[ljw63]

I think (maybe hope) that a lot of what looks like "bad coaching" is actually freshman inexperience.  This year, true freshmen played 36% of available minutes.  We started two freshmen, both of whom played at least 65% of available minutes.  I have data going back to 2021, here's how many minutes freshmen played:

2021: 14.5% (tops was Cameron Brink, who played 44.3% of available minutes despite being a top three recruit and a generational talent)
2022: 6.1% (this class featured future WNBA player Kiki iriafen, who played 15.1% of minutes)
2023: 23.8% (Lepolo was the lead minute eater in this class, she was in 62% of the time, but the headliner was Lauren Betts, who only played 22.6% of the time despite being a #1 recruit and one of the top players in the country now)
2024: 16.4% (this class featured our current juniors, Agara, Ogden, and Clardy who are now starters; Agara led in minutes but only played 34.4% of the time)
2025: 10.8% (Shay Ijiwoye had the most minutes at 38.9%)

2026, freshmen had 50% more playing time than any of the preceding five years.  Some of that is that the trio of freshmen who saw substantial playing time are very good recruits, but I don't think they are quite at the level of Brink, Iriafen (though we will see), or Betts, all of whom got fewer minutes than Somfai and Swain, and only Brink got more minutes than Eschmeyer.  I think that points to the lack of depth on the team, exacerbated by injuries to Lepolo and Agara.  I'm pretty certain that had these players been playing any time before 2025 they would have gotten under 20% of available minutes each and less than 15% of available minutes as a class.  And while I think VanDerveer was a bit conservative about playing freshmen compared to other coaches there was a good reason for it.  Look at our current junior class; they barely contributed as freshmen, but Clardy and Agara became substantially more productive as sophomores, and Ogden turned a corner this year.

36% of available minutes played means that we pretty much had two freshmen in at all times. Freshmen players are going to make freshmen mistakes.  If you have two freshmen in, you double the chances that at least one of them is out of position, turns the wrong way, runs the wrong play, loses track of the player she is tasked with defending, dribbles through trouble instead of passing, or otherwise screws things up.  Think of, for example, how many times Swain would drive and just fail to make the layup; I would venture that she will finish much better with experience.  A lot of that looks like disorganized chaos, which one would ascribe to coaching, but no amount of coaching can substitute for experience.

The trouble, of course, is that in this day and age, we don't have the luxury of being able to count on talented freshmen staying through graduation.  In different era, we would have had Betts and Nivar anchoring the team along with Lepolo and our juniors, and Somfai and Swain would have come in off the bench, instead of being depended on to start.  It would be unfortunate (but not unexpected) if one or more of them transfer away for NIL money, or a different academic or athletic environment.  So while normally I would have been quite bullish about a team with three seniors and two sophomores all with starting experience, I'm going to hold my breath until we know what we have next year.

BC

Great post, BC.

With only a few seconds to go in the Miami game, we were behind by 6 points and only had minuscule odds of tying the game with two threes. The coach has two choices – put in your best three point shooters and hope for a miracle or give up. If the decision is to give up I would assume you would put in your two seniors. If you go for the miracle (which I think would be the right decision) you would bring in Eschmeyer and Amborn. So, I look on the court and see Stephenson whom the coach must believe is a really likely to take and make a three point shoot despite the data. In a nutshell, that is symbolic of our coaching strategy. The coaches seemed to have no idea who should be on the court in various situations throughout the year.


I watched some of the Duke-Louisville game and I saw more plays run on offense in 40 minutes than I saw Stanford run all year. On defense Stanford seemed to be quite good in the zone, but used it sparingly all year. Our man to man defense was occasionally good but often sub-par.


We played a lot of freshmen this year but even so, I thought Eschmeyer played too little and Amborn and Ezike hardly played at all. Maybe they aren't very good but I really question whether the coaches can identify talent at all.

[ljw63]

I think (maybe hope) that a lot of what looks like "bad coaching" is actually freshman inexperience.  This year, true freshmen played 36% of available minutes.  We started two freshmen, both of whom played at least 65% of available minutes.  I have data going back to 2021, here's how many minutes freshmen played:

2021: 14.5% (tops was Cameron Brink, who played 44.3% of available minutes despite being a top three recruit and a generational talent)
2022: 6.1% (this class featured future WNBA player Kiki iriafen, who played 15.1% of minutes)
2023: 23.8% (Lepolo was the lead minute eater in this class, she was in 62% of the time, but the headliner was Lauren Betts, who only played 22.6% of the time despite being a #1 recruit and one of the top players in the country now)
2024: 16.4% (this class featured our current juniors, Agara, Ogden, and Clardy who are now starters; Agara led in minutes but only played 34.4% of the time)
2025: 10.8% (Shay Ijiwoye had the most minutes at 38.9%)

2026, freshmen had 50% more playing time than any of the preceding five years.  Some of that is that the trio of freshmen who saw substantial playing time are very good recruits, but I don't think they are quite at the level of Brink, Iriafen (though we will see), or Betts, all of whom got fewer minutes than Somfai and Swain, and only Brink got more minutes than Eschmeyer.  I think that points to the lack of depth on the team, exacerbated by injuries to Lepolo and Agara.  I'm pretty certain that had these players been playing any time before 2025 they would have gotten under 20% of available minutes each and less than 15% of available minutes as a class.  And while I think VanDerveer was a bit conservative about playing freshmen compared to other coaches there was a good reason for it.  Look at our current junior class; they barely contributed as freshmen, but Clardy and Agara became substantially more productive as sophomores, and Ogden turned a corner this year.

36% of available minutes played means that we pretty much had two freshmen in at all times. Freshmen players are going to make freshmen mistakes.  If you have two freshmen in, you double the chances that at least one of them is out of position, turns the wrong way, runs the wrong play, loses track of the player she is tasked with defending, dribbles through trouble instead of passing, or otherwise screws things up.  Think of, for example, how many times Swain would drive and just fail to make the layup; I would venture that she will finish much better with experience.  A lot of that looks like disorganized chaos, which one would ascribe to coaching, but no amount of coaching can substitute for experience.

The trouble, of course, is that in this day and age, we don't have the luxury of being able to count on talented freshmen staying through graduation.  In different era, we would have had Betts and Nivar anchoring the team along with Lepolo and our juniors, and Somfai and Swain would have come in off the bench, instead of being depended on to start.  It would be unfortunate (but not unexpected) if one or more of them transfer away for NIL money, or a different academic or athletic environment.  So while normally I would have been quite bullish about a team with three seniors and two sophomores all with starting experience, I'm going to hold my breath until we know what we have next year.

BC

Great post, BC.

With only a few seconds to go in the Miami game, we were behind by 6 points and only had minuscule odds of tying the game with two threes. The coach has two choices – put in your best three point shooters and hope for a miracle or give up. If the decision is to give up I would assume you would put in your two seniors. If you go for the miracle (which I think would be the right decision) you would bring in Eschmeyer and Amborn. So, I look on the court and see Stephenson whom the coach must believe is a really likely to take and make a three point shoot despite the data. In a nutshell, that is symbolic of our coaching strategy. The coaches seemed to have no idea who should be on the court in various situations throughout the year.


I watched some of the Duke-Louisville game and I saw more plays run on offense in 40 minutes than I saw Stanford run all year. On defense Stanford seemed to be quite good in the zone, but used it sparingly all year. Our man to man defense was occasionally good but often sub-par.


We played a lot of freshmen this year but even so, I thought Eschmeyer played too little and Amborn and Ezike hardly played at all. Maybe they aren't very good but I really question whether the coaches can identify talent at all.