[BosCard]

While Tara is quite famous for her flexibility in changing offensive schemes to suit her personnel, this year she failed to find a scheme that worked for the people she had.  We were told that she tried a new system after the dreadful USC loss--so she was rather desperately trying to find something that worked better as the weaknesses of our offense became apparent.

I'm not enough of a coach to know what system would have worked better.  Perhaps with all the great post depth we should go back to the "triangle" from the old Appel/Ogwumike days.  Tara abandoned the "triangle" after Chiney graduated since by then we had inexperienced posts and much better guards--Lili Thompson and Amber Orrange--and she wanted to screen for them and make them into the main engines of the next offense.  That lasted several years, but then with Jones coming and the arrival of "position less basketball" Tara left that offense to go the the Princeton, and we won a national championship with it.  There were horrific growing pains with the Princeton, but eventually it jelled.  But then with the loss of all our experienced guards she left the Princeton and installed the "flow", and, in my opinion, the "flow" flopped--either the scheme did not fit our personnel, or the personnel lacked the requisite skills to run it properly.

I must ask, and I've already asked this before. This seems an awfully lot of changing systems just for a few years and making players, who I also strongly believe are students first, to learn a whole new playbook and philosophy halfway through their collegiate careers. Do other coaches, especially the top tier ones (and this doesn't have to be limited to the women's game or college basketball, for that matter), change things so dramatically so often?

Obviously, you adjust your playbook on what your strengths & weaknesses are with the roster. Add in a few plays here and there to emphasize who your best players are, put others away for a while if they don't fit, etc. But it sounds like (correct me if I am wrong), but these are of immense proportions wholesale changes to your greater offensive philosophy and while there is something to be admired about being flexible and open, there is a point where diminishing returns.

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I'm inclined to think Tara recruits the best players she can regardless of position, and then tries to mold the offense around whoever she gets.  We sometime forget it is Stanford--and it is not football--meaning there are no allowances in WBB for players who can't meet the highest academic standards.  We can get great players, but we can't pick and choose them by position.  So in recent years she has hit the jackpot with big players and struck out on the elite guards (I would count Jones as a wing, personally)--Osborne, Rice, Watkins.  Apparently we came close in each case.  This has created an imbalance of talent on this team--a much stronger frontcourt than backcourt.

It seems historically, our strikeout rate with those elite recruits (top 5 to 10 recruits that have high ceilings and/or lower ranked guards that really played above their HS rankings) that do get in are much higher with guards than wings, forwards & posts. 

Correct me if I am wrong, but really Katie Lou Samuelson and Timea Gardiner are the only really top-tier recruits who were admitted or had a high chance of being admitted that were not guards who turned us down.

But the laundry list of big-time guards that have really impacted their program that chose elsewhere (who were admitted or had a favorable admittance chance) is much longer (Watkins, Rice, Osborne, Miles, Citron, going back further - Diggins, Bird)

Yep Stanford cannot recruit elite point guards (we have one that will be elite coming in 2025?). Negative recruiting goes back to maybe Jackie Gemelos days or even before that. But I don’t think Tara and Kate have done much to counteract what schools/coaches tell recruits. Haley mentioned some of the negative recruiting in her recent interview but didn’t name names obviously. All I know is that your program’s reputation for 30+ years has been to pressure your guards and disrupt your offense and ordinarily you would overhaul your guard development program several times until that was no longer the narrative. If Tara’s record speaks for itself, so does this issue.

Re: Offensive system

It is odd to change your offensive system every year or mid-year. I cannot think of another Top 10 coach that does that mostly because it often takes years to perfect your offensive system/philosophy as a coach. I don’t know how you can ever really teach something you don’t really know yourself. Princeton is very complex and has so many variations and takes years to perfect.

I completely agree with you that the lack of scoring/attacking guards has been our problem over the years and this year as well.  Yes our half court offense wasn’t great but lots of teams struggle in the half court against good defenses.  Another part of our problem is that we don’t get easy baskets from our defense by attacking the basket in transition.  Look at how many times Ole Miss attacked the basket in transition and scored or got an and one.  We on the other hand had Emma-Nnopu getting stripped and Nivar getting a charge. We need more players with the speed and the body control and the mindset to attack and finish in those situations.  I think the coaches understand this which is why I’m hopeful for the future.  Nivar is probably amongst the best on our team at this and she got a lot of playing time.  Even though she made mistakes Tara didn’t yank her which I hope is a sign that she wants the team to do this and not be afraid of making mistakes.

[BosCard]

While Tara is quite famous for her flexibility in changing offensive schemes to suit her personnel, this year she failed to find a scheme that worked for the people she had.  We were told that she tried a new system after the dreadful USC loss--so she was rather desperately trying to find something that worked better as the weaknesses of our offense became apparent.

I'm not enough of a coach to know what system would have worked better.  Perhaps with all the great post depth we should go back to the "triangle" from the old Appel/Ogwumike days.  Tara abandoned the "triangle" after Chiney graduated since by then we had inexperienced posts and much better guards--Lili Thompson and Amber Orrange--and she wanted to screen for them and make them into the main engines of the next offense.  That lasted several years, but then with Jones coming and the arrival of "position less basketball" Tara left that offense to go the the Princeton, and we won a national championship with it.  There were horrific growing pains with the Princeton, but eventually it jelled.  But then with the loss of all our experienced guards she left the Princeton and installed the "flow", and, in my opinion, the "flow" flopped--either the scheme did not fit our personnel, or the personnel lacked the requisite skills to run it properly.

I must ask, and I've already asked this before. This seems an awfully lot of changing systems just for a few years and making players, who I also strongly believe are students first, to learn a whole new playbook and philosophy halfway through their collegiate careers. Do other coaches, especially the top tier ones (and this doesn't have to be limited to the women's game or college basketball, for that matter), change things so dramatically so often?

Obviously, you adjust your playbook on what your strengths & weaknesses are with the roster. Add in a few plays here and there to emphasize who your best players are, put others away for a while if they don't fit, etc. But it sounds like (correct me if I am wrong), but these are of immense proportions wholesale changes to your greater offensive philosophy and while there is something to be admired about being flexible and open, there is a point where diminishing returns.

---

I'm inclined to think Tara recruits the best players she can regardless of position, and then tries to mold the offense around whoever she gets.  We sometime forget it is Stanford--and it is not football--meaning there are no allowances in WBB for players who can't meet the highest academic standards.  We can get great players, but we can't pick and choose them by position.  So in recent years she has hit the jackpot with big players and struck out on the elite guards (I would count Jones as a wing, personally)--Osborne, Rice, Watkins.  Apparently we came close in each case.  This has created an imbalance of talent on this team--a much stronger frontcourt than backcourt.

It seems historically, our strikeout rate with those elite recruits (top 5 to 10 recruits that have high ceilings and/or lower ranked guards that really played above their HS rankings) that do get in are much higher with guards than wings, forwards & posts. 

Correct me if I am wrong, but really Katie Lou Samuelson and Timea Gardiner are the only really top-tier recruits who were admitted or had a high chance of being admitted that were not guards who turned us down.

But the laundry list of big-time guards that have really impacted their program that chose elsewhere (who were admitted or had a favorable admittance chance) is much longer (Watkins, Rice, Osborne, Miles, Citron, going back further - Diggins, Bird)

Yep Stanford cannot recruit elite point guards (we have one that will be elite coming in 2025?). Negative recruiting goes back to maybe Jackie Gemelos days or even before that. But I don’t think Tara and Kate have done much to counteract what schools/coaches tell recruits. Haley mentioned some of the negative recruiting in her recent interview but didn’t name names obviously. All I know is that your program’s reputation for 30+ years has been to pressure your guards and disrupt your offense and ordinarily you would overhaul your guard development program several times until that was no longer the narrative. If Tara’s record speaks for itself, so does this issue.

Re: Offensive system

It is odd to change your offensive system every year or mid-year. I cannot think of another Top 10 coach that does that mostly because it often takes years to perfect your offensive system/philosophy as a coach. I don’t know how you can ever really teach something you don’t really know yourself. Princeton is very complex and has so many variations and takes years to perfect.

I completely agree with you that the lack of scoring/attacking guards has been our problem over the years and this year as well.  Yes our half court offense wasn’t great but lots of teams struggle in the half court against good defenses.  Another part of our problem is that we don’t get easy baskets from our defense by attacking the basket in transition.  Look at how many times Ole Miss attacked the basket in transition and scored or got an and one.  We on the other hand had Emma-Nnopu getting stripped and Nivar getting a charge. We need more players with the speed and the body control and the mindset to attack and finish in those situations.  I think the coaches understand this which is why I’m hopeful for the future.  Nivar is probably amongst the best on our team at this and she got a lot of playing time.  Even though she made mistakes Tara didn’t yank her which I hope is a sign that she wants the team to do this and not be afraid of making mistakes.