Welcome back to Getting Technical, as the women’s basketball writers at The Athletic take you into our conversations about the NCAA offseason. It used to be that the end of the NCAA Tournament signaled a dead zone in the college basketball calendar; instead, the drama hasn’t stopped off the court, and we’re here to reassess the state of the contenders around the country.
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Chantel Jennings: OK, so Hailey Van Lith is headed to LSU. … Lauren Betts is at UCLA. … South Carolina added Te-Hina Paopao. … Celeste Taylor at Ohio State is going to give Big Ten coaches absolute nightmares … Lauren Ware is an Aggie.
Kind of feels like the only major domino left to fall is Aneesah Morrow, right?
Sabreena Merchant: The fourth-leading scorer in the country last season is a pretty big domino, yes, and arguably the last major-impact player who will change a team this offseason. She has narrowed her transfer decision down to three schools: LSU, South Carolina or USC. Despite the fact that two of those programs have a bit more cache at the moment than the other, my guess is that Morrow makes her way out west and ends up with the Trojans. There are too many frontcourt players who will take away minutes from her if she chooses to go to the SEC — I don’t love her fit next to Angel Reese, Sa’Myah Smith or Kamilla Cardoso and Ashlyn Watkins, not to mention the great frontcourt recruits who are coming. Morrow wanted a bigger challenge, and she’ll still be able to show out in a very good Pac-12 this year, and then a great Big Ten conference next year.
Where do you think Morrow will go? Where do you think she should go?
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How does Hailey Van Lith fit at LSU? The transfer point guard gives the Tigers another edge
Chantel: She’s a pro prospect anywhere she goes, and all three of those schools can develop her as such. My general feel is that Morrow is going to be pulled west by the allure of building something. Whether she’s on the rosters at LSU or South Carolina, those are Final Four teams. But at USC? She makes a huge difference. The Trojans already had a nice transfer portal, cross-city pick up in Dominque Onu (UCLA) as well as two Ivy League transfers, Mackenzie Forbes (Harvard) and Kayla Padilla (Penn). Nice to see Lindsay Gottlieb, who played at Brown from 1995-99, not forgetting her roots. Adding Morrow to this list (plus Rayah Marshall and No. 1 recruit in the 2023 class, Juju Watkins) would be quite the recruiting coup for Gottlieb.
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Regardless of where she lands, Morrow’s departure really signals something to high mid-major programs: You’re only going to be able to keep your best players for a year or two. The portal is always going to have a lot of action (though less in the future given that we won’t have COVID-19 bonus years), and I think every year we’ll see three to six top power conference players as well as the top two to three mid-major players enter the portal. I was speaking with a mid-major coach recently who just didn’t know where their program will go from here. They used to be able to find those diamonds in the rough, but now once those players become diamonds, they’re gone. That’s tough for coaches, but good for top players.
TOP 3⭐️ pic.twitter.com/4ht3P9EBgJ
— Aneesah Morrow (@AneesahMorrow24) April 21, 2023
Sabreena: If your program is not regularly securing NCAA Tournament berths — let alone allowing players to cash in on NIL through collectives — I don’t see how you can keep the best players every season.
Selfishly, I think this is great for the overall product, because there will be greater concentrations of talent on teams that show up on national television. The NCAA Tournament games were absolutely awesome this year, and creating more super-teams, for lack of a better word, can only help sell this sport. I still think we’ll see players choose to make their marks on smaller programs, but if that doesn’t work out, then the option is available for them to take their talents to a more established school.
Chantel: Watkins is a good example of that, though USC is far from a “small” program. But I do think we’ll see top players choose programs that might not be as relevant as others for whatever reason.
But since we’re on the topic, can we institute a rule that forbids any college coach who has ever left a program for a higher-paying better contract elsewhere from being able to complain about the Current State of College Athletics ™?
Sabreena: I’ll allow it.
Chantel: Someone get that rule change to Charlie Baker ASAP.
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The portal (and NCAA regulations that allowed for one-time transfers) and bonus year really hitting at the same time has meant that the landscape of the sport has shifted seismically almost every week since the end of the season. Looking at your way-too-early top 25 now, what is feeling particularly way too early?
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Women's college basketball too-early top 25: Who lands at the top? UConn or LSU?
Sabreena: Let’s start with the positives. I feel even better about UCLA, which slotted in at No. 12 when those rankings came out a month ago. Charisma Osborne is coming back for her super-senior year, preventing the Bruins from having to overhaul too much of their system. And oh yeah, they brought in the No. 1 player in last year’s class to join what was already the best recruiting class in the country, who happens to already have familiarity with Cori Close, Kiki Rice and Londynn Jones from USA Basketball. UCLA is going to leave the Pac-12 with a bang this year — this team is so very deep and has a better combination of talent and continuity than just about any other team in the country, but especially in this time zone.
Chantel: And LSU (adding Van Lith) and South Carolina (adding Paopao) both boost those teams’ stocks. Obviously, LSU can’t get any higher than No. 1 in your ranking, but I do think the Gamecocks leapfrog to at least No. 3 with Paopao.
Sabreena: Agreed, Van Lith is very close to a perfect fit for what the Tigers needed after Alexis Morris graduated, and I think she can benefit greatly in a system that forces her to be a point guard. I am less sold on Paopao to South Carolina because the Gamecocks don’t run pick-and-roll, but in general, talent wins out, and I expect Dawn Staley to revamp her system to allow a player as offensively gifted as Paopao to flourish.
Of course, there are a couple teams that haven’t exactly addressed their weaknesses, even in that contender class. Notre Dame really needs another post player to fill the hole left by Lauren Ebo, but the most surprising inactive team has to be Iowa, right?
Chantel: Yeah, when Shateah Wetering entered the portal, I thought the Hawkeyes might be able to nab Lauren Ware in the event the South Dakotan felt like playing closer to home. But she opted for Texas A&M, and the Hawkeyes still don’t have that obvious Monika Czinano replacement. Stanford is never going to be a program that thrives in the portal, but between its three transfer portal departures and Haley Jones opting not to use her bonus year, the Cardinal are in a tough spot next season. And Duke definitely lost more than it gained in the portal.
If I’m looking at basketball as stocks, I’m buying LSU, UCLA and Ohio State (spreading my investments across conferences), and I’m selling Stanford and Iowa while holding Notre Dame and Louisville. You?
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Sabreena: I’m glad you brought up Louisville. Jeff Walz manages to get his teams deep in the postseason year after year, and the additions of Jayda Curry and Kiki Jefferson make me surprisingly bullish on the Cardinals, even without Van Lith. Another team that I’m buying is UNC. The Tar Heels bring in Indya Nivar, who had the second-best on-off differential (behind Cameron Brink) for Stanford last season, as well as Lexi Donarski, who was my favorite role player in the portal. Losing Kennedy Todd-Williams and Eva Hodgson will hurt, but the Tar Heels have replaced that spacing with Donarski and added an absolute killer at the lead guard, who should help Deja Kelly play off ball and improve her efficiency more next season.
Chantel: OK, so those are the teams that have most improved their stock. But when we’re looking at individual players who made moves in the transfer portal, who do you think we’ll see the biggest jump from during the 2023-24 season?
Sabreena: Any player who can shoot 3s and gets to play for Kenny Brooks is a dream scenario, so I’m looking forward to watching Matilda Ekh in the Virginia Tech offense. Destinee Wells is going to look great at Tennessee too. The Lady Vols need some playmaking to set up that frontcourt talent with Jordan Horston off to the WNBA, and Wells is an awesome passer.
I also can’t overstate how fun the Ohio State press is going to be with Taylor and Jacy Sheldon hounding opposing ballhandlers. I don’t know that Taylor’s stock is necessarily going to rise after winning ACC defensive player of the year and being a finalist for national defensive player of the year, but I couldn’t not mention what a wonderful fit that is going to be.
Celeste Taylor was Duke’s heart and identity in 2022-23, so if she doesn’t want to finish her college career in Durham, why would anyone else?@sabreenajm examines a cause for concern for the Blue Devils:https://t.co/cpabS5QO2h
— The Athletic WBB (@TheAthleticWBB) April 21, 2023
Chantel: We already mentioned Betts briefly, but her addition at UCLA is just an incredible long-term fit. I hate projecting even a year into the future, but can you imagine the Bruins in the 2025-26 season when Betts, Rice, Jones, Lina Sontag and Gabriela Jaquez are all seniors? Assuming Close can keep them all in Westwood, which is going to be the challenge for every coach, the Bruins are favorites for the 2026 national title. Easy.
Sabreena: And if we learned anything from the 2022-23 Tigers, it’s that sometimes these timelines can be expedited! The important thing is to keep telling your fanbase that you don’t want to get their hopes up and then massively overdeliver.
(Photo of Lauren Betts: John Todd / Getty Images)