ClayK said:

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Just a note: Bickle is not a post -- she's a wing.

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With the lack of height on the Cal team, Gottlieb would probably play her as a post. The situation is almost similar to most high school teams. If your 6'1" you become a post out of necessity.

annarborbear said:

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Spain has a 17 year old 6'3" center who averaged 14 and 7 in last year's FIBA tournament - Raquel Carerra Quintana.

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As someone whose had the pleasure of living and working in this beautiful country for a portion of my life... I can tell you the location doesn't make any sense. Carerra appears to be from Galicia. That is on the completely opposite coast from Barcelona/Catalonia. Distance wise, driving this would be like going from the top of California to the Mexico border.

That's not to say Carerra isn't working or training in Barcelona... but Kai definitely isn't popping on in to Barcelona and heading for a quick home visit to NW Spain.

CalFanatic said:

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annarborbear said:

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Spain has a 17 year old 6'3" center who averaged 14 and 7 in last year's FIBA tournament - Raquel Carerra Quintana.

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As someone whose had the pleasure of living and working in this beautiful country for a portion of my life... I can tell you the location doesn't make any sense. Carerra appears to be from Galicia. That is on the completely opposite coast from Barcelona/Catalonia. Distance wise, driving this would be like going from the top of California to the Mexico border.

That's not to say Carerra isn't working or training in Barcelona... but Kai definitely isn't popping on in to Barcelona and heading for a quick home visit to NW Spain.

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"Sights, hoops, food, company". We have a disciplined recruiting plan, so she must have crossed paths with at least one tall person.

I'm thinking that WBB is getting more and more like MBB, in that over time the top recruits go more and more to the powerhouse teams

regarding bigs, there are obviously fewer 6-3 good women BB players than 5-9/6 foot guards/wings, and so every team is beating the path to recruit/find them.

But the teams that are successful, are either the powerhouse teams or the schools with lower academic requirements.

And the ones with good grades on the west coast go to Stanford

Of course there are some exceptions, but I think both Cal MBB and Cal WBB have struggled to sign many top bigs over many years (again with exceptions)

HoopDreams said:

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I'm thinking that WBB is getting more and more like MBB, in that over time the top recruits go more and more to the powerhouse teams

regarding bigs, there are obviously fewer 6-3 good women BB players than 5-9/6 foot guards/wings, and so every team is beating the path to recruit/find them.

But the teams that are successful, are either the powerhouse teams or the schools with lower academic requirements.

And the ones with good grades on the west coast go to Stanford

Of course there are some exceptions, but I think both Cal MBB and Cal WBB have struggled to sign many top bigs over many years (again with exceptions)

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I think that is true among the very top players. But we apparently have made offers to post players who have gone instead to Washington, USC, Arizona, UCLA and Colorado. So these players who have apparently been academically qualified have simply decided that they would be happier at some other program. We need a return to the Sweet Sixteen and a solid year out of Kristine to help overcome that perception.

We also need to realize that that's our Final Four appearance In 2013 is now ancient history and not really relevant in today's recruiting. A 17 year old recruit was 12 years old when that occurred. We need a Sweet Sixteen and Kristine being a first round WNBA draft pick.

annarborbear said:

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HoopDreams said:

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I'm thinking that WBB is getting more and more like MBB, in that over time the top recruits go more and more to the powerhouse teams

regarding bigs, there are obviously fewer 6-3 good women BB players than 5-9/6 foot guards/wings, and so every team is beating the path to recruit/find them.

But the teams that are successful, are either the powerhouse teams or the schools with lower academic requirements.

And the ones with good grades on the west coast go to Stanford

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Are you insinuating that the term ? Dumb as a post " has more than one meaning? lol.

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no. it's just a numbers game

smaller pool of post players, and therefore a smaller pool of academically eligible post players for Cal

AZ, UW, and even UCLA has a lower academic requirement for athletes so their pool is larger than for Cal

HoopDreams said:

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no. it's just a numbers game

smaller pool of post players, and therefore a smaller pool of academically eligible post players for Cal

AZ, UW, and even UCLA has a lower academic requirement for athletes so their pool is larger than for Cal

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We made offers to some of the same people. The players were academically qualified. Our offers were rejected. We have a problem that goes beyond academics. Finishing 10th, 7th and 5th with no sign of any impressive post development would turn a lot of people off.

HoopDreams said:

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Of course there are some exceptions, but I think both Cal MBB and Cal WBB have struggled to sign many top bigs over many years (again with exceptions)

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Since 2005 our women have signed top bigs Devanei Hampton, Ashley Walker, DeNesha Stallworth, Talia Caldwell, Gennifer Brandon, Reshanda Gray, Justine Hartman, Courtney Range, Kristine Anigwe, and CJ West. But none in the last two (maybe three) classes.

Our men have not done so well. I think in the same time period Jamal Boykin, Ivan Rabb, and Marcus Lee were our only "top bigs". For various reasons none played quite up to expectations and they played here only five seasons between them.

stu said:

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HoopDreams said:

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Of course there are some exceptions, but I think both Cal MBB and Cal WBB have struggled to sign many top bigs over many years (again with exceptions)

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Since 2005 our women have signed top bigs Devanei Hampton, Ashley Walker, DeNesha Stallworth, Talia Caldwell, Gennifer Brandon, Reshanda Gray, Justine Hartman, Courtney Range, Kristine Anigwe, and CJ West. But none in the last two (maybe three) classes.

Our men have not done so well. I think in the same time period Jamal Boykin, Ivan Rabb, and Marcus Lee were our only "top bigs". For various reasons none played quite up to expectations and they played here only five seasons between them.

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I think you've provided the data to support my point .... WBB is going the way of MBB ... and that trend makes it increasingly harder for us to sign top WBB bigs .. I think the Courtney's year was maybe the inflection point

The game is changing as well ... using Caitlin Bickle as an example, she was a wing on her high school team, and when I was coaching at Campolindo, I had my tallest girl on the wing as well. There's no physical reason that a taller girl can't make three-pointers as efficiently as a smaller one, and more and more six-foot girls are interested in playing outside than in the paint.

Now a 6-4 or 6-5 girl (equivalent to 6-10 or 6-11 on the men's side) is pretty clearly going to be a post, but there are a lot of quality programs that really don't rely on posts to be successful. The way the game is played now, you can score without size, which means if you can neutralize size at the other end, you have a path to plenty of wins. And sometimes an active, strong, intelligent 6-1 woman can make it very hard on a less mobile 6-5 post. And then, at the other end, you can force the 6-5 post to either play man-to-man on the perimeter against that 6-1 woman, or she has to sag back into a zone. And if you have enough shooters, zones don't work that well.

Would any coach love to have a talented 6-4 post? Absolutely. But if not, shooters and long, active defenders can work too.

If we don't land a solid international post, it looks like we will be able to find out if Clay's strategy will actually work for us next year. Lindsay has always coached a post-centric offense. So she will have to retool her approaches. Personally, I don't see us finishing in the top half of the league with that projected small ball line-up now that other teams are strengthening substantially. Although maybe there is at least one more solid shooter to be found in remaining potential recruits available. If we are going to go small, our outside shooting is going to need to really ramp up.

annarborbear said:

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If we don't land a solid international post, it looks like we will be able to find out if Clay's strategy will actually work for us next year.

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With international men it's common for bigs to have shooting skills. If it's the same with women we might get our post and another shooter in one player.

Just checked out the rosters and recruitment classes of this year's top 25 women's college teams. Looks like they are all recruiting and playing big post players. So these other coaches must not have gotten the memo that small ball is now the way to go.

HoopDreams said:

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stu said:

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HoopDreams said:

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Of course there are some exceptions, but I think both Cal MBB and Cal WBB have struggled to sign many top bigs over many years (again with exceptions)

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Since 2005 our women have signed top bigs Devanei Hampton, Ashley Walker, DeNesha Stallworth, Talia Caldwell, Gennifer Brandon, Reshanda Gray, Justine Hartman, Courtney Range, Kristine Anigwe, and CJ West. But none in the last two (maybe three) classes.

Our men have not done so well. I think in the same time period Jamal Boykin, Ivan Rabb, and Marcus Lee were our only "top bigs". For various reasons none played quite up to expectations and they played here only five seasons between them.

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I think you've provided the data to support my point .... WBB is going the way of MBB ... and that trend makes it increasingly harder for us to sign top WBB bigs .. I think the Courtney's year was maybe the inflection point

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The "inflection point" you mention seems to have occurred when we plummeted to 10th place and our freshman center that year looked like she didn't have a clue how to play against a double team. A big year by that same player as a senior would now be helpful.

Of course you'd like to have a talented tall post player, and with 15 scholarships, you definitely can throw one or two at a tall girl -- but that doesn't mean she's going to be a good player. Six-nine Nancy Mulkey got a ride to Baylor and was on some USA teams because you never know. Now she's at Rice, I think, and an afterthought, though had she figured out how to play, she could have been a very good player.

It's like the Warriors -- Boogie Cousins will definitely make them better if all goes well, but it's not like they're not competitive if they don't have him.

And though Notre Dame will rely on 6-4 Jessica Shephard and 6-5 Brianna Turner to defend their No. 1 ranking, both are listed as forwards and Turner is not a paint player. Ten years ago, and definitely 20, both would have pinned to the block and working on their Sikma stepthroughs, but no longer ...

I guess a small ball starting lineup could look something like this next year?

1- Kianna Smith 6'0
2- Mi'Cole Cayton/Cailyn Crocker 5'10
3- McKenzie Forbes 6'0
4- Jaylen Brown 6'1
5- CJ West 6/3

Or you could start Alaysia Styles at the 4. Move Brown to the 3 and Forbes as a SG. Such an odd lineup.