WBB: **** Iowa State vs. No. 4 UCONN- 7:30 PM FS1 GAME THREAD ****
- Thread starter ZorkClone
- Start date
I do think though we should be able to field somewhat competitive teams.....losing by 15 is a lot more respectable than 33 or 40 points.
Womens college basketball is so lopsided. When 5 star players have to stay 5 years at a college it makes it so hard to put a team together that can compete with them. This is one area where the Transfer portal might start evening things out a little more. 5 star girls want to play instead of sitting deep on the bench for a few years.
This......what TJ has done with the men's team can be done with the women's team....women's basketball has more parity today than it's ever had. Iowa is recruiting light years better than us in wbb, and I don't think it's because they're in the Big Ten...surely CC and Iowa's rise to being on the front page of every media outlet the last few years has helped them....but also Bluder coached circles around Fennelly every time we played Iowa.
Another factor is the WNBA is such a hard league to make a roster on (~144 spots total). I would guess there's a perception among the top players that if your goal is to go pro, you're better off being the #2-#5 player at UConn or South Carolina vs. putting up better numbers as the #1 player at Iowa State.
Also a considerable difference in national-level exposure between those teams vs. most others. Example JuJu Watkins, haven't heard a peep about her this year as she toils away out in the Pacific Timezone for the other USC.
This feels more accurate as the season goes on. You could even compare players like Luka Garza and Ashley Joens, very good players whose teams they were on had modest achievements.
Of the 148 players on current WNBA rosters, 18 (12%) are from UConn, 11 (7%) are from South Carolina, and 30% are from the same four schools (UConn, South Carolina, Baylor, or Notre Dame). That's pretty top-heavy. By comparison in the NBA, Kentucky has the most players on current rosters but is only about 5% of the total active-roster players, and the top four schools (Kentucky, Duke, UCLA, Kansas) account for only about 14% of the players.
That's pretty wild if you think about it: one out of every five WNBA players went to either UConn or South Carolina. If your starting lineup doesn't have a player from one of those schools, or if your roster only has two players from those schools, you're below the league average.
That's pretty wild if you think about it: one out of every five WNBA players went to either UConn or South Carolina. If your starting lineup doesn't have a player from one of those schools, or if your roster only has two players from those schools, you're below the league average.
Tanke was the player of the year in Iowa. If she'd gone to Iowa everyone would be up in arms about it. The transition to D1 can be harsh and last year even the fab five had tough moments early on…hence the 5-4 non- conference record. I see the same things, but I also feel she will find her footing. She's too good not to.
Photo gallery: Iowa State Cyclones vs UConn women’s basketball - 12/17/24
The Huskies hit a program record 20 three-pointers in the win at Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase
www.theuconnblog.com
Rookie scale in the WNBA is a lot less than that. #1 pick in 2025 will make 79k in year 1, increasing to 100k in year 4 before they can get a big raise. The current CBA only goes through 2025, so that could change. So the real money for top-end players is in NIL/sponsorships, which no longer require players to leave college.
WNBA prospects in the US must be 22 or be a graduating senior to enter the draft, so one-and-done isn't even an option. The age is 20 for international prospects.
No…I really don’t think it can. There aren’t as many highly skilled players in women’s basketball to allow a team to be created to challenge the blue bloods. Definitely possible to create consistent Sweet Sixteen teams, but doing what TJ has done is difficult to do in the women’s game. Can and should Fennelly evolve? Yes, but doubt it will happen in his few remaining years. I always look at WVU as the team that gets players to fit an aggressive system. Usually they end up slightly above mid pack in the conference and like us make the dance. Once in a while they do some damage. Just a rarity. Creating a team to challenge the blue bloods without 4 and 5 star players is darned near impossible.
Drove down to the game from New Hampshire. If I ever see an opponent wearing #12 make a 3, I'll go into PTSD. 20 points for her in 1Q. UConn fans around me were pleasant before and during the game, had complimentary things to say about tj and matt. One of the UConn fans was an ISU grad, but had been living in CT for 20 years. UConn is now 42-1 in that arena, which is connected to a giant casino. Even with the blowout, glad I went.Photo gallery: Iowa State Cyclones vs UConn women’s basketball - 12/17/24
The Huskies hit a program record 20 three-pointers in the win at Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase
I've heard that several times and just don't see it. For one thing those 4 teams are still probably spending quite a bit more than most other teams so they are still bringing in more talent. 3 of those 4 teams happen to be in the top 10 right now. The biggest difference is the women's players don't leave early. So recruiting becomes a much bigger deal in their game. Look at KU, their best recruiting year was probably when they brought in Wiggins and Embiid the same year. Had both those players stayed 4 years KU would have been crazy good, but they both were one and done and didn't even make that big of a difference. If the Big 12 wants to be more competitive in the women's game they need to bring in better recruits. Look at 2024 recruits, only Baylor was in the top 25 and they were 22. 2025 is a little better with KU at 6, K-State at 9 and Utah at 16.
Players have been leaving early or skipping college entirely for decades.
Excepting his first two years where they were below-average by KU/Roy standards, Bill Self's winning percentage was 83.0% pre-NIL and 75.7% post-NIL. Make of it what you will.
I don't know how anyone looks at the current men's BB landscape and disagrees that there's been an unprecedented level of parity at the major-conference level since ~2021.
Excepting his first two years where they were below-average by KU/Roy standards, Bill Self's winning percentage was 83.0% pre-NIL and 75.7% post-NIL. Make of it what you will.
I don't know how anyone looks at the current men's BB landscape and disagrees that there's been an unprecedented level of parity at the major-conference level since ~2021.
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Granted it is mostly "names" in the Final Four but in the last ten years we have had Iowa (twice), Mississippi State (twice), Arizona and Syracuse as the national runner up so the non-elites can make a splash even if the vast majority of the Final Four teams are the "names". LSU became an instant top power with Mulkey so it isn't all established elites with 20 year histories. Of course Mulkey is a hall of fame coach and LSU went in full tilt but that was still a instant switch flipped. In one respect there is only one old school long time elite, UConn followed by Staley being the nouveau-elite. ND is reemerging and USC and UCLA want to be elites and Tennessee wants to be one again. And Baylor is dead and gone so the field has changed some.
Yeah , the Big 12 recruiting hasn't been great the last few years. We had our big splash with our class of 2023 but 2024 didn't include any top 100 players (they keep citing Tanke as a top 100 but she was not in the final ESPN tally). The much ballyhooed Cyclone portal add's have yet to impact things as much as expected. Kansas has been sort of quietly racking up a few top rated players, some luckily local for them. Will be interesting to see if they can do anything with them.
Will throw in Iowa since rivals, same state, same recruiting region and competing leagues. Seems Iowa has done better sustaining some recruiting momentum after not really having much roster room for a couple of years and losing their best 2023 recruit to a career ending car accident. They had a good 2024 class (4 top 100's) and same looks to be true for 2025 (3 top 100's per current rankings). Not crazy classes, only Deal is really very top ranked, but still a lot of ranked recruits.
I've always thought basketball has had more parity than football because the athletes have to stay longer in football. One and done levels the field quite a bit. Self's had a couple of bad years for him so those numbers are correct but I don't think the NIL has anything to do with it. Maybe he hasn't picked the right players yet but the NIL allows him to go out and buy who he wants so in the long term it will probably benefit him. I think KU wouldn't be in the top 20 right now if it wouldn't be for the NIL because they were going to return a very bad team by HS recruits alone. If you look at the top 25 there is parity but it is mainly full of teams with big budgets and that will probably continue. ISU is in very good shape because they have an exceptional coach that has a system and is able to get recruits that fit that system that don't break the bank. Great move for them, but if you look at the other schools ranked, a lot of them are buying their way to that spot so ISU is the exception more than the standard.
