2022-23 Offseason Check-in with the Pac-12, Part 2: Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford and UCLA
Part two of a three-part series exploring what has changed for Pac-12 teams since April
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The start of classes has already arrived for some Pac-12 schools. The college season starts in 71 days. Time for an offseason check-in with Pac-12 women’s basketball.
Even as the league faces turmoil caused by the impending departures of UCLA and USC, the conference administration is using the offseason to double down on its commitment to one of its most successful sports. On Thursday, the league office announced that former Nevada administrator Rhonda Lundin Bennett had been hired for the newly-created position of Associate Commissioner for Women’s Basketball & Sports Management. The position will be responsible for the daily operation of women’s basketball, including collaborating on scheduling, officiating, game operations, and governance.
As for what’s happening on the campuses, we previously took a look at Arizona, Arizona State, California, and Colorado in the first of this three-part series. In this part, we explore Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, and UCLA. Keep an eye out for the final installment to check out USC, Utah, Washington, and Washington State.
Oregon
For the first time since the 2016-17 season, the Ducks will not have a Sabally sister on the roster. Satou’s stellar four-year career concluded with a place with the Dallas Wings as the No. 2 overall selection in the 2020 WNBA Draft. After battling injuries for several years, Nyara led the Ducks in scoring for two straight seasons and landed with the New York Liberty as the No. 5 pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft.
Now, that’s all over, but the Ducks have plenty of options to try to fill in for the loss.
“You don't really replace the number five pick in the draft very often,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “That's our fourth first-rounder in the last three years. So not many teams can see that ever. We're gonna miss her, but I really think by committee, I think we can somehow maybe come close to duplicating her numbers.”
One option Graves has is going with two bigs. He noted the possibility of playing fifth-year senior Sedona Prince and sophomore Phillipina Kyei together. Freshman Kennedy Basham may get into that mix, as well.
He is very excited about the frontcourt possibilities presented by freshman Grace VanSlooten, the 13th-best recruit from the class of 2022 per espnW’s top 100.
“This kid’s for real,” Graves said. “She’s really good.”
He doesn’t believe any single player can step in for Sabally immediately and produce at the same level, but there are enough options and combinations of players that the Ducks should have a formidable frontcourt.
The continued development of Prince will be vital to reaching the full potential of that frontcourt. In her two years with the Ducks, Prince has shot 54.3 percent and averaged just under 10 points per game.
Graves thinks she can do even more, though, and she will need to because of the youth in the frontcourt. To do that, he said that she needs to be even more serious about the game than she has been in the past. Part of that means realizing that there will be more demands on her now that Sabally is gone and rising to the occasion.
“I think she's just got immense talent,” Graves said. “She's just got to decide, okay, I want to be great, and then go do it. So, she's certainly got the skills. She’s got the mindset. I love Sedona. One of my favorite people I've ever coached. Just absolutely phenomenal. And she's not had to do as much because she had other really good players inside with her, particularly Nyara. But we don't have Nyara now, so we’ve got to rely on her senior leadership and have her be more productive.”
The backcourt has another leader who’s coming into her own. Endyia Rogers transferred in from USC last season, and Graves sees a lot of improvement in her after one year in Oregon’s system. While her play has improved, that’s only part of what she brings to the table.
“Leadership-wise, she's better,” he said. “She's more vocal, I think, right now. She's been here for a year, and it has really added to her confidence.”
The backcourt could be phenomenal with Rogers emerging as a vocal leader, especially if star point guard Te-Hina Paopao can finally get healthy. The junior is the only one of the vaunted top-ranked recruiting class of 2020 who is still wearing an Oregon uniform. Unfortunately, Paopao has missed considerable time due to injury during both her years in Eugene.
Despite the lost time, Paopao averaged double figures in both her freshman and sophomore seasons. While some of her numbers took a dip last season (most notably, her offensive efficiency), she was still one of the best lead guards in the league and there’s no doubt that she can make a huge impact if her health can stabilize.
The good news is that everyone is currently healthy, including Paopao. Graves said that they have had a few illnesses, both COVID-related and non-COVID, but no one is dealing with structural issues so far this offseason. With the talent level of the Ducks, that is the most important news they could possibly have.
Oregon State
The introduction to almost every team in the Pac-12 could focus on the roster changes wrought by transfers into and out of the program. Oregon State is certainly a member of that group most seasons. This year, there’s good news on that front, though. For the first time since the 2020-21 season, the Beavers did not have to replace the most effective member of their backcourt, although they did lose former McDonald’s All-American guard Greta Kampschroeder.
The most important returner is Talia von Oelhoffen, who has been a revelation for OSU since she stepped foot on campus halfway through the 2020-21 season. She immediately lifted the Beavers during her first semester and was just as effective during her full freshman season. While her shooting percentages went down a bit, she accounted for more points per game last season while maintaining her assist and rebounding numbers.
That’s not to say that the Beavers don’t have holes to fill. They lost four to the transfer portal, including both members of what was once an incredibly threatening frontcourt. Taylor Jones and Kennedy Brown opted to leave the program. They are big losses for OSU, but at least they aren’t sudden losses.
Brown tore her ACL and missed her sophomore season in 2020-21. The Beavers have adapted to life without her in the recent past, but it’s still a blow.
Oregon State had also been forced to learn how to live without Jones. She was off the court for approximately six weeks in the middle of last season without indication of what was ailing her. It was finally announced in early February that she had undergone shoulder surgery that would end her season. It turned out to be the end of her career in Corvallis.
To add to the frontcourt woes, Taya Corosdale joined Brown in transferring to Duke to play what will be her sixth year in college basketball. It may seem like a strange destination for the Washington native, but former Beavs great Aleah Goodman was hired as the director of recruiting for the Blue Devils before the 2021-22 season. Duke head coach Kara Lawson seems to have used that to her advantage in nabbing two veterans to bolster the Blue Devils’ inside game.
As is typically the case for OSU head coach Scott Rueck, though, there are plenty of high-quality recruits waiting to fill those empty shoes. The Beavers had the third-rated class in the Pac-12. That also happens to be the third-rated class in the country, trailing only UCLA and Oregon according to ESPN HoopGurlz. In fact, four of the top five and five of the top 10 classes will play in the league next season.
With their frontcourt needs, forwards Timea Gardiner and Raegan Beers are the biggest gets for the Beavers. Both are ranked in the top 10 by ESPN, and Beers might be ranked even higher than No. 10 if not for the ACL injury she suffered as a junior in high school.
The major challenge for the Beavers is that all of their upperclassmen are either transfers in their first year with the program or have played little during their time in Corvallis. Redshirt sophomore Jelena Mitrovic is the closest thing OSU has to a veteran presence who has had regular playing time.
Rueck brought in two transfers, both of whom have Pac-12 experience but also have a history of significant injury. Bendu Yeaney, who started her career at Indiana before transferring to Arizona, will play one year in her native state of Oregon. The sixth-year guard will give the Beavers a strong defensive presence in the backcourt. However, she is not a prototypical OSU guard who has a threatening outside game or can be relied upon to score regularly.
OSU also brought in former USC guard Shalexxus Aaron, who spent four years with the Women of Troy before transferring to Texas Southern for one season. Although she’s on her sixth season of college basketball, Aaron still has two years of eligibility remaining, as she missed two seasons in Los Angeles due to injury.
It will be a test to see how quickly Rueck and his team can put all of the pieces together, but there are some very talented players in Corvallis who just need to find their way as a group.
Stanford
Unlike most of their fellow Pac-12 teams, the Cardinal rarely have to worry about the issues that arise from transfers coming and going. Head coach Tara VanDerveer and her staff get some of the best talent in the country, and it’s talent that is committed to the educational experience of a school like Stanford. However, she doesn’t see it as a bad thing that grad transfers are able to move on to a new school.
“I think when people come to Stanford, they want to get a Stanford degree,” VanDerveer said. “We’ve had situations where it's senior year we've had people go to that year, and we didn't have a scholarship for them. I think it's great that they have an opportunity to get their degree and play somewhere else. So I don't see it as a negative. I think it's something that for us, we're not active in the transfer portal…I don't even know how to get into it. It's not really a part of our recruiting. We're more into the development of our players.”
The development of players will be crucial in replacing the production lost with the graduations of Lexie Hull, Lacie Hull, and Anna Wilson. VanDerveer expects Haley Jones to be even more important with the losses they had on the perimeter.
“I think one thing is that we’re going to be big,” VanDerveer said. “We played Haley at the one a lot last year, and I think that we’ll probably play her on the perimeter more this year.”
But there are others who are ready to pick up the slack, too.
“Hannah Jump has been playing on the British 3x3 team,” VanDerveer said. “I think she’s going to be ready.”
The frontcourt should be a strength. Not only is AP All-American Cameron Brink preparing for her junior year, but the Cardinal also added ESPN’s No. 1 recruit Lauren Betts.
There are a lot of great recruits coming into the Pac-12, but as always, Stanford has more than enough weapons to counter. Can the Cardinal secure their third straight Pac-12 Tournament title? Is a third straight Final Four in the cards? It wouldn’t be safe to bet against them.
UCLA
Like Oregon, UCLA has been struck by the injury bug over the last few seasons. Those issues were exacerbated by pandemic-related issues that kept some of their players from even coming to the U.S. two years ago. Resilience has been a key lesson.
In the offseason, the Bruins are learning even more about resilience and perspective via a partnership with Team IMPACT. The program involves colleges “signing” children with medical issues and involving them in activities with the sports team. The Bruins introduced their signee, 10-year-old Brandi Monroy, at an event on Aug. 19.
“She's had a kidney transplant and a liver transplant already,” head coach Cori Close said of Monroy. “We had such a great time with her last Friday. (Monday) she sent us a picture of her first day of school and she's just so excited to be able to do that. And it just brings such incredible perspective to us. I know that my heart was enlarged after the time I got to spend with her on Friday. Over the next several years, we hope to be able to develop just a really genuine relationship. I think us investing in her, it enlarges our heart, it gives us perspective, and it helps us be more thankful people.”
Seeing a child with life-and-death struggles is one of many ways the Bruins have gained perspective on the issues they’ve faced since the beginning of the pandemic. They’ve taken plenty of lessons from the basketball-related experiences, as well.
“We read a great book called It Takes What It Takes,” Close said. “And he talks about getting back to neutral and just understanding, ‘Hey, what's your next step?’ And also just choosing gratitude even in the midst of adversity. I think if we all did that in our lives, we'd be a happier human being. And so I didn't like how we had to get there, but I'm really thankful for myself as a leader as well as watching the student-athletes learn about that. But the reality is if we can strengthen our response, and we learn to be people with a deeper sense of gratitude, this is an ‘I get to’ experience not an ‘I have to’ experience. And that's something that will stay with them the rest of their lives.”
They hope to be using those lessons in happier times this season. It all starts with the country’s No. 1 recruiting class arriving on campus to join a group of veterans led by star guard Charisma Osborne. It’s not a stretch to say that the Bruins could be battling Stanford for the league title this year. If they are blessed with health, it’s difficult to imagine that the Bruins won’t be on their way back to the NCAA Tournament after advancing to the WNIT semifinals last season.
Close is impressed by the work ethic of her freshmen, especially top point guard Kiki Rice.
“It's one thing to have a lot of high rankings and awards and all that, but if your work ethic doesn't match, that's just a bunch of hype,” Close said. “And for her, her work ethic matches. In fact, I gotta kick her out of the gym. I gotta be like, ‘Hey, you got to recover. You got to be intentional about your recovery.’”
Those reminders to focus on recovery are just one way the Bruins are trying to avoid repeats of the injury woes of the past two seasons. Last year, they had to forfeit a game to Oregon due to having too few healthy players available.
“We've been making just a huge commitment to injury prevention, and part of that is knowing when to stop,” Close said.
Other strategies include some of the techniques in use by NBA teams. Close spoke of using GPS to understand the forces on players’ bodies during practice and play. That is especially important to combat ACL issues, which tend to occur more in female athletes than males.
“There's just a lot of prevention and trying to make sure that we have really balanced landings,” Close said. “Most of the ACLs that happen in women's basketball are non-contact, when you're landing or decelerating. So, we’re really trying to use the science and use our great medical staff and our performance training staff and going from there.”
Injury prevention will only take you so far, though. In the end, performance will take the players where they want to go. For Osborne, that’s to the WNBA. Close thinks there are a few things her star senior needs to focus on to nab that high draft slot.
“I think her efficiency on offense is going to be really important,” Close said. “I think she's already an elite, like top-five, level defender. I think her ability to get to the cup. She's a 90 percent free-throw shooter. All those things are really high level, but I think her shooting percentage or efficiency, she needs to shoot probably over 40 percent from the three-point line. And she's got to improve her shooting percentages from two because a lot of people are going to chase her off that three-point line. And being able to pick her midrange spots. and be able to be efficient at those. Those are important numbers as WNBA people are considering her.”
If she can do that, Osborne won’t just help herself with the WNBA. She could help her team to a Pac-12 championship.
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