[BostonCard]

Don’t know that anyone but Rice would know, but there were a string of high profile players who seriously considered Stanford and wound up going elsewhere, including Rice (UCLA), Azzi Fudd (UConn), Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame), JuJu Watkins (USC), and I am sure a number of others.  There has been speculation here that at least some of that had to do with Stanford’s structured offense, which did not give guards (I think all of the players above were guards or wings) the freedom to be creative with their game.  I can think of some other hypotheses: it coincided with the time that NIL and collectives were starting to come to the fore and Stanford was slow to the game, so it could easily be a money question.  It also coincided with the end of Tara Vanderveer’s career and players might have been (rightfully) concerned that if they signed with TVD she would not be there for their entire career.  I don’t know that we can ever know for sure (or even that there was a consistent reason for all of them); after all, they were all very highly sought after recruits, but I think repeatedly falling short makes it a ripe question for discussion.

BC

[BostonCard]

Don’t know that anyone but Rice would know, but there were a string of high profile players who seriously considered Stanford and wound up going elsewhere, including Rice (UCLA), Azzi Fudd (UConn), Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame), JuJu Watkins (USC), and I am sure a number of others.  There has been speculation here that at least some of that had to do with Stanford’s structured offense, which did not give guards (I think all of the players above were guards or wings) the freedom to be creative with their game.  I can think of some other hypotheses: it coincided with the time that NIL and collectives were starting to come to the fore and Stanford was slow to the game, so it could easily be a money question.  It also coincided with the end of Tara Vanderveer’s career and players might have been (rightfully) concerned that if they signed with TVD she would not be there for their entire career.  I don’t know that we can ever know for sure (or even that there was a consistent reason for all of them); after all, they were all very highly sought after recruits, but I think repeatedly falling short makes it a ripe question for discussion.

BC