Walker's Visit this weekend

[Dillon77]

Dillon would you say that MM looks for the same kind of player as Geno or is she a bit looser when it comes to individualism among the recruits.....I have to attribute some of UConn's recent recruiting issues with the limited number of "Boot camp" ready players that are willing sacrifice all for the good of the team.....

Charlie: As CocoHusky detailed in post #171, ND and UConn do go after a lot of the same (kind of) players. And even those that don't pop up on such lists often play like could be on the other's team (Madison Cable, Morgan Tuck come to mind).

There have been a couple of articles this year that go into a bit of detail about Muffet's (evolving) attitudes toward players and recruiting.
(This one goes into a slew of other topics but scroll on down: The Evolution of Muffet)

Her priorities -- as I've read -- seem to be:
- Need to be an exceptional player (sorry for stating the obvious)
- Play/contribute to/do well within the ND system of playing ball (fitting with her teammates is important, too)
- Being a fit in the university
- And...this is one of those evolving factors: Muffet wants to like being around this person for the duration of their time together. This is stated explicitly in another article, but hinted at here. It's a good thing...if they can concentrate on the relationship, the emotion of the "x's and o's," is minimized a bit and they can attack the goal together.

To some degree, this pushes everything closer to the small end of the funnel and they end up looking at fewer people. She mentioned there are three or four targets for the 2017 group. Although she's not explicit about who the "top liners" are, you can bet the top ones expected are fully vetted by Muffett, Niele Ivey and the rest of the staff. And she's also looking to recruit to what the roster needs/turnover is going to be...there will be no stockpiling.
That's fair to all concerned, in my mind.

As for your question, there does seem to room for a player to flex her individual talents -- Arike Ogunbowale comes to mind this year, but I'm sure Muffett had to initially grin and bear it when Michaela Mabrey started launching some her "somewhere from Ohio" three pointers.
So there's some flexibility there. Still, as the commentator in the Jordan Brand game said, you kind of know a Muffet McGraw player when you see one...Erin Boley certainly fits, as will Jackie young. Of course, could've seen them in Storris, just like I could've seen KLS in South Bend.

Would welcome any input from Orangutan, Flying A or any other Irish watcher....

 

[UcMiami]

Dillon would you say that MM looks for the same kind of player as Geno or is she a bit looser when it comes to individualism among the recruits.....I have to attribute some of UConn's recent recruiting issues with the limited number of "Boot camp" ready players that are willing sacrifice all for the good of the team.....

I would say they both recruit very similar personalities - a lot of the difference in actual players recruited is likely the result of the recruit's early stated preference than Muffet or Geno having different recruiting philosophies - I doubt either coach wastes much time with a recruit who holds their nose when the ND or Uconn name is mentioned!

Where there may be a slight difference is in track record - Geno has the recent NCs, Muffet doesn't, so for a supremely talented recruit, Muffet might stretch her criteria a little more than Geno is willing to. If gene had no NCs in the last ten years he might be a little less selective than he is.

 

[HuskyNan]

Since 2012 UCONN and ND have gone head to head for the following significant players. I defining head to head as where Both UCONN & ND were among the players top 3-5 finalist.
Jewell Loyd
Michaela Mabrey
Taya Reimer
Brianna Turner
Kathryn Westbeld
Katie Lou Samuelson
Arike Ogunbowale
Napheesa Collier
Erin Boley
Lauren Cox
Megan Walker
Jade Williams

You forgot Skylar Diggins. Yes, Skylar critics, Geno recruited her hard but she's from South Bend and grew up an ND fan. That she considered the Huskies is amazing.

 

[Dillon77]

Since 2012 UCONN and ND have gone head to head for the following significant players. I defining head to head as where Both UCONN & ND were among the players top 3-5 finalist.
Jewell Loyd
Michaela Mabrey
Taya Reimer
Brianna Turner
Kathryn Westbeld
Katie Lou Samuelson
Arike Ogunbowale
Napheesa Collier
Erin Boley
Lauren Cox
Megan Walker
Jade Williams

For 2017, I've read both Geno and Muffet have personally looked at LaDazhia Williams, the 6'2"forward out of Florida, but I don't know if UConn and/or ND are among the top three schools on her list

 

[CocoHusky]

It looks like ND has a distinct recruiting advantage based on that list.are we able to say why that is? Is it just a preference for the school, is it just a better fit in terms of playing time/position or is it that the ND program is a little bit more up to date in how each player is handled on a personal level.....is MM as demanding a coach as Geno....are her practices as tough?

My feeling is that many of today's most talented players are not willing to squelch their egos for the benefit of the team nor are they willing to put out 110% when they know they can get by with 80%......so the question is are their enough great players out there to fortify the UConn program and if not would Geno rather take less talented players and take his chances, championships be damned!!

I don't know the answer....just asking....

I'm not sure that ND has a recruiting advantage just based on this list. If you look deeper and individually I'm not sure you will ever come away with an overall reason. ND, Duke, & Stanford all have better academics than UCONN but lesser WCBB if you use Championships as the measuring stick. I also don't think ego plays a part at this level of recruit, because let's face it Tara and Muffett are no more tolerant of ego than Geno. All other things being equal I think this level of recruits priority comes down to playing time and of late how close can I be to home and still play in top echelon of WCBB. The former (playing time) accounts for Turner, Durr, Rhimer & McCall not being on a UCONN roster and the latter (close to home) accounts for (Wilson, Cox & Delle Donne) also not being on a UCONN roster.

 

[Dillon77]

Question many have asked. While there are many reasons why recruits select others, the two hurdles UCONN has always faced are: 1) Location - Hmmm...the weather of Connecticut....or, almost anywhere else? Can you imagine, how many of those cited above, if Geno's 11 championships had taken place at Duke (to name one), would've chosen elsewhere? 2) School's history/prestige.
Despite these, 11 championships, and counting - not too shabby!

Save for late April-early May and September-early October, I wouldn't rate South Bend's weather as a major selling point either. In fact, once Halloween passes, ND is pretty much in "permacloud" until Easter.

 

[CocoHusky]

You forgot Skylar Diggins. Yes, Skylar critics, Geno recruited her hard but she's from South Bend and grew up an ND fan. That she considered the Huskies is amazing.

Very true, but I was thinking more recently class of 2013-17. Skylar was 2009.

 

[UcMiami]

This 'team oriented' stuff I think gets too much play - both Muffet and Geno use the talents they have on their team - can you really see a lot of difference between how Jewell and DT played - they both took a lot of shots (and made them) that would drive either coach to find a seat on the bench for a less talented player. Maya dominated on offense at Uconn as she would have in ND. Achonwa and Dolson could have traded teams and you would hardly notice a difference. That Geno has had more balanced teams in terms of overall talent probably explains the minor differences in style of players and focus on offense. To think that Muffet is not as tough a task master as Geno is a fallacy.

On recruiting head to head - meh. Look at location first, roster being recruited into, and to some degree the 'honor' of listing Uconn on a short list. I suspect there were also some 'wins' for Uconn that were decided before final lists were considered - did Muffet really not recruit Morgan, Moriah, or Breanna, or was she just told early a polite 'no thanks'.

 

[JoePgh]

Question many have asked. While there are many reasons why recruits select others, the two hurdles UCONN has always faced are: 1) Location - Hmmm...the weather of Connecticut....or, almost anywhere else? Can you imagine, how many of those cited above, if Geno's 11 championships had taken place at Duke (to name one), would've chosen elsewhere? 2) School's history/prestige.
Despite these, 11 championships, and counting - not too shabby!

As between UConn and Notre Dame, each school may have certain advantages, but climate / weather is not a comparative advantage for either of them. Winter weather in both places is bad enough to make you want to stay indoors and play basketball!

UConn faces the same issue with Stanford, particularly among California recruits. It's somewhat amazing that Geno got KML and KLS, but think how many California girls were heavily recruited by UConn and still went to Stanford (Jayne Appel, the Ogwumikes, the first 2 Samuelsons, and McCall -- and even Jamelle Wideman way back in the early 1990's).

I do think academics are an issue in both cases, especially with parents. I doubt if playing time is a major factor -- at least recently, the competition for minutes will be similar in both places.

I can certainly imagine that more 17-year-olds and their parents are put off by Geno's personality than by Muffitt's or Tara's, however. (You have to "get" Geno, and not everybody does. The constant sarcasm would grate on many personalities.)

But for many recruits, the chance to be a key part of making a program gain (rather than merely retain) the top echelon of WCBB would be a big draw. As I've said previously, a chance to be the Rebecca Lobo for another school might be more interesting than being the 25th first-team AA on the wall at UConn.

 

[CocoHusky]

For 2017, I've read both Geno and Muffet have personally looked at LaDazhia Williams, the 6'2"forward out of Florida, but I don't know if UConn and/or ND are among the top three schools on her list

Good catch LaDazhia Williams announce her top five a few months back which includes: Ohio State, ND, Tennessee, South Carolina and UConn.

 

[UcMiami]

I can certainly imagine that more 17-year-olds and their parents are put off by Geno's personality than by Muffitt's or Tara's, however. (You have to "get" Geno, and not everybody does. The constant sarcasm would grate on many personalities.)

I like the rest of your post, but Geno consistently gets high grades from parents of players who end up elsewhere, so I think this particular meme is likely wrong - I don't think Uconn is at a disadvantage personality wise to any other program - every coach will grate on some parents (and player) and be a strong positive with others. And his track record and the very public love of his former players is probably a net positive even if the parents are completely down with the Philly guy.

 

[Orangutan]

For 2017, I've read both Geno and Muffet have personally looked at LaDazhia Williams, the 6'2"forward out of Florida, but I don't know if UConn and/or ND are among the top three schools on her list

I don't know where her list stands but per her AAU coach, Muffet was at her AAU tourney in Atlanta this weekend. I don't think Coach McGraw would be traipsing down to Atlanta if she didn't think she had a serious shot.

Re the topic of ND and UConn recruiting - you and UcMiami have pretty much covered my thoughts. Mostly, they are looking for the same things and the long list of players both have recruited demonstrates that . And as UcMiami pointed out, that list is likely longer than we know because I'm sure there are some that both recruited but we don't know about it either because the player committed early or only one side got traction. For example, we wouldn't know that UConn was interested in Patberg if not for this passage in an ESPNW article -
By August before her sophomore year, Connecticut had gotten involved. Worried it might lose her, Notre Dame got "more aggressive" in its approach, McKee said. Notre Dame wanted an answer, and Patberg said "yes" on New Year's Eve 2012, during her sophomore year.

Regarding "individualism", I think they have different coaching styles. McGraw gave Arike and Marina a much freer hand than I can ever imagine UConn giving its players. My uninformed observation is that UConn tries to break its players of bad habits more or less cold turkey whereas ND is more willing to go through a process of slowly refining players' games.

 

[CocoHusky]

As between UConn and Notre Dame, each school may have certain advantages, but climate / weather is not a comparative advantage for either of them. Winter weather in both places is bad enough to make you want to stay indoors and play basketball!

UConn faces the same issue with Stanford, particularly among California recruits. It's somewhat amazing that Geno got KML and KLS, but think how many California girls were heavily recruited by UConn and still went to Stanford (Jayne Appel, the Ogwumikes, the first 2 Samuelsons, and McCall -- and even Jamelle Wideman way back in the early 1990's).

I do think academics are an issue in both cases, especially with parents. I doubt if playing time is a major factor -- at least recently, the competition for minutes will be similar in both places.

I can certainly imagine that more 17-year-olds and their parents are put off by Geno's personality than by Muffitt's or Tara's, however. (You have to "get" Geno, and not everybody does. The constant sarcasm would grate on many personalities.)

But for many recruits, the chance to be a key part of making a program gain (rather than merely retain) the top echelon of WCBB would be a big draw. As I've said previously, a chance to be the Rebecca Lobo for another school might be more interesting than being the 25th first-team AA on the wall at UConn.

The Ogwumikes were from Texas. Geno's personality has probably won over more top recruits & parents than Muffett and Tara combined. Since Rebecca Lobo ( 21 years) now, there has only been 1 Championship than was won at a school than had never won a Championship before-Maryland 2006. It took Multiple top level recruits to get that one done including Duron, Harper, Tolliver, & Langhorne

 

[Charliebball]

Perhaps the quality/quantity of UConn's next couple of recruiting classes will answer some of these questions.........in the meantime the three wonderful players that are leaving this year are simply irreplaceable...................

 

[Tonyc]

One thing to consider is who's playing in front of you and will you get a chance to play. With our Big 3 I can understand why kids went to ND or some other school. Now with the Big 3 graduated I would expect we may see more interest in UConn. ND is loaded and playtime will be minimal. One other point UConn continues to win NC and set records with ND getting so many top recruits Muffet hasn't been able to beat Geno. The only reason ND beat UConn was when they played FLOP Ball.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

The Ogwumikes were from Texas. Geno's personality has probably won over more top recruits & parents than Muffett and Tara combined. Since Rebecca Lobo ( 21 years) now, there has only been 1 Championship than was won at a school than had never won a Championship before-Maryland 2006. It took Multiple top level recruits to get that one done including Duron, Harper, Tolliver, & Langhorne

And she had to use a recruit to tamper with an oral commit to put that together. I do believe her whole thing about Geno gets everybody stems from the fact she has not been able to steal a recruit since. (no appropriate emoticon available) Oh wait:

 

[CocoHusky]

And she had to use a recruit to tamper with an oral commit to put that together. I do believe her whole thing about Geno gets everybody stems from the fact she has not been able to steal a recruit since. (no appropriate emoticon available) Oh wait:

View attachment 13295 View attachment 13295

Suburban legend has it that it also took another recruit, an AAU coach, an easily swayed father to put the deal together.

 

[UcMiami]

Regarding "individualism", I think they have different coaching styles. McGraw gave Arike and Marina a much freer hand than I can ever imagine UConn giving its players. My uninformed observation is that UConn tries to break its players of bad habits more or less cold turkey whereas ND is more willing to go through a process of slowly refining players' games.

A nice distinction and I think you are right - there seems to be more of a 'break down and rebuild' each year at Uconn than at ND and I think that is true even taking into account roster options available perhaps being greater more consistently at Uconn.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Suburban legend has it that it also took another recruit, an AAU coach, an easily swayed father to put the deal together.

It's been said that one other highly regarded woman women's coach was a pro at this kind of poaching before Geno showed up.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

My uninformed observation is that UConn tries to break its players of bad habits more or less cold turkey

Orang: so it is a guess, or wild speculation, or you actually saw Shea with the whip and iron boot? Just kidding. Do you have any example of such a recruit with what bad habits. They exist of course, and everyone in WCBB knows Geno et als practices are from the bottom up; plus, his critique of AAU ball is now legendary. We now Muffet could never break a certain big girl from walking and Geno shares that with her in Charde. Got any others?

 

[UcMiami]

Orang: so it is a guess, or wild speculation, or you actually saw Shea with the whip and iron boot? Just kidding. Do you have any example of such a recruit with what bad habits. They exist of course, and everyone in WCBB knows Geno et als practices are from the bottom up; plus, his critique of AAU ball is now legendary. We now Muffet could never break a certain big girl from walking and Geno shares that with her in Charde. Got any others?

I think you could look at the ups and downs of playing time for specifically Lou and Gabby and Napheesa this past year as part of that 'breaking of habits' - specific to Lou, she was basically benched in one game because she was just hanging on the three point line.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

I think you could look at the ups and downs of playing time for specifically Lou and Gabby and Napheesa this past year as part of that 'breaking of habits' - specific to Lou, she was basically benched in one game because she was just hanging on the three point line.

Was I talking to you!!! But, now that we are, what is your take on Geno saying a few weeks ago that if you asked Napheesa a play UConn runs she'd say Fruit Loops TuTu (or some such) and that she can drive to the hoop and rebound (and that's it). Just Geno being Geno OR true, but she is one he'll push to greatness.

 

[bags27]

We now Muffet could never break a certain big girl from walking and Geno shares that with her in Charde. Got any others?

Habits like these are killers. I keep screaming at the TV: "Natalie: just go right back up with it!". But I think it's the broader habit of always thinking team, and team starts with defense. You can't always make your shot go in, but you can always give body and soul to team D. I think that was also the main reason Lou was benched. And did it ever seem to work!

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Habits like these are killers. I keep screaming at the TV: "Natalie: just go right back up with it!". But I think it's the broader habit of always thinking team, and team starts with defense. You can't always make your shot go in, but you can always give body and soul to team D. I think that was also the main reason Lou was benched. And did it ever seem to work!

Yeah, that with Natalie came instantly to mind for me too, along with he tendency to take a step away from contact before shooting, turning the shot from a layup into a short, off balance jumper.

 

[Wally East]

Since Rebecca Lobo ( 21 years) now, there has only been 1 Championship than was won at a school than had never won a Championship before-Maryland 2006.

Baylor? Notre Dame? Purdue? Texas A&M? Am I missing something about what you wrote?