Grading Kate Paye's Performance

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RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - jonnyss - 03-09-2026

reminder that the sf chronicle wrote in december that

"2 sources close to the program said that no women's basketball players have received payments yet and have been told payments will not begin until next season at the earliest."

hard to compete when we are 2 years behind ucla et al in paying players.

not kate's fault that stanford prefers to pay administrators rather than players, although i can imagine her daring to speak out publicly, "start paying my players or hire someone else."

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - Card10Fan - 03-09-2026

(03-09-2026, 09:44 AM)jonnyss Wrote: reminder that the sf chronicle wrote in december that

"2 sources close to the programs said that no women's basketball players have received payments yet and have been told payments will not begin until next season at the earliest."

hard to compete when we are 2 years behind ucla et al in paying players.

not kate's fault that stanford prefers to pay administrators rather than players, although i can imagine her daring to speak out publicly, "start paying my players or hire someone else."

Yes that’s ridiculous. But the talented freshman roster already just played a full season. So it is Kate’s fault that with 10 ESPN top 100 recruits on the team, she couldn’t figure out a way to get the team to play to its potential and to reach the big dance.

It’s less her fault if said players decide to transfer out because of the lack of payments to the players.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - BobK - 03-09-2026

Never trust fake news. Never
Did all players get paid no clue certainly doubt it.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - jonnyss - 03-09-2026

(03-09-2026, 10:36 AM)BobK Wrote: Never trust fake news. Never
Did all players get paid no clue certainly doubt it.

bob, will you go further and say that you know that some stanford wbb players are in fact already being paid?

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - BobK - 03-09-2026

Some for sure were paid. I know several major donors

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - Jamesy - 03-09-2026

(03-09-2026, 11:22 AM)BobK Wrote: Some for sure were paid. I know several major donors

My read of the article is that WBB did not receive any revenue sharing payments, but that doesn't mean they didn't get NIL payments.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - Card10Fan - 03-09-2026

(03-09-2026, 11:22 AM)BobK Wrote: Some for sure were paid. I know several major donors

Thanks BobK. I heard this also and know money was raised to pay key players. Do we know what will happen and expected allocation for next year for WBB revenue share?

(03-08-2026, 03:43 PM)crackpot Wrote:
(03-08-2026, 02:02 PM)BillBradley Wrote: Scott Rueck would be my choice.

He is a great choice. But I think if he was going to jump ship, he would have done so when the conference imploded, like Kyle did.

Rueck would be a great choice. He always did more with less talent at Oregon State. Years when he had talent (Von Oelhoffen, Beers) - he took them to an Elite 8.

If and more likely when Kate Paye is fired (down the road), would Stanford look to Lindy La Roque? She has proven success as a D1 head coach. Heck in her 3rd season there, she had 31 wins and her team made the NCAA tourney in 3 of her first 4 seasons. Her HC record is superb. She's at a school without a ton of resources. What could she do at Stanford?! Maybe restore us to some relevancy.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - 82lsju - 03-09-2026

(03-09-2026, 04:48 PM)Card10Fan Wrote:
(03-09-2026, 11:22 AM)BobK Wrote: Some for sure were paid. I know several major donors

Thanks BobK. I heard this also and know money was raised to pay key players. Do we know what will happen and expected allocation for next year for WBB revenue share?

(03-08-2026, 03:43 PM)crackpot Wrote:
(03-08-2026, 02:02 PM)BillBradley Wrote: Scott Rueck would be my choice.

He is a great choice. But I think if he was going to jump ship, he would have done so when the conference imploded, like Kyle did.

Rueck would be a great choice. He always did more with less talent at Oregon State. Years when he had talent (Von Oelhoffen, Beers) - he took them to an Elite 8.

If and more likely when Kate Paye is fired (down the road), would Stanford look to Lindy La Roque? She has proven success as a D1 head coach. Heck in her 3rd season there, she had 31 wins and her team made the NCAA tourney in 3 of her first 4 seasons. Her HC record is superb. She's at a school without a ton of resources. What could she do at Stanford?! Maybe restore us to some relevancy.

not BobK but I would not expect WBB to get much of the ~$20m in AD money, I would guess that football gets ~75% and everyone else splits the remaining 25% with MBB at the top of the list for the remaining money

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - FarmTeam - 03-09-2026

(03-08-2026, 08:06 PM)Card10Fan Wrote: She's underachieved relative to the talent on the roster. We finished below preseason ACC projections in both her seasons. Missed the NCAA tourney in both her seasons. The eye test does not say that Stanford is a well coached basketball team (and I watched or attended 95% of the games this season).

Maybe most importantly right now, we seem poised to lose some key players/starters to the portal this offseason and are bringing in a subpar recruiting class. What gives fans any confidence next year will be better with a likely less talented roster due to departures that are upcoming?

Grade: D

1000% this.

I called this at the time as a bad, high-risk hire. And it's proved to be true. The "well, it's a lot of true freshmen" is really bending over backward to find excuses. Stanford still has recruiting advantages in WBB that are long gone, if they ever existed at all, in MBB and football. Yet here we are. My god, people, Paye's tenure has been an unmitigated disaster, both by record and the eye test.

Let's get a real coach. A coach who has won at every level. Like a Kyle Smith. Not a career assistant (Dawkins, Haase, Paye anyone?). This is still a big time job in WBB and we'd be able to attract a good coach.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - BostonCard - 03-09-2026

There are 10 freshmen in the ACC who played at least 50% of available minutes on their teams; two of them (including the top and fifth highest percent minutes played) were Swain and Somfai. None of the top 6 teams in the ACC by Bart Torvik's rating (Duke, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, NC State, or Virginia Tech) feature a freshman who plays 50% of available minutes let alone 2. Two other teams in the conference feature two players who were on the court at least 50% of the time: Wake Forest and Boston College, who were a combined 5-31 in conference.

BC

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - Papa John - 03-09-2026

(03-09-2026, 08:12 PM)FarmTeam Wrote: <snip>

Let's get a real coach. A coach who has won at every level. Like a Kyle Smith. Not a career assistant (Dawkins, Haase, Paye anyone?). This is still a big time job in WBB and we'd be able to attract a good coach.

Just a reminder that there's no magic formula for finding the right coach for Stanford. You can have a coach who was highly successful head coach at school A not be successful at Stanford.

Jerod Haase was not a career assistant. In fact he coached 4 years at UAB 2012-2016. The year before he started at UAB, the Blazers went 15-16 overall and 9-7 (tied for 5th) in Conference USA. Haase's record at UAB:
2012–13: 16–17 overall, 7–9 conference (7th)
2013–14: 18–13, 7–9 (T–8th)
2014–15: 20–16, 12–6 (T–4th), NCAA Division I Round of 32
2015–16: 26–7, 16–2 (1st) NIT First Round

I was an undergrad when Stanford hired Tom Davis, who was 100-47 (20-14) at Boston College. His last two years at BC he took the Eagles took the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight! At Stanford however, his teams went 58-59 (25-47) with his best season in 1983-84 when the Cardinal went 19-12 (8-10, tied for 5th in the Pac-10).

In the men's game, there are plenty of examples of first-time head coaches who turned out great: Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, Roy Williams at Kansas, Tom Izzo at Michigan State, Mark Few at Gonzaga (to name a Few). I don't know the women's game nearly as well, but Geno Auriemma has only coached at UConn.

I agree that Stanford can and should attract a good coach. I think we'll know sometime next winter if Kate Paye is that person. But if she's not, we could hire someone with a successful record like Tom Davis--or Jerod Haase, for that matter--and end up even worse off than we were this year. At the least, I want to see what the team looks like after the transfer portal on April 21 before I'm ready to give up on KP.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - 2006alum - 03-09-2026

One thing I'd like to throw into the mix as we're considering this is that were the AD to fire KP now, it would also likely throw into tumult the relationship with much of much of the Stanford WBB alumnae.

Based on Tara's statements from our class this quarter, I don't believe she would support letting KP go now. So if the AD did, and brought in an outsider without prior ties to Stanford, then I imagine there's a considerable risk Tara may step back from much involvement with the AD.

It almost certainly means losing the coaching staff, including Jeanette Pohlen and Erica McCall, since new head coaches generally don't retain prior coaching staff members. And those two aren't just coaches, they're also prominent former players.

And it seems like a number of recent alums - Cam, the Hulls, Belibi, etc. - have strong relationships with KP, come back to campus, talk with the current players, etc. Would they be as inclined to do so if KP is sent packing after two seasons, the whole coaching staff they knew abruptly leaves, and a bunch of strangers replace them?

Net/net, I don't think that would set Stanford up well, especially since it would almost certainly send most of our top players into the portal, we have limited ability to attract new transfers in, and whoever that new coach is, they'd be a stranger in a strange land with a cool (at best?) reception from the WBB alumnae.

Lindy Laroque is an interesting option that could blunt some of the dynamics I described above, but even then I suspect only if KP were allowed to transition into another role at Stanford. I could see something like that happening in perhaps a year or two, but I don't see that quite yet. (And honestly, Laroque's team just lost and won't make the NCAAs this year, and she didn't make it last year either, so am I missing something about why we think she'd be an obvious step up from KP?)

In the mean time, I hope BC and others are right that our reliance on the frosh explains some of our underperformance, coupled with the absence of Nunu and Talana. I did find it notable that Swain and Somfai are the first pair of Stanford freshmen to ever start 30+ games, and that the games they + Eschmeyer started together were only the third season in Stanford history where three freshmen were in the starting lineup. That does suggest a very raw team.

OTOH, the KP detractors do have a point that: (a) our offense was very visibly, and obviously, not working most of the time; (b) our players didn't really seem to get much better as the season progressed, with the exception of Ogden; and © our team didn't get better, either, with the defense going from pretty strong to at times quite mediocre down the stretch.

The optimist in me is hoping for (a) some change in the coaching staff to bring in a new mind to help run the offense; and (b) no significant losses to the portal. I think if we retool how we run our offense, and keep the key pieces of our team, next year has immense promise.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - BillBradley - 03-09-2026

(03-09-2026, 10:06 PM)2006alum Wrote: In the mean time, I hope BC and others are right that our reliance on the frosh explains some of our underperformance, coupled with the absence of Nunu and Talana. I did find it notable that Swain and Somfai are the first pair of Stanford freshmen to ever start 30+ games, and that the games they + Eschmeyer started together were only the third season in Stanford history where three freshmen were in the starting lineup. That does suggest a very raw team.

I completely agree that the "youth factor" needs to be taken into consideration when discussing KP's performance. My counterargument though, is that this excuse was already factored in to these expectations:
1) The preseason ACC rankings. Stanford was picked 6th heading into the season, knowing at that time that we would be playing freshman. We weren't picked 2nd or 3rd, we were picked 6th. The 6th place team ended with a record of 12-6. Stanford ended up tied for 11th with a record of 8-10.
2) All the Vegas lines. Our last game vs. Miami we were 5 point favorites. In fact we were favored in many of the games down the stretch against teams like Miami, Ga Tech, Va Tech, and Va at home. The expert oddsmakers certainly know we played 3 freshmen when they set the opening lines. The lines also took into account injury, travel, home courts, crappy refs, and all the other excuses that are out there.
3) Probably most of the posts in this thread who have graded Kate's performance poorly. Many of the posts, including mine, were "balanced". I felt like we could be a Top-25 team. Notre Dame, Va Tech, and Syracuse ended up in the 5th-7th positions at 12-6, and Notre Dame is in fact ranked #22. Those were not crazy wishes - they were grounded and took into account that we were a young team. Stanford ended up #44 in the NET.

Stanford underperformed wayyy below expectations that already included the youth factor, so I personally don't think it's correct to then say "well, KP had to play those 3 frosh a lot, so...."

I also feel like it should be stated that these weren't just any frosh that played on any random team that can be cited. We have to take into account their own talent level and the talent of the others they are playing with (Nunu, Chloe, Courtney). For this team to finish where they did...please.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - FarmTeam - 03-10-2026

(03-09-2026, 09:39 PM)Papa John Wrote:
(03-09-2026, 08:12 PM)FarmTeam Wrote: <snip>

Let's get a real coach. A coach who has won at every level. Like a Kyle Smith. Not a career assistant (Dawkins, Haase, Paye anyone?). This is still a big time job in WBB and we'd be able to attract a good coach.

Just a reminder that there's no magic formula for finding the right coach for Stanford. You can have a coach who was highly successful head coach at school A not be successful at Stanford.

Jerod Haase was not a career assistant. In fact he coached 4 years at UAB 2012-2016. The year before he started at UAB, the Blazers went 15-16 overall and 9-7 (tied for 5th) in Conference USA. Haase's record at UAB:
2012–13: 16–17 overall, 7–9 conference (7th)
2013–14: 18–13, 7–9 (T–8th)
2014–15: 20–16, 12–6 (T–4th), NCAA Division I Round of 32
2015–16: 26–7, 16–2 (1st) NIT First Round

I was an undergrad when Stanford hired Tom Davis, who was 100-47 (20-14) at Boston College. His last two years at BC he took the Eagles took the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight! At Stanford however, his teams went 58-59 (25-47) with his best season in 1983-84 when the Cardinal went 19-12 (8-10, tied for 5th in the Pac-10).

In the men's game, there are plenty of examples of first-time head coaches who turned out great: Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, Roy Williams at Kansas, Tom Izzo at Michigan State, Mark Few at Gonzaga (to name a Few). I don't know the women's game nearly as well, but Geno Auriemma has only coached at UConn.

I agree that Stanford can and should attract a good coach. I think we'll know sometime next winter if Kate Paye is that person. But if she's not, we could hire someone with a successful record like Tom Davis--or Jerod Haase, for that matter--and end up even worse off than we were this year. At the least, I want to see what the team looks like after the transfer portal on April 21 before I'm ready to give up on KP.

Nah, Haase was a career assistant in my book. I guess I should have been more clear that I was well-aware of his job at UAB which he got after hitching himself to Roy Williams for, what, a dozen years at least? Then he got a mid-major job and the recruiting bump based on his "name" tied to Kansas and UNC got him some quick early success there. Sure, you have to start somewhere and if he had coached a long time there I'd have viewed him differently.

In any case, you seemed to have glossed over my point that a career assistant (however defined) was a bad, "high risk" hire. Of course there are examples of it working out. Stanford WBB is (now was?) a big name program and we could have sought out a coach with a proven track record of success. That wasn't Haase, not enough years/stops. And it definitely wasn't Paye. It was an unnecessary risk to take at a program of this stature and it's now experiencing the downside of it.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - stopandpop - 03-10-2026

(03-09-2026, 04:48 PM)Card10Fan Wrote:
(03-09-2026, 11:22 AM)BobK Wrote: Some for sure were paid. I know several major donors

Thanks BobK. I heard this also and know money was raised to pay key players. Do we know what will happen and expected allocation for next year for WBB revenue share?

(03-08-2026, 03:43 PM)crackpot Wrote:
(03-08-2026, 02:02 PM)BillBradley Wrote: Scott Rueck would be my choice.

He is a great choice. But I think if he was going to jump ship, he would have done so when the conference imploded, like Kyle did.

Rueck would be a great choice. He always did more with less talent at Oregon State. Years when he had talent (Von Oelhoffen, Beers) - he took them to an Elite 8.

If and more likely when Kate Paye is fired (down the road), would Stanford look to Lindy La Roque? She has proven success as a D1 head coach. Heck in her 3rd season there, she had 31 wins and her team made the NCAA tourney in 3 of her first 4 seasons. Her HC record is superb. She's at a school without a ton of resources. What could she do at Stanford?! Maybe restore us to some relevancy.

La Roque has compiled an impressive record at UNLV, but should Paye not return, Rueck is a much stronger candidate as noted in earlier discussions. I think it would be best to hire someone outside the Stanford system when the program needs a coach who will bring a very different coaching philosophy.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - jonnyss - 03-10-2026

speaking of a successful outside coach not guaranteeing success, adia barnes coached arizona to the national championship game (against us), moved to smu, and just finished a terrible year there - way worse than ours if that's possible! both barnes and the players looked pretty unhappy in their blow-out loss to us.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - BostonCard - 03-10-2026

In football, Wlat Harris had been a successful coach at Pitt, taking them to a BCS bowl, and then was a miserable failure at Stanford.

Steve Kerr had zero head coaching experience when he took on the Warriors job. He seemed to have done OK for himself. In women’s basketball, Becky Hammon did ok for herself after becoming a first time head coach for the Las Vegas Aces after being an assistant for the San Antonio Spurs.

If we are talking women’s college basketball specifically, Jan Jensen looks to have successfully navigated the career assistant to head coach transition. In fact, the parallels to Kate Paye are pretty striking. Like Paye, she played for the coach (Lisa Bluder) who would later hire her as an assistant. Like Paye, she turned down an opportunity to become a head coach and remained Bluder’s assistant for many years (in fact, more than Paye), rising to become associate head coach. Like Paye, Jensen was promoted to head coach when the all-time winningest coach in the program’s history retired. Like Paye, the team lost a significant amount of talent (in Jensen’s case, Caitlin Clark). Unlike Paye, she led her team to a NCAA tournament team last year (and will again this year).

BC

Add, I forgot about Gail Goestenkors as an example that hiring a “proven” head coach that doesn’t always work. She built DUke up to be a perennial national title contender and had a 418-101 winning record, with two national title runner ups and two other final four appearances. She was a super splashy hire at Texas, but she went 102-64, and though she made it to the tournament every year, she never finished better than fourth in the Big-12, and only once made it out of the first round of the tournament (her first year).

BC

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - oldalum - 03-10-2026

An apt example for us is Shea Ralph, 13-year assistant to Auriemma, left UConn and took the Vanderbilt head coaching job 5 years ago. They are now 27-4 and currently projected by ESPN to be a #2-seed in the NCAA tournament. She is the SEC coach of the year and The Athletic's national Coach of the Year. Before she arrived, Vandy was 14-16 in 2019-2020 and then 4-4 in the pandemic year, and 16-19 her first year at Vandy. 12-19 her second year as head coach. 23-10 her third year. then 22-11 and now 27-4. She did get help this year and last from sophomore Mikayla Blakes who is the SEC player of the year. Great coaches convince great players to buy into their program

So this means we can expect a win total in the 20's from Kate next year, right?

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - Jskass - 03-11-2026

so Shea who had the fire in her belly to coach, left after 13 years as an assistant. Kate served as assistant coach for 20 years (albeit not all under Tara). Makes one wonder if there's a point after which it means the person really does not have the drive, interest, or skills. And Jensen at Iowa may just be an exception.

RE: Grading Kate Paye's Performance - Papa John - 03-11-2026

(03-10-2026, 10:17 PM)oldalum Wrote: An apt example for us is Shea Ralph, 13-year assistant to Auriemma, left UConn and took the Vanderbilt head coaching job 5 years ago. They are now 27-4 and currently projected by ESPN to be a #2-seed in the NCAA tournament. She is the SEC coach of the year and The Athletic's national Coach of the Year. Before she arrived, Vandy was 14-16 in 2019-2020 and then 4-4 in the pandemic year, and 16-19 her first year at Vandy. 12-19 her second year as head coach. 23-10 her third year. then 22-11 and now 27-4. She did get help this year and last from sophomore Mikayla Blakes who is the SEC player of the year. Great coaches convince great players to buy into their program

So this means we can expect a win total in the 20's from Kate next year, right?

I think that bar is too low for KP. The team went from 16 wins last season to 19 wins-and-counting this season. But even folks like me, who want to wait until the transfer portal closes next month before we panic, expect better than a WNIT bid.