calbear80 said:
So, we beat out Bradley and Central Arkansas for this recruit. Many of us didn't even know such schools. existed!
She is from the area in the heart of the Big 12 and near the Big 10 area and no offers from any of those schools. How should we interpret that?
How is that going to help us be competitive in the tough ACC?
Go Bears!
There are over 350 Division I schools. We don't have to know them all, but if you're interested, here's a very brief look at Bradley and Central Arkansas.
Bradley University is based out of Peoria, Illinois. Their athletic teams are called the Braves. The men's basketball team reached the NCAA Tournament title games in 1950 and 1954. In my lifetime, NBA players Hersey Hawkins and Danny Granger played there. The women's basketball team has made one NCAA Tournament appearance, in 2021.
Their pop culture peak, to me, was in the 2006 men's NCAA Tournament, when they were a 13 seed who beat 4-seed Kansas and 5-seed Pittsburgh to make the Sweet Sixteen. That second round game between Bradley and Pittsburgh was a weird thrill for viewers, because CBS followed their convention of abbreviating the teams on the scoreboard chyron and listing the lower seed first. For two hours, you saw the names on the corner of your TV screen: it was the BRAD PITT game.
Central Arkansas is in Conway, Arkansas, and their athletic teams are the Bears (men) and Sugar Bears (women). Insert the
Super Golden Crisp cereal mascot. Their most famous alum by far is Scottie Pippen, who played men's basketball from 1983-1987, when they were still in Division II. They rose to Division I around 2006. The women's basketball team reached the NCAA Tournament in 2016 and 2017.
As for Grace McCallop, Cal appears to have signed her early in her recruiting process, so we don't know if other major conference programs would have made offers as well. The media coverage of girls high school recruiting is still fairly sparse; aside from putting trust in Coach Smith's ability to find talent, I'm not sure what conclusions to draw, but I don't feel the need to go straight to negative.
