03-28-2026, 10:09 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-28-2026, 10:11 PM by BostonCard.)
How many players from that national championship team did the new coach inherit?
Indeed, how much scoring from the preceding year’s team were on the new coach’s team? The top three scorers were gone, as were the top two rebounders. Highly rated recruits from the intervening year transferred out. By my calculation, Kate Paye had no returning player scoring more than 7 ppg or rebounding more than 4 rebounds per game. I don’t know that Vanderveer, had she stayed would have gone 16-15, but neither would she would have come anywhere near the 30 win average she had the preceding four years. We all knew that it was going to be a rebuilding year, no matter what, and rather than compare Paye to a different era of basketball, one that was just starting to deal with transfers and NIL, we should compare Paye to what might reasonably have been expected given the hands she was dealt.
I think it is fair to think that Paye could have or should have played the cards she was dealt better, and that maybe a different coach could have gotten at least this year’s team back to the tournament. But I don’t think any coach is going to the heights we witnessed under Vanderveer without structural changes to the collegiate athletics environment, or Stanford, or both.
BC
Indeed, how much scoring from the preceding year’s team were on the new coach’s team? The top three scorers were gone, as were the top two rebounders. Highly rated recruits from the intervening year transferred out. By my calculation, Kate Paye had no returning player scoring more than 7 ppg or rebounding more than 4 rebounds per game. I don’t know that Vanderveer, had she stayed would have gone 16-15, but neither would she would have come anywhere near the 30 win average she had the preceding four years. We all knew that it was going to be a rebuilding year, no matter what, and rather than compare Paye to a different era of basketball, one that was just starting to deal with transfers and NIL, we should compare Paye to what might reasonably have been expected given the hands she was dealt.
I think it is fair to think that Paye could have or should have played the cards she was dealt better, and that maybe a different coach could have gotten at least this year’s team back to the tournament. But I don’t think any coach is going to the heights we witnessed under Vanderveer without structural changes to the collegiate athletics environment, or Stanford, or both.
BC