Just noticed that USC has added two more players to their roster for this year - 6'1" Vanderbilt transfer Kayla Overbeck, a former SEC all-freshman team member who has been granted immediate eligibility, and 6'0" grad transfer from Loyola Marymount Cheyanne Wallace who was last year's leading scorer at LMU. At least they aren't taller.

Overall, they likely will also have only one true big on the floor at a time. Will have to see if these two players plus Mariya Moore can make them competitive with us.

Overbeck is from Ventura County (played at Newbury Park HS).

These two additions should both start or at least be in the regular rotation. Troy has 14 players including four big girls: a trio of 6-3 gals plus a legit 6-4 post. They also have a 6-2 freshman plus a "husky" 6-1 Overbeck.

https://usctrojans.com/roster.aspx?path=wbball

Wow-Trojans bring in five newbies for class of 2018.
GO BEARS!

The stats of their returning big people other than Tapley are unimpressive.But they do get 6'3" Asiah Jones back after a medical redshirt year. She played pretty well as a freshman two years ago after signing with USC from out of South Carolina. So they should have two good big players to work with plus another excellent rebounder in Overbeck, and, of course, Mariya Moore.

Getting that one or two people from out of the West Coast continues to be a special advantage for both USC and UCLA.

By the way, looking at Overbeck, I am still wondering why we couldn't have turned KC Waters into that same type of player.

annarborbear said:

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By the way, looking at Overbeck, I am still wondering why we couldn't have turned KC Waters into that same type of player.

You could just as well say " Looking at Teaira McCowan and wonder why they couldn't have turned Chen Yue into that type of player." Actually that would be more likely physically.

Although Overbeck is the same height and has a similar body size, she is more mobile and possesses a broader skill set than Waters. She is also much more athletic. This is evidenced by the fact she also played volleyball. She also made the USA national Under 19 team.

Waters was a tweener size wise. She had the skill mobility and set of say Angel Jackson without the height. The other major factor was she did not compliment the skill set of the other Cal players, nor did they hers. They were basically a running team and Waters was not good enough for any team to build around.

You, along with other locally based Cal fans, failed to be objective when it came to Waters. It is natural for fans to root for and want to see local favorites succeed, but realistically that was never going to happen for her at Cal.

In high school she peaked much earlier than the other big girls in Nor Cal in her class, but was soon passed by both Range and Chidom after their soph seasons. Both of them still had more upsides left even after they passed her. We could also add her teammate Brown to those that passed her as well. Since Cal had offered her early they were committed. I doubt they would have offered her later. As a tweener with her skill set her potential was limited. Sorry but that is just being realistic. Most of you guys just had unrealistic expectations for her based on her high school production. Some players just peak early and others are late bloomers.

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Good explanation. But I think when we were finishing 10th and 7th, she could have at least been given an opportunity to do something more than wave a towel. Don't think that helped much with other local players who might have been considering coming here.

Keep in mind, we DO NOT KNOW if Kayla Overbeck had an offer from Cal coming out of high school.

We just know she was on Cal's radar and that they had some communication.

It is possible Overbeck was merely one of the prospects "next in line" for an offer after Celeste West (then Overbeck verbally to Vandy early and Cal ultimately sealed the deal with West making the issue moot).

At the time, it was said on this board that (paraphrasing) Cal had "made contact with Ruthy Hebard but ultimately focused on Celeste West," the implication being Cal either: A) Only wanted 1 player in the class ('16) at their position; or B) West's criteria included a small crowd at her position. (Based on interviews, I do not get the latter impression at all from West's mentality).

Pretty trippy to think about Cal's recruitment of Hebard (or lack thereof) considering how incredible her first two seasons have been.

Ironically, there is another intriguing forward up in Alaska this year at 6'2" and ranked #90 by Hoopgurlz and #98 by Prospectsnation Azaria Robinson: named http://www.espn.com/high-school/girls-basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/235829/azaria-robinson

Coach Farrow is among the handful of most recent Twitter accounts that Azaria's mom follows, though WF nor anyone else one associated with Cal is following her at this point.