Women's basketball is quickly turning into a revenue sport with the amount of nationally televised games and ESPN's shift from showcasing the men's NIT to showing every women's NCAA game. Smiths big upside has been the she could recruit talent to come to cal but it's come very evident she can't convince those same players to stay. in years past cal only had to contend with other p12 teams for in state talent, now with bigger budgets schools in the big ten and sec seeing how profitable a tournament level team can be there will be slim pickings for 4 or 5 star talent and envious eyes by those who come but never see the tournament. Smiths biggest worry has been late game management. How many 3Q collapses did cal have this year? In the the previous year it felt like cal lost games in the final 2 minutes but now most many fans of the team knew even with a 10 point halftime lead and plenty of scorers no lead was safe. I wamt Charmin to take this program to where gottlieb had it. The games were exciting, the players were fun and having a program that bridges the gap until football season keeps fans engaged and the money flowing. But the days of cowling, jaelyn brown and anigwe feel very far away.
It’s the same theme running through all the major athletic programs at Cal.All the coaches are unable to keep.their best players. The girls basketball will only get worse, men’s basketball disaster, football lost everyone this year, to transfer. Can’t see how they turn the program sround. I was hoping maybe baseball would be better. Nope, baseball team just got swept by Arizona and then lost 3 of 4 to USC, looks like another bad year for them. Cal athletics can’t get worse can it? Everyone who is good is running from the campus. Can we please dump Knowlton and hit the reset button… WoW!
This last season was a real eye-opener for me. I've began to have serious doubts that Charmin can ever get us into the top half of the conference. The mere fact that her last two recruiting classes will have consisted of one player each (Amaya Bonner last year, Lulu this) is concerning. The loss of key players through the portal is another. Assuming we don't lose anyone else and that we bring in a couple of good bigs through the portal I still can't imagine more than a couple of game improvement next season -- if that. For me her coaching future at Cal depends on what the next recruiting class looks like as they'll be about six graduating next Spring. She's going to need one helluva group of incoming freshman for 24-25.
It was a disappointing season, although the team was much improved. One issue is the Pac12 is a very tough conference. Just look at Oregon who has all the advantages.
Curry in the transfer portal is very concerning, and our scoring punch drops substantially as a result. Depending on who replaces her, perhaps our defense will improve.
I hope the rest of our starters stay the course (Michelle in particular as I expect a break out season for her).
Good that we will have senior leadership with Leilani. She will have to be more aggressive with her scoring, although a lot of her value is as a passing PG, who picks her spots to shoot/score.
I'm not concerned we only have one incoming freshmen because we need experienced transfers. At least two should be bigs, and maybe we get a talented international player.
As others have said, WBB is quickly becoming a big time sport. Only 8-10 years ago it was barely on the radar.
Women's basketball is quickly turning into a revenue sport with the amount of nationally televised games and ESPN's shift from showcasing the men's NIT to showing every women's NCAA game. Smiths big upside has been the she could recruit talent to come to cal but it's come very evident she can't convince those same players to stay. in years past cal only had to contend with other p12 teams for in state talent, now with bigger budgets schools in the big ten and sec seeing how profitable a tournament level team can be there will be slim pickings for 4 or 5 star talent and envious eyes by those who come but never see the tournament. Smiths biggest worry has been late game management. How many 3Q collapses did cal have this year? In the the previous year it felt like cal lost games in the final 2 minutes but now most many fans of the team knew even with a 10 point halftime lead and plenty of scorers no lead was safe. I wamt Charmin to take this program to where gottlieb had it. The games were exciting, the players were fun and having a program that bridges the gap until football season keeps fans engaged and the money flowing. But the days of cowling, jaelyn brown and anigwe feel very far away.
The departure of Curry is a real bummer. Unfortunately it also sends a message to potential recruits.
It’s the same theme running through all the major athletic programs at Cal.All the coaches are unable to keep.their best players. The girls basketball will only get worse, men’s basketball disaster, football lost everyone this year, to transfer. Can’t see how they turn the program sround. I was hoping maybe baseball would be better. Nope, baseball team just got swept by Arizona and then lost 3 of 4 to USC, looks like another bad year for them. Cal athletics can’t get worse can it? Everyone who is good is running from the campus. Can we please dump Knowlton and hit the reset button… WoW!
This last season was a real eye-opener for me. I've began to have serious doubts that Charmin can ever get us into the top half of the conference. The mere fact that her last two recruiting classes will have consisted of one player each (Amaya Bonner last year, Lulu this) is concerning. The loss of key players through the portal is another. Assuming we don't lose anyone else and that we bring in a couple of good bigs through the portal I still can't imagine more than a couple of game improvement next season -- if that. For me her coaching future at Cal depends on what the next recruiting class looks like as they'll be about six graduating next Spring. She's going to need one helluva group of incoming freshman for 24-25.
It was a disappointing season, although the team was much improved. One issue is the Pac12 is a very tough conference. Just look at Oregon who has all the advantages.
Curry in the transfer portal is very concerning, and our scoring punch drops substantially as a result. Depending on who replaces her, perhaps our defense will improve.
I hope the rest of our starters stay the course (Michelle in particular as I expect a break out season for her).
Good that we will have senior leadership with Leilani. She will have to be more aggressive with her scoring, although a lot of her value is as a passing PG, who picks her spots to shoot/score.
I'm not concerned we only have one incoming freshmen because we need experienced transfers. At least two should be bigs, and maybe we get a talented international player.
As others have said, WBB is quickly becoming a big time sport. Only 8-10 years ago it was barely on the radar.