What makes me wonder about all this

[Tonyc]

I am very shocked hearing this. When ND beat UConn last season Diamond was at the game with friends and was quoted by another board as saying this will not happen in 2 years when Im there. I took that to mean when she arrives at UConn this wont happen again. Another thing that bothers me about this is, that it wasnt to long ago when Diamond was quoted as saying that she wanted to be... and I dont remember the exact words but something to the effect of the go to player, or something like that.

I really dont know what has changed, and why after the past 2 years of hearing all she wanted to do was play for UConn. I remember her at the Super Show and making friends with all the UCOnn players and at that time recruits who were coming to UConn and who are now here.

Its a funny thing. Teenage girls. You know what would blow this whole thing up. If UNC has already renewed all the schollies of the other players. As it stands right now UNC has 15 schollies and when the class of 2013 comes they will have 19 players and only 15 schollies?????? That will create a problem. Another point. Mc Daniel didnt come to UConn and went to UNC, Gotta wonder what shes thinking now??? Alot of question marks. This whole thing could blow up if Mecedes goes elsewhere or if the UNC roster begins to transfer and run from the program.

As far as UConn. We're a seasoned team, and we're loaded with commited kids and the top kids in their class. We will be fine and we will dominate. This announcement as I said hurt Tenn more then any other team as it steals their hope of what might have/couldve been. I guess we wait and see how this all plays out.

 

[justML]

Its a funny thing. Teenage girls.

Now THAT - no one can argue with

 

[alexrgct]

Scholarships are year-to-year. It doesn't matter what's been renewed this season (2012-13). UNC can make room a year from now if they need to.

I, for one, respect that UNC is doing what it can to make itself relevant again. After watching UNC show absolutely nothing against a good but not great UConn team this past January, while their coach whined about the physicality of the game, I really thought Hatchell was toast. I respect her for trying to bring her program back.

And as you and others have mentioned, every quality recruit that goes to UNC instead of Duke, ND, Tennessee, A&M or Baylor just dilutes the talent pool. The key is for Geno and CD to adjust and make sure they bring in enough quality players in 2013 and 2014 to keep the train rolling. As of right now, the only kid in either class I'm very confident in is Sierra Calhoun.

 

[UcMiami]

Alex - yes, a scholarship is technically a year to year proposition, but no program can afford to get the reputation of pulling scholarships from players who are performing up to normal standards. Scholarships get pulled for academic failure, breaking of team rules, and for breaking the law. To pull one because a year or two later you get a better kid is a no no. Even pulling an offer after you have 'accepted' a verbal commitment is pretty low.
This is a really strange situation if they have in fact accepted more verbals and current scholarships than they have places. Hard to get a commitment from future kids if you start screwing with the kids you have accepted.

 

[alexrgct]

Alex - yes, a scholarship is technically a year to year proposition, but no program can afford to get the reputation of pulling scholarships from players who are performing up to normal standards. Scholarships get pulled for academic failure, breaking of team rules, and for breaking the law. To pull one because a year or two later you get a better kid is a no no. Even pulling an offer after you have 'accepted' a verbal commitment is pretty low.
This is a really strange situation if they have in fact accepted more verbals and current scholarships than they have places. Hard to get a commitment from future kids if you start screwing with the kids you have accepted.

There are ways of getting around this. For the record, I'm not saying that any of these tactics will be used by UNC, just that in general, oversigning has been an issue in other college sports and creative solutions have been found. Some common ones include:

• Intimating to a kid that s/he'll never play meaningful minutes for you and simply "encouraging" them to transfer. Relationships with other schools can make it easy to do so. The kid gets their education paid for, and you get an open scholarship.
• Finding other scholarships that don't count against the scholarship limit for a kid (academic, medical hardship for a kid who isn't going to be able to play meaningful minutes, etc.). You have to be careful about this, but if it's good enough for Alabama football, why not drag everyone else into the slime?
• "Grayshirting" incoming freshmen, or arranging to have one go to JuCo for a year.
• Having a kid attend the school on his/her own dime, with booster money under the table backing the kid, or arranging for the kid to have a cushy job that they don't have to show up for, or, if you want to be a little less direct about it, having a booster promise the kid a good job after they graduate.

Obviously, a number of these approaches are blatant violations of NCAA rules, and I am neither recommending them nor prediciting that these will be how UNC will handle the situation. Additionally, with WCBB not being a revenue sport, it may well be that some of these approaches are less practical than for college football (where the oversigning problem is an absolute epidemic, BTW). Rather, I'm simply saying that history has shown that where there's a will, there's been a way.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I think the first one Alex suggests is the most likely. The others are not likely to happen in a non-revenue sport - and hopefully not likely to happen in most revenue programs either.

It is also not uncommon. I'm not suggesting that "over-recruiting" the number you can carry is very common, but recruiting "over" existing players is, and there is a certain school of thought that you might at that point be better off is they go elsewhere.

 

[pap49cba]

Another technique that is used is giving partial scholarships. Instead of a kid getting a full ride they can be given a 50%, 30%, etc.

 

[ScarlettB]

What I wonder about is whether this is part of a trend that could potentially change the recruiting process. These kids have so much more contact with each other, due to the rise of social media and playing on traveling AAU teams. These high school girls from all over the country are getting together, forming friendships and deciding they all want to play together in college. They are influencing each other's choices and trying to coerce programs into taking all of them or risk getting none of them. This has happened in the past on a smaller scale, usually with two players who are sisters or very close friends, and many coaches - Geno being one of them - refuse to agree to these package deals unless both players were already on their list of recruits. In this particular instance, I personally believe the recruits, seemingly led by Diamond, were the people responsible for this situation and they don't have to deal with fixing the problem of not having enough scholarships. The coaches and administration will have to. I highly doubt these kids think any one of them could be one of the kids who would be forced out.

I believe coaches over recruit all the time, as they rarely get everyone they go after. I don't recall this many recruits all committing on the same day to the same school, with the possible exception of our RU Fab Five class of 2008 (I'm not sure of the timing of their commits) and we all know how well that turned out. This seemed to happen so fast and to a school no one expected many of these kids to choose. I think the UNC coaches probably decided to recruit them all and stress their need to rebuild their program, promise playing time, etc. and they ended up with more kids than they ever expected or could accommodate. It should prove interesting to see how this all plays out.

 

[UcMiami]

ScarlettB - the standard in WCBB has been that once a scholarship offer has been verbally accepted it is consider locked up. When a college has offers out that are greater in number than their openings, it is generally accepted as a first come, first serve. The idea of accepting more commitments than you actually have is a pretty new phenomenon and not something I hope catches on. And as for forcing players out - the way it is set up now they still have to sit out unless they go done a division, which is really crappy.

 

[Shenandoah]

Gotta say, that while there may be ways around the "only 15 scholarships" rule, it doesn't mean that it is the proper thing to do. This is college, not the pro's. They are kids not only looking to play basketball, but to get an education. They are not free agents, signing a 1 year contract. When a school offers a kid a scholarship, they are making a commitment to that kid, that they want the player to come and study, and play basketball for 4 years. When a player accepts the offer, it is with the understanding that they will be there for 4 years. They make a commitment to the school, as well. We (UConn) will be fine, but this just has a distinct odor to it.

 

[easttexastrash]

Wow...let's not judge too quickly. Nobody could imagine that Baylor's class that included Griner shaped up because the players actually liked each other and wanted to spend their college years together. There had to have been a darker reason. This situation is no different. This is a group of girls who decided they wanted to go to the same college and spend this time on the same team. I am sure that UNC will handle this situation fairly and will ensure that they meet their obligations to these student-athletes.

But, conspiracy theories are more fun that the most obvious explanation.

 

[alexrgct]

Wow...let's not judge too quickly. Nobody could imagine that Baylor's class that included Griner shaped up because the players actually liked each other and wanted to spend their college years together. There had to have been a darker reason. This situation is no different. This is a group of girls who decided they wanted to go to the same college and spend this time on the same team. I am sure that UNC will handle this situation fairly and will ensure that they meet their obligations to these student-athletes.

But, conspiracy theories are more fun that the most obvious explanation.

You're being overly dramatic. It's not a freaking conspiracy. It's oversigning, and it happens in college football with great frequency. There are ways around it. Those means are not fair.

UNC's athletic department has shown little recent evidence of doing things the right way. This is not to say that they are going to violate NCAA rules to make the numbers work on their WCBB team, but the numbers will work, it'll probably be slightly unethical how it came to pass (even if technically permissible), but ultimately no one will care as long as they win. You know, kind of like at Baylor.

 

[triaddukefan]

Gotta love the off-season

 

[speedoo]

Wow...let's not judge too quickly. Nobody could imagine that Baylor's class that included Griner shaped up because the players actually liked each other and wanted to spend their college years together. There had to have been a darker reason. This situation is no different. This is a group of girls who decided they wanted to go to the same college and spend this time on the same team. I am sure that UNC will handle this situation fairly and will ensure that they meet their obligations to these student-athletes.

But, conspiracy theories are more fun that the most obvious explanation.

I would take the time to explain this to you, but you have me on ignore so I won't waste my time.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Gotta love the off-season

Another new avatar. Bring back the Jayhawk.

 

[easttexastrash]

You're being overly dramatic. It's not a freaking conspiracy. It's oversigning, and it happens in college football with great frequency. There are ways around it. Those means are not fair.

UNC's athletic department has shown little recent evidence of doing things the right way. This is not to say that they are going to violate NCAA rules to make the numbers work on their WCBB team, but the numbers will work, it'll probably be slightly unethical how it came to pass (even if technically permissible), but ultimately no one will care as long as they win. You know, kind of like at Baylor.

I am sure that UNC will fully honor its commitment to its players. Hatchell seems to be a very honest coach as I have never seen anything to lead me to think otherwise. Maybe there is some history that I am not aware of, but I have never even heard a hint of her doing anything unethical. I would think that based on her track record that she would be given the benefit of the doubt. But some choose to assume that the worst will happen.

I just think that the more prudent behavior would be to wait and see what happens and then if Hatchell pulls a dirty-handed trick THEN criticize her. I just try to wait until someone actually does something that I don't like before I get into a debate about their actions.

 

[trb123]

An embarrassment of riches at UNC.

So what do we do next?

Does Geno call Kaela Davis and ask : Do you want to win a(n) NC and have a stellar career in professional basketball? Then join us.

 

[EricLA]

An embarrassment of riches at UNC.

So what do we do next?

Does Geno call Kaela Davis and ask : Do you want to win a(n) NC and have a stellar career in professional basketball? Then join us.

stranger things have happened. the 3 uber elite players in the class seem to be Diamond, Kaela, and Mercedes. whoever lands those players is getting someone equivalent to Bree, KML, Morgan or Moriah.

 

[sarals24]

I wonder what will happen with scheduling. I know schedules are made a few years out, and UNC seems to have a pretty terrible OOC schedule, especially now that they've dropped UConn (or UConn dropped the, which ever).

Are other teams going to pissed about this? Maybe not schedule them?

 

[easttexastrash]

I wonder what will happen with scheduling. I know schedules are made a few years out, and UNC seems to have a pretty terrible OOC schedule, especially now that they've dropped UConn (or UConn dropped the, which ever).

Are other teams going to pissed about this? Maybe not schedule them?

Remind me what it is that another university is going to be pissed about? That they weren't able to get the top talent in the nation like UNC did? Are teams pissed at UCONN for having KML, Stewart, Jefferson and Tuck to the point that they won't schedule UCONN? All of the coaches should be pissed at Geno for continuing to recruit the top talent when he already has many of the best players in the nation?

This is becoming more and more laughable as the shock sets in. If this group of girls had all joined together to commit to UCONN on the same day everyone would be applauding them for having the common sense to want to play for Geno and go to a university where they knew that they could win a championship.

 

[Icebear]

Wow...let's not judge too quickly. Nobody could imagine that Baylor's class that included Griner shaped up because the players actually liked each other and wanted to spend their college years together. There had to have been a darker reason. This situation is no different. This is a group of girls who decided they wanted to go to the same college and spend this time on the same team. I am sure that UNC will handle this situation fairly and will ensure that they meet their obligations to these student-athletes.

But, conspiracy theories are more fun that the most obvious explanation.

These are all constructions in your own head. You have a tendency to negative constructions.

 

[sarals24]

Universities get upset over recruiting battles all the time. I'm sure there are schools that won't schedule UConn for a variety of reasosn, Geno has talked a lot about how difficult it is to build a schedule.

I'm shocked, of course, that these girls all committed on the same day to the same place, it isn't something that usually happens, but not upset about it. Who cares? It's their choice, and frankly UConn was really only after one of them, so your argument that we would be happy that they all committed to UConn doesn't really make sense.

Also, I can't imagine a scenario where Geno would recruit and offer more players than he had spots for.

 

[alexrgct]

Universities get upset over recruiting battles all the time. I'm sure there are schools that won't schedule UConn for a variety of reasosn, Geno has talked a lot about how difficult it is to build a schedule.

I'm shocked, of course, that these girls all committed on the same day to the same place, it isn't something that usually happens, but not upset about it. Who cares? It's their choice, and frankly UConn was really only after one of them, so your argument that we would be happy that they all committed to UConn doesn't really make sense.

Also, I can't imagine a scenario where Geno would recruit and offer more players than he had spots for.

That last line is definitely true. He has (generally) had the luxury of a high enough hit rate that he's judicious with offers, and he also does not aim to have 15 players on the roster.

 

[HuskyNan]

Remind me what it is that another university is going to be pissed about? That they weren't able to get the top talent in the nation like UNC did? Are teams pissed at UCONN for having KML, Stewart, Jefferson and Tuck to the point that they won't schedule UCONN? All of the coaches should be pissed at Geno for continuing to recruit the top talent when he already has many of the best players in the nation?

You know, you're starting to get tiresome. DaddyChoc must love having a buddy that can patrol the board when he's not around to let us know when we aren't objectve enough or to complain when we like our team better than others. Maybe we get a little carried away sometimes but so what? I'm not aware of any rule requiring people to stick to DC or ETT approved topics.

To answer your sarcastic question, yeah, UConn fans hear snotty comment from other fans about its recruiting success all the time. One fanbase got so riled up it fed disinformation to their school's coaching staff so the school could file a ridiculous NCAA complaint. So stop putting us down for the things we discuss here. You, and your compadre, seem to delight in trying to make us look small and it's grating on my last nerve. The board isn't going to change to suit you.

 

[Vowelguy]

You know, you're starting to get tiresome. DaddyChoc must love having a buddy that can patrol the board when he's not around to let us know when we aren't objectve enough or complain when we like our team better than others. Maybe we get a little carried away sometimes but so what? I'm not aware of any rule requiring people to stick to DC or ETT approved topics.

To answer your sarcastic question, yeah, UConn fans hear snotty comment from other fans about its recruiting success all the time. One fanbase got so riled up it fed disinformation to their school's coaching staff so the school could file a ridiculous NCAA complaint. So stop putting us down for the things we discuss here. You, and your compadre, seem to delight in trying to make us look small and it's grating on my last nerve. The board isn't going to change to suit you.

Serenity now, Nan. Serenity now.