You don't see many walk-ons in WBB. Wy is that?

Well first there is a smaller pool of women in athletics than men. Second the men's basketball roster allows 13 scholarship players to 15 for the women. So, from a smaller pool, just about every woman who can play basketball can get a scholarship. So there aren't many women left who could play basketball but haven't. And your walk-on will be of lower quality than a comparable men's team addition.

Some have mentioned we had a walk-on several years ago. That was during Horstmeyer's reign. Those teams were not as talented as this team and despite that, the walk-on barely got any time in. What women who are able to play but don't have opted to be just students. You've see this in volleyball several times.

wvitbear;842589710 said:

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You don't see many walk-ons in WBB. Wy is that?

Well first there is a smaller pool of women in athletics than men. Second the men's basketball roster allows 13 scholarship players to 15 for the women. So, from a smaller pool, just about every woman who can play basketball can get a scholarship. So there aren't many women left who could play basketball but haven't. And your walk-on will be of lower quality than a comparable men's team addition.

Some have mentioned we had a walk-on several years ago. That was during Horstmeyer's reign. Those teams were not as talented as this team and despite that, the walk-on barely got any time in. What women who are able to play but don't have opted to be just students. You've see this in volleyball several times.

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I mentioned in another thread we had a pair of walk-ons the year AGL went down under Boyle (06-07). Of course neither played at all really.

Not sure if they intended to also play hoops beforehand, but UCLA had a pair of starters who were primarily there for other sports (thus, 2-sport athletes): Whitney Jones from soccer and Kristie Porter from volleyball. This was a decade ago. I can't imagine there are any soccer players out there who could hold their own on the basketball court as well as 5'10" Jones. And Porter could jump out of the gym thus rebound with the best of them, but left school and the hoops team early to play pro volleyball.

Wald iirc from Homestead HS. Played in the NorCal championships and outstanding at that level. On Scholie for field hockey or lacrosse.

There are always options. I love the Cal coaches, but like great scientists or artists, even the best sports coach needs to examine and test their own bias sometimes. I think it is fair to say that creativity has not been a Cal coaching arrow in the quiver, since before the Boyle era. Regardless, I am extremely optimistic for a winning season but I don't expect superior athletic competitive advantage in the fourth quarter, against running teams - like Sac State for example. Have oxygen available for the athletes, Coach. Just sayin.'

wvitbear;842589710 said:

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You don't see many walk-ons in WBB. Why is that?

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seems like walkons went out of favor about the time male practice players were ruled legal.

smh;842589931 said:

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seems like walkons went out of favor about the time male practice players were ruled legal.

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Great point ...

john1953;842589930 said:

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There are always options. I love the Cal coaches, but like great scientists or artists, even the best sports coach needs to examine and test their own bias sometimes. I think it is fair to say that creativity has not been a Cal coaching arrow in the quiver, since before the Boyle era. Regardless, I am extremely optimistic for a winning season but I don't expect superior athletic competitive advantage in the fourth quarter, against running teams - like Sac State for example. Have oxygen available for the athletes, Coach. Just sayin.'

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This is D-1 women's hoops. You can bring in another 20 women, and they aren't going to do anything but take up space. One of the scholarship players in their 31st minute on the court is going to mean more than a warm body who doesn't belong at this level. These are athletes who play basketball for hours on end and all year long; 35 minutes on the court isn't ideal, but hardly pressing the envelope.
There are very few back to back games, and we are talking about athletes who have more conditioning techniques than ever before. Creativity? You mean magic right? Athletics is always about "luck" when it comes to injuries...you don't win with a lot of them. Some call that an excuse...others call it reality.

mbBear;842590247 said:

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This is D-1 women's hoops. You can bring in another 20 women, and they aren't going to do anything but take up space. One of the scholarship players in their 31st minute on the court is going to mean more than a warm body who doesn't belong at this level. These are athletes who play basketball for hours on end and all year long; 35 minutes on the court isn't ideal, but hardly pressing the envelope.
There are very few back to back games, and we are talking about athletes who have more conditioning techniques than ever before. Creativity? You mean magic right? Athletics is always about "luck" when it comes to injuries...you don't win with a lot of them. Some call that an excuse...others call it reality.

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I know that we all wish Bre has a quick recovery for her personal sake but it certainly seems like we need her. If she doesn't play this year, we are down a player from last year and I thought some of our players needed more rest last year. I wish LG had played 7-10 more last year. This year she will be forced to play 6-9 more and maybe that is a good thing. I agree that if we added a walk-on, the odds are pretty low that LG would play her. She hardly played Shine and Waters last year and I doubt that a walk-on would be better than them.

I think physical wear-and-tear is cumulative, and practices play into that as well. I think the more players you have available for practices and games, the more you're able to rest these highly trained, highly toned athletes. Of course, durability is an ability and some players just seem to roll on without fatigue or loss of effectiveness. Others, though, will start to decline past a certain point in games or during the season -- and you can't really know until you know. It took me a couple years to realize that my best player wasn't loafing -- I had just played her too many minutes in a row. The way she showed fatigue was by losing mental energy; other players show it in different ways. Once I figured that out for her, the situation improved ...

GATC;842590400 said:

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I know that we all wish Bre has a quick recovery for her personal sake but it certainly seems like we need her. If she doesn't play this year, we are down a player from last year and I thought some of our players needed more rest last year. I wish LG had played 7-10 more last year. This year she will be forced to play 6-9 more and maybe that is a good thing. I agree that if we added a walk-on, the odds are pretty low that LG would play her. She hardly played Shine and Waters last year and I doubt that a walk-on would be better than them.

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Great point about Shine and Waters. Hartman also had diminished minutes, but I"m not sure if that was about injury?