[joemontes]

The transfer portal has made it very hard to predict just how good many of our competitors will be.  It certainly allows for a rapid concentration of talent--Texas being a case in point.  What this means is that Tara has to be absolutely right about who she recruits, since other teams can afford to occasionally be wrong and replenish their talent with proven players from the transfer portal.  That puts us at a disadvantage going forward, since even the best judge of talent (Tara) is not right 100% of the time.

However, as we have seen with Oregon the last couple of years, assembling an all-star cast is not enough to become truly elite.  It also takes experience and learning how to work within a system.  Stanford should continue to have the advantage on this second front.  Teams that are constantly integrating new elite players into their starting lineups will have some growing pains.  I think Oregon is past those pains by now, so they will be formidable.  But the many other teams with all-star casts of transfers may not be.

I also wonder whether the transfer portal will force coaches to modify their strategies and the style of basketball their teams play.  I would think that coaching a lot of uncoordinated talent would discourage "system" offenses like the Princeton.  It could even make those lethal pick and roll plays (think Ionescu and Herbert) difficult since they seem to take a couple of years to develop the perfect timing between two coordinated players.

Certain defenses also require more experience and practice than others.  One of the reasons Tara's scouting report defense works better with juniors and seniors than with frosh and sophomores is that those players get to know their individual opponents' tendencies so well--by preparing for them multiple times.  Transfers that bring less familiar players into competition with us will present new challenges.  Transfers within the Pac 12, of course, won't matter very much on this score.

In short, I do wonder if the ridiculous amount of transferring going on in WBB will be a net negative or a net positive for Stanford WBB.  This year may help us better understand how to answer that question.

Will this transfer opportunity of being able to play immediately no matter what due to covid continue beyond this season, or will it revert back to not being able to play for the first season after transferring?

[joemontes]

The transfer portal has made it very hard to predict just how good many of our competitors will be.  It certainly allows for a rapid concentration of talent--Texas being a case in point.  What this means is that Tara has to be absolutely right about who she recruits, since other teams can afford to occasionally be wrong and replenish their talent with proven players from the transfer portal.  That puts us at a disadvantage going forward, since even the best judge of talent (Tara) is not right 100% of the time.

However, as we have seen with Oregon the last couple of years, assembling an all-star cast is not enough to become truly elite.  It also takes experience and learning how to work within a system.  Stanford should continue to have the advantage on this second front.  Teams that are constantly integrating new elite players into their starting lineups will have some growing pains.  I think Oregon is past those pains by now, so they will be formidable.  But the many other teams with all-star casts of transfers may not be.

I also wonder whether the transfer portal will force coaches to modify their strategies and the style of basketball their teams play.  I would think that coaching a lot of uncoordinated talent would discourage "system" offenses like the Princeton.  It could even make those lethal pick and roll plays (think Ionescu and Herbert) difficult since they seem to take a couple of years to develop the perfect timing between two coordinated players.

Certain defenses also require more experience and practice than others.  One of the reasons Tara's scouting report defense works better with juniors and seniors than with frosh and sophomores is that those players get to know their individual opponents' tendencies so well--by preparing for them multiple times.  Transfers that bring less familiar players into competition with us will present new challenges.  Transfers within the Pac 12, of course, won't matter very much on this score.

In short, I do wonder if the ridiculous amount of transferring going on in WBB will be a net negative or a net positive for Stanford WBB.  This year may help us better understand how to answer that question.

Will this transfer opportunity of being able to play immediately no matter what due to covid continue beyond this season, or will it revert back to not being able to play for the first season after transferring?