

That was preseason last year...Ohio State is going to be absolutely horrid this year. McGuff should get NCOY if they even crack the top 10 at any point this year.

 

[EricLA]

That was preseason last year...Ohio State is going to be absolutely horrid this year. McGuff should get NCOY if they even crack the top 10 at any point this year.

That's funny - I thought he should get NCOY if they ever crach the top 25 and finish in the top half of the B10. I expect tOSU to be dreadful... they literally lost every starter (Mavunga, Calhoun, Mitchell, Harper, Doss) and then Alexa Hart as well. 5 graduated and 1 (Calhoun) has transferred. That is their top 6 in production.

They bring back not much except for Mikayla Waterman. Their highest rated recruit is a 4-star guard ranked 62. Their other recruit is a post player who's not in the top 100. I don't even think they'd be in the top half of the American Conference, and that's saying something... Plus, IMHO McGuff is not that great of a coach so I don't see him developing the "talent" he has...

 

[bballnut90]

That's funny - I thought he should get NCOY if they ever crach the top 25 and finish in the top half of the B10. I expect tOSU to be dreadful... they literally lost every starter (Mavunga, Calhoun, Mitchell, Harper, Doss) and then Alexa Hart as well. 5 graduated and 1 (Calhoun) has transferred. That is their top 6 in production.

They bring back not much except for Mikayla Waterman. Their highest rated recruit is a 4-star guard ranked 62. Their other recruit is a post player who's not in the top 100. I don't even think they'd be in the top half of the American Conference, and that's saying something... Plus, IMHO McGuff is not that great of a coach so I don't see him developing the "talent" he has...

I think you’re right. NCOY for cracking top 25 is probably more accurate.

 

[Bigboote]

Some might put Oregon on top simply due to having arguably the best point guard in the country entering her third year as a starter. Who will be the Irish point guard next season if their starting 5 is Sheppard, Turner, Vaugn, Ogubowale and Mabrey? I really don't see one among that group. Mabrey I guess but not her best role.

They did win a national championship this past season with Mabrey playing point. As you say, not her best role, but a team of good passers, which they are, can cover up the lack of a true point guard.

 

[bballnut90]

They did win a national championship this past season with Mabrey playing point. As you say, not her best role, but a team of good passers, which they are, can cover up the lack of a true point guard.

Mabrey struggled against smaller guards who applied lots of pressure (see games against Louisville and Mississippi State), but by and large she did a very good job manning the role. And when she did struggle, they were able to rely on Young and Arike to help bring the ball up against pressure.

 

[Dillon77]

Mabrey struggled against smaller guards who applied lots of pressure (see games against Louisville and Mississippi State), but by and large she did a very good job manning the role. And when she did struggle, they were able to rely on Young and Arike to help bring the ball up against pressure.

Yup. And, as pointed out somewhere in this thread, MM recruited frosh Jordan Nixon, a true point guard, and Katlyn Gilbert, a very capable combo guard, to help in situations like the ones you describe. Plus, Mabrey and Ogunbowale graduate next year, so it's time to replenish the guard spots.

Make no mistake though....Mabrey will be the starting "lead" guard when the season starts. (as she calls it).