[OCcardinal]

I fear it's will be hard for Kate to recruit the top talent going forward.  The draw of playing for Tara is not there and last year being the team's first in ACC, and first without Tara, was worse than even the lowest expectations.  Kate and team will really have to show significant improvement this coming season to remain in the conversation.

I think the threat of Tara retiring actually hurt recruiting at the end.  Kate's first recruiting class was #3 in the county and large with 5 players (and none decommitted when the season went poorly.)

The team is young, deep and talented.  Kate's most important recruiting task will be keeping the current players. I actually like 2026 commit Jordyn Wheeler a lot in terms of how she fits into the team. In my view it's not that crucial that Stanford pick up big talents for 2026. If everyone came back we would still have 13 players with Jordyn (14 if Lepolo uses her eligibility, which is one more player than we had last season).  It's kind of like Women's Golf.  They are loaded with young stars so Anne Walker just took a couple of walk-ons for 2025.  It doesn't mean that Stanford Golf suddenly tanked. They've got more big guns coming in for 2026.  That said, I'd like to see one more 4 star WBB player (or better) for 2026.

[OCcardinal]

I fear it's will be hard for Kate to recruit the top talent going forward.  The draw of playing for Tara is not there and last year being the team's first in ACC, and first without Tara, was worse than even the lowest expectations.  Kate and team will really have to show significant improvement this coming season to remain in the conversation.

I think the threat of Tara retiring actually hurt recruiting at the end.  Kate's first recruiting class was #3 in the county and large with 5 players (and none decommitted when the season went poorly.)

The team is young, deep and talented.  Kate's most important recruiting task will be keeping the current players. I actually like 2026 commit Jordyn Wheeler a lot in terms of how she fits into the team. In my view it's not that crucial that Stanford pick up big talents for 2026. If everyone came back we would still have 13 players with Jordyn (14 if Lepolo uses her eligibility, which is one more player than we had last season).  It's kind of like Women's Golf.  They are loaded with young stars so Anne Walker just took a couple of walk-ons for 2025.  It doesn't mean that Stanford Golf suddenly tanked. They've got more big guns coming in for 2026.  That said, I'd like to see one more 4 star WBB player (or better) for 2026.