6 Final Fours in 7 years, a HOF coach, a Stanford degree, 15 consecutive Pac-10/12 regular season titles, it's not hard to come up with the brochure to bring the top athletes to the Farm
Yet, since Chiney Ogwumike committed in 2010, Stanford's women's basketball has failed to recruit a Top-10 recruit with Erica McCall right at the border last year.
As UConn has shown us the past couple of years, you need multiple elite talents to win a national title.
As we go into the post-Ogwumike era, the lament is that Stanford is without a superstar for the first time in more than a decade going from Nicole Powell to Candice Wiggins to Jayne Appel to the Ogwumike sisters. The question people should be asking is why hasn't Stanford reaped the recent success we had?
Next to UConn and N.D., our streak of 6 of the 7 last Final Fours is pretty impressive, but the truly elite has ignored us. This year's class, Brianna Turner had Stanford among her final 5 and Jordin Canada was considering the Farm, but no other top-10 recruit really had Stanford on the radar? Why?
True, rankings aren't always a 100% accurate predictor of success, but they often are. Chiney, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Breanna Stewart, 3 of the last 4 #1 recruits have turned out to be superstars and Mercedes Russell still has 3 years left to show her talent.
When we were close to winning the title in 2010 and 2011, we had four WNBA first rounders on the floor: Appel, Nneka, Pohlen and Pedersen and then Chiney the next year. We need that depth of talent to challenge not only UConn, but South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Duke, North Carolina, and UCLA, who are stockpiling the elite.
Hopefully, out of the 3 Class of 2014 recruits or a rising sophomore, someone will rise to elite All-American status, but it looks like a long road ahead to even consider being in the same boat.
Tara is a HOF coach, but she's not a miracle worker. Elite talent can beat the best coaching and when you pair elite talent up with great coaching like at UConn, they can dominate.
Yet, since Chiney Ogwumike committed in 2010, Stanford's women's basketball has failed to recruit a Top-10 recruit with Erica McCall right at the border last year.
As UConn has shown us the past couple of years, you need multiple elite talents to win a national title.
As we go into the post-Ogwumike era, the lament is that Stanford is without a superstar for the first time in more than a decade going from Nicole Powell to Candice Wiggins to Jayne Appel to the Ogwumike sisters. The question people should be asking is why hasn't Stanford reaped the recent success we had?
Next to UConn and N.D., our streak of 6 of the 7 last Final Fours is pretty impressive, but the truly elite has ignored us. This year's class, Brianna Turner had Stanford among her final 5 and Jordin Canada was considering the Farm, but no other top-10 recruit really had Stanford on the radar? Why?
True, rankings aren't always a 100% accurate predictor of success, but they often are. Chiney, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Breanna Stewart, 3 of the last 4 #1 recruits have turned out to be superstars and Mercedes Russell still has 3 years left to show her talent.
When we were close to winning the title in 2010 and 2011, we had four WNBA first rounders on the floor: Appel, Nneka, Pohlen and Pedersen and then Chiney the next year. We need that depth of talent to challenge not only UConn, but South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Duke, North Carolina, and UCLA, who are stockpiling the elite.
Hopefully, out of the 3 Class of 2014 recruits or a rising sophomore, someone will rise to elite All-American status, but it looks like a long road ahead to even consider being in the same boat.
Tara is a HOF coach, but she's not a miracle worker. Elite talent can beat the best coaching and when you pair elite talent up with great coaching like at UConn, they can dominate.