Would we be in a better position if NIL doesn't exist? Yes, but blaming NIL solely doesn't fully explain the step back we've taken.
Iriafen graduated with her degree, would she have found a grad program here? Perhaps, but you never know. Undeniably, the $$ helped made the decision easier, but if you were in her shoes, and seen where our two programs were headed, what would you choose? Here, you would have been the heads & shoulders best player, but the team, with the graduation of Brink and no headlining freshman coming in, would have been much liked the 2012-13 version that had Chiney leading the way to a Sweet 16 upset loss to Georgia. Nothing more, nothing less: a decent team with limited upside and in no way, shape or form, competing to cut down the nets in early April.
At USC, you have a chance at contending for a national title playing alongside JuJu Watkins, one of the best players in the country, in multiple nationally televised games against top tier opponents, providing an opportunity to challenge yourself in tough situations and potentially raising your WNBA stock. It sucks but I don't blame her. I would have taken it myself, particularly, with a Stanford degree already under my belt.
With Betts, wasn't she unhappy with her situation here? It was shocking to me (and I feel like others here on the CardBoard, but I don't want to be too presumptuous), the limited amount of playing time she got her sole season here, even with Brink and Iriafen ahead of her. She barely got into games, even in garbage time and she was the #1 ranked recruit coming out of HS. Her results at UCLA since then underscored that it was not that she didn't live up to the lofty expectations, even if she didn't amaze right out of the gates her freshman year. Again, the lure of $$ certainly did not hurt, but I felt like the general feeling was that she was dissatisfied here, whether it was because of her lack of on-court minutes or something else.
And don't forget, even with Brink and Iriafen, we suffered two very frustrating losses the last couple of Marchs, to Ole' Miss in 2023 and NC State in 2024, largely due to those two teams' plethora of athletic, speedy guards that we could not defend.
While we've done very well recruiting top-tier forwards and posts in the last fifteen years from Appel to the Ogwumike sisters to Alanna Smith to Haley Jones and to Brink and Iriafen and Lauren Betts (transfer notwithstanding), our only high-profile get/success from the guard spot during this period has been Kiana Williams. And before anybody says anything, I see the Hull twins, even though they eventually played at the 1 and 2, after Williams and Wilson, as more of 2 and 3s and not the super agile playmakers on offense I am alluding to.
Think about the names at the guard position that have passed on us during this period: Skylar Diggins, Charisma Osborne, Azzi Fudd, Hannah Hidalgo, JuJu Watkins, Olivia Miles, among others. I was compelled to write this post, when I saw an ESPN article about the Blakes siblings hitting game-winners over favored opponents this weekend. Mikayla Blakes was on our radar too and instead she chose Vanderbilt, a program without our pedigree.
And furthermore, while they haven't exactly worked out at their new schools, two guards in waiting that had a chance to step into more prominent roles their following year, decided to transfer elsewhere: Jana Van Gytenbeek and Indya Nivar.
Then, think about what has given us fits during this era. I still have nightmares over the Texas A&M national semis loss where Melanie Murphy fouled out late guarding the Aggies' guards, knowing it was over.
If I could identify our top weakness, even from our highly successful, Final Four teams over the decade and a half, most of the time, it would have been an elite scoring threat from the 1 or 2 with the agility/quickness to take defenders off the dribble and protect against it on the other end of the court.
With all that being said, Hailee Swain was a tremendous get for us. Securing Lara Somfai was another critical add. But it shouldn't stop there.
With what the season is turning out to be and a serious danger that this might be the first time in almost 40 years, that we won't make the NCAA tournament, Kate Paye's most important tasks this offseason might be to convince an elite '26 recruit or two, such as a Woliczko or an Abii or a Crittendon, that this season is an aberration and that with their help, we can restore the program to among the consistent best.
Iriafen graduated with her degree, would she have found a grad program here? Perhaps, but you never know. Undeniably, the $$ helped made the decision easier, but if you were in her shoes, and seen where our two programs were headed, what would you choose? Here, you would have been the heads & shoulders best player, but the team, with the graduation of Brink and no headlining freshman coming in, would have been much liked the 2012-13 version that had Chiney leading the way to a Sweet 16 upset loss to Georgia. Nothing more, nothing less: a decent team with limited upside and in no way, shape or form, competing to cut down the nets in early April.
At USC, you have a chance at contending for a national title playing alongside JuJu Watkins, one of the best players in the country, in multiple nationally televised games against top tier opponents, providing an opportunity to challenge yourself in tough situations and potentially raising your WNBA stock. It sucks but I don't blame her. I would have taken it myself, particularly, with a Stanford degree already under my belt.
With Betts, wasn't she unhappy with her situation here? It was shocking to me (and I feel like others here on the CardBoard, but I don't want to be too presumptuous), the limited amount of playing time she got her sole season here, even with Brink and Iriafen ahead of her. She barely got into games, even in garbage time and she was the #1 ranked recruit coming out of HS. Her results at UCLA since then underscored that it was not that she didn't live up to the lofty expectations, even if she didn't amaze right out of the gates her freshman year. Again, the lure of $$ certainly did not hurt, but I felt like the general feeling was that she was dissatisfied here, whether it was because of her lack of on-court minutes or something else.
And don't forget, even with Brink and Iriafen, we suffered two very frustrating losses the last couple of Marchs, to Ole' Miss in 2023 and NC State in 2024, largely due to those two teams' plethora of athletic, speedy guards that we could not defend.
While we've done very well recruiting top-tier forwards and posts in the last fifteen years from Appel to the Ogwumike sisters to Alanna Smith to Haley Jones and to Brink and Iriafen and Lauren Betts (transfer notwithstanding), our only high-profile get/success from the guard spot during this period has been Kiana Williams. And before anybody says anything, I see the Hull twins, even though they eventually played at the 1 and 2, after Williams and Wilson, as more of 2 and 3s and not the super agile playmakers on offense I am alluding to.
Think about the names at the guard position that have passed on us during this period: Skylar Diggins, Charisma Osborne, Azzi Fudd, Hannah Hidalgo, JuJu Watkins, Olivia Miles, among others. I was compelled to write this post, when I saw an ESPN article about the Blakes siblings hitting game-winners over favored opponents this weekend. Mikayla Blakes was on our radar too and instead she chose Vanderbilt, a program without our pedigree.
And furthermore, while they haven't exactly worked out at their new schools, two guards in waiting that had a chance to step into more prominent roles their following year, decided to transfer elsewhere: Jana Van Gytenbeek and Indya Nivar.
Then, think about what has given us fits during this era. I still have nightmares over the Texas A&M national semis loss where Melanie Murphy fouled out late guarding the Aggies' guards, knowing it was over.
If I could identify our top weakness, even from our highly successful, Final Four teams over the decade and a half, most of the time, it would have been an elite scoring threat from the 1 or 2 with the agility/quickness to take defenders off the dribble and protect against it on the other end of the court.
With all that being said, Hailee Swain was a tremendous get for us. Securing Lara Somfai was another critical add. But it shouldn't stop there.
With what the season is turning out to be and a serious danger that this might be the first time in almost 40 years, that we won't make the NCAA tournament, Kate Paye's most important tasks this offseason might be to convince an elite '26 recruit or two, such as a Woliczko or an Abii or a Crittendon, that this season is an aberration and that with their help, we can restore the program to among the consistent best.