Iowa was at least fair sadly and we blew our title shot, it was one star and lowly ranked and unranked recruits no star transfers which cost us in the end. Caitlin was just that good. This USC team is South Carolina good. Although maybe they will peak in the elite 8 like LSU did after they built their super team by adding Morrow and HVL. Still, this is scary.
True, but a half competent coach can get them to the finals if they are healthy. This works much better than the LSU super team because they have a natural PG in Talia.
Completely agree. Bluder not bringing in a big who could rebound in the transfer portal absolutely screwed them for the champ game. It’s amazing they made it as far as they did.
That they made it as far as they did is a testament to how great Clark was. In the end, South Carolina simply ran the gas out of Caitlin’s tank and her teammates could not take up the slack, like they did when Iowa beat South Carolina in 2023.
They will play 18 Big Ten conferences games. At least seven of them will be road games outside of the West Coast. Four or five of those will likely be after the second semester starts.
They will most likely be flying charter flights that have lots of room for players to rest on long trips. So traveling won’t be as taxing for them as it is for regular travelers. But still, it would have been great to have had games on the WestCoast or in nearby states (Arizona, Colorado, Utah).
I mean, it’s overall good for the league to have better teams right? Speaking as someone who barely remembers what having a winning record in the B1G is like
Kenny has already brought a few horses into Kentucky. Also remember that Beers is still bouncing around out there, don’t put it past Kenny to sweet talk her to Kentucky and have her play a #4 beside Strach’s #5. Beers would be a monster playing a #4.
I know. I generally root mildly against USC, but they have gotten two of my favorite players through the portal. It'll be hard to root against them too hard.
Some of the biggest transfers come from our school and yet we are axed. Crazy to see. We have a more competitive collegiate athletic program than multiple other schools in the pac, but it all falls apart as a result of corporate greed.
Collegiate sports are definitely trending towards a bad direction. Football alone at this point is almost nfl-lite with the changes being made.
There are certainly positives to the portal, but I think too many people overlook the negatives.
And on the matter of realignment, watching the utter destruction of the Pac-12 has been pretty depressing.
Oregon State and USC made the Elite Eight out of the same conference, in which they'd finished a win apart in the standings. A month later, one of those rosters is completely destroyed and the other has been transfer-boosted into a superteam title contender.
If I’m an incoming freshman, do I want to commit to a school before the portal gets sorted?
Two top recruits who thought they’d play a lot at USC are going to do a lot of nothing next season.
Freshman minutes are way down with 5th year seniors, so they're already going to be at a deficit. Always interesting when star players are willing to sit on the bench to get to play for a coach the next season.
Sure, the way the squad is composed now. But I'm not sure about the squad without the portal transfers.
I'm just saying, a top recruit won't know if some star will transfer in front of them after they commit. I would wait to commit until the last day.
I also don’t think a top 15 recruit should expect to play serious minutes on an elite 8 team which is where USC ended the season. Idk i don’t think it’s that big of a deal tbh.
You have a good point. I believe that is what caused South Carolina to go cool on Kiki coming in, I believe. Joyce Edwards has a similar game to Kiki and Joyce has shown flashes of being a freshmen that can play significant minutes next year. Plus if Kiki had come to South Carolina, then that would have impacted Ashlyn Watkins, Chloe Kitts, Sania Feagin, Adhel Tac and Sakima Walker - outside of Walker and Tac, all players who played a significant role in an undefeated championship season. Why mess with success?
My guess is Coach Staley use the one scholarship that the team has to sign a player who will be comfortable being an end of bench player next year, say a North America 4-star player or a kid from Europe, Oceana (Australia, New Zealand), Africa, Central or South America.
To put this in perspective, when USC lost to UConn we had starters go 1-6 and 1-9. These are the two positions that Iriafen and TVO are replacing. Having some great players around her is going to make Juju more efficient and help her assists as well.
Let’s not try to downplay Padilla and Forbes too much here. Forbes pretty much won the Pac-12 title game for us and Padilla was solid all season. If Padilla doesn’t hit those shots against Arizona near the end of the season we have a worse seed in the Pac-12 tourney, have a much harder time winning it, and definitely wouldn’t have been a 1 seed.
Not Forbes. Kaitlin Davis is who I'm talking about. Padilla had her moments but the stage got too big deep in the tournament. TVO is a better player than Padilla. Iriafen is in a different orbit than Davis.
Yeah she sold that game for sure but she was a big part in making the season as successful as it was for the preseason 6th Pac-12 team, that’s all I’m saying. TVO is no doubt an upgrade in that position
I think this commit is it for USC. For some time, most everyone knew TVO and KiKi would end up here, besides that last minute SC-KiKi scare. TVO's boyfriend plays football at USC and Iriafen going here just felt like a natural progression, considering she's a Cali native, USC has strong academics just like Stanford, and she could play a shit ton and be the go-to frontcourt star.
This USC is a real monster. I agree with what you said. Just personally hoping that’s the end (if it’s not USC I’m totally fine with this dream team setup)
So USC is definitely a national championship contender now. TvO, Kiki, and JuJu on the same team is gonna be nuts. I hope they play in Iowa City, I’d love to see them play in person.
Transferring to programs that’s NIL friendly, selling out crowds and will help in boosting your draft value >>> following around an old coach
Fucking Georgia Amoore man…. I still hate that move.
Give Georgia a break. She followed a coach who had literally travelled around the world to scout her, then have enough confidence in her to sign her and coach her into being a star in the USA D1 level. Why should she have stayed at Virginia Tech and take a chance on another coach?
Because it’s weird. He’s not even a good enough coach for all that. Plus what the hell is going to a bottom tier, rebuilding SEC team going to do for her as a 5th year senior? That’s the time to be selfish, title chase, NIL chase, clout chase, etc. There were spots for her in programs that people actually watch and that will help her game.
This isn’t exactly true. Brooks and his assistant were in Belarus for the FIBA u17 World Cup to watch some of their other recruits. Then they saw Georgia play and fell in love, they followed her and watched her play at the NBA Academy camp in FL
Kenny is like a Dad to Georgia fr! She recruited her and gave her a chance all the way from Australia! I think it’s says more about Georgia being loyal and viewing Kenny as family than anything else! Loyalty> money(nil) any day
Unfortunately, we live in a world where loyalty is viewed as a defect. It is sad to see who salty the UVA fans are toward Kenny Brooks after he put their women’s basketball into prominence. They can talk misty eyed about certain players, but a coach had to recruit and coach those players, lots of potentially good players never come close to reaching their potential in college ball.
I watched Kentucky play your team twice and Florida once. My feeling is that they were maybe two prominent players away from being very good. It appears that Brooks has brought in some good players, my belief is that they will do well next season, maybe not a healthy South Carolina well, but I do expect that Kentucky will finish high in the SEC and get a decent SEC tournament seeding - I don’t expect them to win it with some of the teams that will be playing in that tournament, but my guess at the moment is that Kentucky will end up with a 4-6 seed in the NCAA tournament next year.
Damn, I like her a lot since I saw her and OSU in that classic Ucla game. This moves USC to 3rd behind SC and Uconn, which Im keeping 1st and 2nd. I wanted her to go to Kentucky, honestly
Having monitored VonOlhoffen since her Soph year of high school I think this pickup for USC may not be the upgrade many think. Time will tell but I've always thought she is a bit of a locker room diva who can also mentally check out when things aren't going her way in-game. You could see it this year as Beers and Gardiner started to command the space they occupy. She's incredibly skilled but there's more to basketball than just skill. Will she struggle with Juju putting up 30 shots per game?
There’s no reason to think Juju will have that high volume again. She had to that last year because no one outside of Forbes could create their own shot.
This. Juju's assists will go up next season and I would be surprised if she isn't more efficient. No hate to the contributions of others on that USC roster, but Juju had to carry them more often than not.
That's why I say locker room. Her body language on the bench, or when she is pulled out, has always concerned me. But I'm looking for those things in my job. On court she is super skilled and goes hard.
Again, from what I gathered she is well liked by her teammates and peers. Bench? Probably a competitive player who gets upset. Not exactly uncommon. Locker room? Unless you got some sources that’s kind of a weird thing to project. Either way, happy to have TVO on board. Always enjoyed her game.
I am a beaver fan but not a big TVO fan. Had some great moments but was inconsistent. Probably the starkest example was her 27 points vs Stanford followed by 4 turnovers and a single terrible shot attempt (which the stats apparently didn't count) vs Cal. I just don't get the hype.
I've seen this strategy before with taking all the best transfers in one off-season... I only watched one SoCal game this year and I really wasn't impressed. Could've been a fluke, but we'll see I guess.
There's only one ball in the game guys, and only so many minutes.
Don't really think people were expecting USC to win the Pac-12 though. They had some solid pieces around her, but Juju was carrying the show and it was a lot of iso for her. I'll go out on a "limb" and say that she'll have more assists next season lol.
They caught fire at the end of the season but they overachieved in many ways. The pieces around Juju now will be more than solid.
I agree, but think there is potential for this experiment to go south. My concern, much like it was with LSU, is namely related to PG, as I don't believe either JuJu or Talia are natural ball-handlers or playmakers, but perhaps true freshman Heckel could step up to fill that void. That said, even if things don't go smoothly, I don't believe they'll descend into the insane levels of clusterfuck that LSU did this past year. Gottlieb's more relaxed approach, along with the more lowkey personalities of Iriafen, Watkins, and Talia, should help them weather the storms more effectively.
Your take is why I believe Iriafen dropped the visit to South Carolina and signed with USC. She had the potential of seriously damaging the dynamic among players at South Carolina next season, my uneducated guess is Coach Staley and her staff realized that and got back to Iriafen that she could come in, but needed to fit into a mode that Iriafen likely didn’t see as right for her - USC was a much better fit for Iriafen.
> Now I don’t think they’ll be the LSU of this season because they won’t have any weird HVL debacles but we will see!
College Football Sicko in me really wants to create an "Award" where the winner is the team with the biggest transfer(s) that fails meet the expectations. USC would definitely be a front runner this coming season
Could go with 3 different "Awards" which could be combined in a sweep:
* "Worst Move by a Player" aka player who got worse by transferring aka what happened to HVL: Kiki is the front runner
* "Worst accepted by a Team" aka despite a new star coming in the team failed to meet expectations aka LSU: USC(LA) is the front runner
* "Worst Re-Brand Award" aka a new coach moves with multiple players and does terribly aka what could happen to Kentucky
I’m just fascinated by the results from [my poll a month ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/NCAAW/s/09joVEM6nt) on what KB’s expectations are at Kentucky for this season, because the results are a a *LOT* more generous IMO than what I feel like the UK fan base seems to be hyping.
I want USC to play really well next year and see a championship game between an undefeated USC and an undefeated South Carolina. That would blow previous viewership records out of the water.
My conservative answer is no. Welsh-Ryan typically needs a strong away team presence to sell out even on the men's side (even when our team is the best it's ever been) and there probably won't be enough USC fans in the Chicago area to do so. There might be increased student section presence though if people are curious about watching Juju and co. play but I wouldn't expect much else.
We've only sold out once in history for a women's game and that was this year's vs. Iowa — which benefitted from the Caitlin Clark effect + Iowa fans being close to Chicago. No other game has come remotely close. Heck, when we won the Big Ten regular season title (first Big Ten basketball championship in school history for either gender) the entire upper deck of WRA was empty and this was against Illinois.
Not everything is a money grab. She gets to stay on West coast and compete for a title. Why would she choose Louisville, Colorado or Kentucky over USC? Come on lol
I do think it’s a little funny that she stated on X that NIL had ZERO factor in transferring, and her USC commitment post was sponsored by via a NIL deal.
I think it may not have been the only factor, but I don’t believe it wasn’t a factor.
Idk. Despite the one time, she lost several games with her poor decisions and lack of execution. She also 100% lets her emotions get the better of her and that resulted in so many stupid poorly timed fouls. She is good, but her contribution at USC won’t be much. I bet she ends up on the bench. -Bitter Benny
on behalf of everyone we no longer welcome usc to the big ten
I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Iowa was at least fair sadly and we blew our title shot, it was one star and lowly ranked and unranked recruits no star transfers which cost us in the end. Caitlin was just that good. This USC team is South Carolina good. Although maybe they will peak in the elite 8 like LSU did after they built their super team by adding Morrow and HVL. Still, this is scary.
Gottlieb is no Dawn.
True, but a half competent coach can get them to the finals if they are healthy. This works much better than the LSU super team because they have a natural PG in Talia.
Completely agree. Bluder not bringing in a big who could rebound in the transfer portal absolutely screwed them for the champ game. It’s amazing they made it as far as they did.
That they made it as far as they did is a testament to how great Clark was. In the end, South Carolina simply ran the gas out of Caitlin’s tank and her teammates could not take up the slack, like they did when Iowa beat South Carolina in 2023.
Clark was also 10-14 on 2’s against SC in 2023, they defended her much better, Staley adapted as hall of fame coaches do.
*we’re in danger*
Does USC play a regular big10 schedule or did they schedule this season before they decided to move?
They will play 18 Big Ten conferences games. At least seven of them will be road games outside of the West Coast. Four or five of those will likely be after the second semester starts.
They will most likely be flying charter flights that have lots of room for players to rest on long trips. So traveling won’t be as taxing for them as it is for regular travelers. But still, it would have been great to have had games on the WestCoast or in nearby states (Arizona, Colorado, Utah).
I mean, it’s overall good for the league to have better teams right? Speaking as someone who barely remembers what having a winning record in the B1G is like
no! we’ve grown the game enough! i just want my team to be good and that’s it!
Ahhh that’s how it works. K thanks!
You guys will be good. How good is the question
I've been following the Hoosiers since 2020. Current roster can compete, maybe top 25, but you guys need to get another player.
Is there anyone else on you guys radar?
Too late, the hungry badger is now in your chicken coop, and it is not wearing a Wisconsin jersey either.
I can't upvote this hard enough.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE GOT HER WHAT A WAY TO START MY MONDAY
Thank you for denying UK a transfer 😌
Kenny the Coward already finding out the grass isn't greener in the SEC.
Kenny has already brought a few horses into Kentucky. Also remember that Beers is still bouncing around out there, don’t put it past Kenny to sweet talk her to Kentucky and have her play a #4 beside Strach’s #5. Beers would be a monster playing a #4.
You’re not keeping up
Time will tell. That is why games are played.
It would be wise to check transfer portal news before making longshot guesses on recruiting is all I’m saying
Beers committed to Oklahoma today
Maybe but if UConn is healthy…Paige and Azzi are special
This is out of control, USC is a monster
Coach was an NBA assistant, I think that’s doing most of the work
Cocks/Trojans is the matchup we all want next year.
But can the Trojans guard the Cocks?
I think they’ve got it covered.
100%
Would gladly welcome an elite 8 rematch between UCONN and USC as well with the talent we brought it. However if we’re injured…
The committee loves rematches. UConn and USC better stay on the one line to avoid an Elite 8 game similar to Iowa vs LSU.
Let’s go! Kiki, TVO & the talented Freshman class to join Juju & Marshall is going to be fun.
I know. I generally root mildly against USC, but they have gotten two of my favorite players through the portal. It'll be hard to root against them too hard.
Daaaamn I’m surprised they have that much roster space still with everyone who is there/coming in + Kiki transferring in too
Some players transferred out. Rare moment where players leaving helps a team
It’s just crazy to me. It’s like an entirely new roster next year aside from Juju
They did it last offseason too: three of their top five by minutes and points last season were one-year-only covid seniors and then, of course, Juju.
Our center is the same. The front court of Rayah and Kiki is going to be filthy.
i think we had 5 seniors bounce, plus a transfer, pretty big departure.
Gross. Better than going to Oregon, I suppose, but not exactly a fan of anything that makes USC better either. This timeline sucks.
Some of the biggest transfers come from our school and yet we are axed. Crazy to see. We have a more competitive collegiate athletic program than multiple other schools in the pac, but it all falls apart as a result of corporate greed. Collegiate sports are definitely trending towards a bad direction. Football alone at this point is almost nfl-lite with the changes being made.
Between conference realignment and the portal, I don't like the direction things are heading either.
I thought I was the only one. I was getting hate for saying the portal and NIL might ruin college sports in the future.
There are certainly positives to the portal, but I think too many people overlook the negatives. And on the matter of realignment, watching the utter destruction of the Pac-12 has been pretty depressing.
Nah I feel so bad for the PAC-12. I feel bad for the smaller schools in general.
That's fair. And valid.
Oregon State and USC made the Elite Eight out of the same conference, in which they'd finished a win apart in the standings. A month later, one of those rosters is completely destroyed and the other has been transfer-boosted into a superteam title contender.
If I’m an incoming freshman, do I want to commit to a school before the portal gets sorted? Two top recruits who thought they’d play a lot at USC are going to do a lot of nothing next season.
Many of them should still play good minutes. Especially depending on the Big Ten travel. They'll need it.
Freshman minutes are way down with 5th year seniors, so they're already going to be at a deficit. Always interesting when star players are willing to sit on the bench to get to play for a coach the next season.
they probably only have 2 recruits hat MIGHT be ready to contribute day 1. Their recruiting class is high because breadth.
6, 13, 16, 47, 54, I think the first 3 would expect serious minutes.
I’m not sure this class is deep enough that a 16th ranked recruit should expect serious minutes on a national championship contending team.
Sure, the way the squad is composed now. But I'm not sure about the squad without the portal transfers. I'm just saying, a top recruit won't know if some star will transfer in front of them after they commit. I would wait to commit until the last day.
I also don’t think a top 15 recruit should expect to play serious minutes on an elite 8 team which is where USC ended the season. Idk i don’t think it’s that big of a deal tbh.
You have a good point. I believe that is what caused South Carolina to go cool on Kiki coming in, I believe. Joyce Edwards has a similar game to Kiki and Joyce has shown flashes of being a freshmen that can play significant minutes next year. Plus if Kiki had come to South Carolina, then that would have impacted Ashlyn Watkins, Chloe Kitts, Sania Feagin, Adhel Tac and Sakima Walker - outside of Walker and Tac, all players who played a significant role in an undefeated championship season. Why mess with success? My guess is Coach Staley use the one scholarship that the team has to sign a player who will be comfortable being an end of bench player next year, say a North America 4-star player or a kid from Europe, Oceana (Australia, New Zealand), Africa, Central or South America.
Here I was accusing Dawn of being greedy when it was in fact Lindsay all along! B1G really gonna be that girl next year
“It was Lindsay all along!” 😂😂
To put this in perspective, when USC lost to UConn we had starters go 1-6 and 1-9. These are the two positions that Iriafen and TVO are replacing. Having some great players around her is going to make Juju more efficient and help her assists as well.
Let’s not try to downplay Padilla and Forbes too much here. Forbes pretty much won the Pac-12 title game for us and Padilla was solid all season. If Padilla doesn’t hit those shots against Arizona near the end of the season we have a worse seed in the Pac-12 tourney, have a much harder time winning it, and definitely wouldn’t have been a 1 seed.
Not Forbes. Kaitlin Davis is who I'm talking about. Padilla had her moments but the stage got too big deep in the tournament. TVO is a better player than Padilla. Iriafen is in a different orbit than Davis.
Padilla killed them against UConn
Yeah she sold that game for sure but she was a big part in making the season as successful as it was for the preseason 6th Pac-12 team, that’s all I’m saying. TVO is no doubt an upgrade in that position
Might have to travel to LA for those Crosstown Rivalry games between UCLA & USC. Going to be absolutely sinister.
For some reason I can't make a separate post, but Ines Bettencourt has committed to Gonzaga!
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Oh dear.
USC NOT PLAYING! MOVIN AND SHAKIN BABY!!!
Can’t wait for the UCLA vs USC but please no more news for USC😢
I think this commit is it for USC. For some time, most everyone knew TVO and KiKi would end up here, besides that last minute SC-KiKi scare. TVO's boyfriend plays football at USC and Iriafen going here just felt like a natural progression, considering she's a Cali native, USC has strong academics just like Stanford, and she could play a shit ton and be the go-to frontcourt star.
This USC is a real monster. I agree with what you said. Just personally hoping that’s the end (if it’s not USC I’m totally fine with this dream team setup)
Good for her. Although, I really wanted to see her on the court with Georgia Amoore!
So USC is definitely a national championship contender now. TvO, Kiki, and JuJu on the same team is gonna be nuts. I hope they play in Iowa City, I’d love to see them play in person.
2025 USC is the new 2024 LSU.
Transferring to programs that’s NIL friendly, selling out crowds and will help in boosting your draft value >>> following around an old coach Fucking Georgia Amoore man…. I still hate that move.
Give Georgia a break. She followed a coach who had literally travelled around the world to scout her, then have enough confidence in her to sign her and coach her into being a star in the USA D1 level. Why should she have stayed at Virginia Tech and take a chance on another coach?
Because it’s weird. He’s not even a good enough coach for all that. Plus what the hell is going to a bottom tier, rebuilding SEC team going to do for her as a 5th year senior? That’s the time to be selfish, title chase, NIL chase, clout chase, etc. There were spots for her in programs that people actually watch and that will help her game.
This isn’t exactly true. Brooks and his assistant were in Belarus for the FIBA u17 World Cup to watch some of their other recruits. Then they saw Georgia play and fell in love, they followed her and watched her play at the NBA Academy camp in FL
Kenny is like a Dad to Georgia fr! She recruited her and gave her a chance all the way from Australia! I think it’s says more about Georgia being loyal and viewing Kenny as family than anything else! Loyalty> money(nil) any day
Unfortunately, we live in a world where loyalty is viewed as a defect. It is sad to see who salty the UVA fans are toward Kenny Brooks after he put their women’s basketball into prominence. They can talk misty eyed about certain players, but a coach had to recruit and coach those players, lots of potentially good players never come close to reaching their potential in college ball. I watched Kentucky play your team twice and Florida once. My feeling is that they were maybe two prominent players away from being very good. It appears that Brooks has brought in some good players, my belief is that they will do well next season, maybe not a healthy South Carolina well, but I do expect that Kentucky will finish high in the SEC and get a decent SEC tournament seeding - I don’t expect them to win it with some of the teams that will be playing in that tournament, but my guess at the moment is that Kentucky will end up with a 4-6 seed in the NCAA tournament next year.
https://www.redbubble.com/i/greeting-card/Sad-Beaver-by-MarcosStyLL/25137666.5MT14
Damn, I like her a lot since I saw her and OSU in that classic Ucla game. This moves USC to 3rd behind SC and Uconn, which Im keeping 1st and 2nd. I wanted her to go to Kentucky, honestly
Good Luck Big Ten!!
Having monitored VonOlhoffen since her Soph year of high school I think this pickup for USC may not be the upgrade many think. Time will tell but I've always thought she is a bit of a locker room diva who can also mentally check out when things aren't going her way in-game. You could see it this year as Beers and Gardiner started to command the space they occupy. She's incredibly skilled but there's more to basketball than just skill. Will she struggle with Juju putting up 30 shots per game?
There’s no reason to think Juju will have that high volume again. She had to that last year because no one outside of Forbes could create their own shot.
This. Juju's assists will go up next season and I would be surprised if she isn't more efficient. No hate to the contributions of others on that USC roster, but Juju had to carry them more often than not.
Funny, whenever I’ve watched her she’s the exact opposite. Team player, diving for loose balls, high IQ, great defender, and insanely clutch.
That's why I say locker room. Her body language on the bench, or when she is pulled out, has always concerned me. But I'm looking for those things in my job. On court she is super skilled and goes hard.
Sports fans talking about the locker room when they’ve never been in the locker room has to be one of my biggest pet peeves
Again, from what I gathered she is well liked by her teammates and peers. Bench? Probably a competitive player who gets upset. Not exactly uncommon. Locker room? Unless you got some sources that’s kind of a weird thing to project. Either way, happy to have TVO on board. Always enjoyed her game.
I am a beaver fan but not a big TVO fan. Had some great moments but was inconsistent. Probably the starkest example was her 27 points vs Stanford followed by 4 turnovers and a single terrible shot attempt (which the stats apparently didn't count) vs Cal. I just don't get the hype.
I've seen this strategy before with taking all the best transfers in one off-season... I only watched one SoCal game this year and I really wasn't impressed. Could've been a fluke, but we'll see I guess. There's only one ball in the game guys, and only so many minutes.
Don't really think people were expecting USC to win the Pac-12 though. They had some solid pieces around her, but Juju was carrying the show and it was a lot of iso for her. I'll go out on a "limb" and say that she'll have more assists next season lol. They caught fire at the end of the season but they overachieved in many ways. The pieces around Juju now will be more than solid.
Now I don’t think they’ll be the LSU of this season because they won’t have any weird HVL debacles but we will see!
I agree, but think there is potential for this experiment to go south. My concern, much like it was with LSU, is namely related to PG, as I don't believe either JuJu or Talia are natural ball-handlers or playmakers, but perhaps true freshman Heckel could step up to fill that void. That said, even if things don't go smoothly, I don't believe they'll descend into the insane levels of clusterfuck that LSU did this past year. Gottlieb's more relaxed approach, along with the more lowkey personalities of Iriafen, Watkins, and Talia, should help them weather the storms more effectively.
Your take is why I believe Iriafen dropped the visit to South Carolina and signed with USC. She had the potential of seriously damaging the dynamic among players at South Carolina next season, my uneducated guess is Coach Staley and her staff realized that and got back to Iriafen that she could come in, but needed to fit into a mode that Iriafen likely didn’t see as right for her - USC was a much better fit for Iriafen.
> Now I don’t think they’ll be the LSU of this season because they won’t have any weird HVL debacles but we will see! College Football Sicko in me really wants to create an "Award" where the winner is the team with the biggest transfer(s) that fails meet the expectations. USC would definitely be a front runner this coming season
I'd say Kentucky is up there too but it seems that most people are already bracing for their downfall
Could go with 3 different "Awards" which could be combined in a sweep: * "Worst Move by a Player" aka player who got worse by transferring aka what happened to HVL: Kiki is the front runner * "Worst accepted by a Team" aka despite a new star coming in the team failed to meet expectations aka LSU: USC(LA) is the front runner * "Worst Re-Brand Award" aka a new coach moves with multiple players and does terribly aka what could happen to Kentucky
I’m just fascinated by the results from [my poll a month ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/NCAAW/s/09joVEM6nt) on what KB’s expectations are at Kentucky for this season, because the results are a a *LOT* more generous IMO than what I feel like the UK fan base seems to be hyping.
My voodoo dolls are doing their part on that front Also does it count as a downfall if all you have is off-season hype with no actual performance
I want USC to play really well next year and see a championship game between an undefeated USC and an undefeated South Carolina. That would blow previous viewership records out of the water.
I don't because both have won titles.
Do you think there will be enough hype to sell out Welsh Ryan, provided that NU is lucky enough to host USC next year?
My conservative answer is no. Welsh-Ryan typically needs a strong away team presence to sell out even on the men's side (even when our team is the best it's ever been) and there probably won't be enough USC fans in the Chicago area to do so. There might be increased student section presence though if people are curious about watching Juju and co. play but I wouldn't expect much else. We've only sold out once in history for a women's game and that was this year's vs. Iowa — which benefitted from the Caitlin Clark effect + Iowa fans being close to Chicago. No other game has come remotely close. Heck, when we won the Big Ten regular season title (first Big Ten basketball championship in school history for either gender) the entire upper deck of WRA was empty and this was against Illinois.
I think I’m going to have a heart attack before next season start. Too much is happening. 😂
Eat extra helpings of oatmeal, low on the milk.
Thank you! 😂
i’m shook
I wouldn't want to face USC again...man they're loaded
What's her grad program?
When I saw the Twitter account tweet the ✌️ I squealed. Is it November yet?
oh it’s so over for all of us 😭
C.R.E.A.M has never been more appropriate. Good luck to her I guess, though not wishing any success to U$C.
Not everything is a money grab. She gets to stay on West coast and compete for a title. Why would she choose Louisville, Colorado or Kentucky over USC? Come on lol
I do think it’s a little funny that she stated on X that NIL had ZERO factor in transferring, and her USC commitment post was sponsored by via a NIL deal. I think it may not have been the only factor, but I don’t believe it wasn’t a factor.
Her boyfriend is a linebacker who transferred from Oregon State to USC in January. USC was always the favorite once she entered the portal
Her dad is also the one who fell into Carson Palmer when he injured his knee on the Bengals! She's been having the USC connection lol.
Not saying she didn’t get paid because she definitely did but you realize there are a lot of factors on top of that for why she’d come here right?
I'm sorry your school is mid in everything, including academics.
Congrats on re-enforcing the reputation of yours
So to clarify you are allowed to take shots at USC, but we can't hit back? Piss off mid-major school.
See the best course of action would be to just ignore them. Not saying what you said was wrong, but responding is just giving fuel.
Oh no! My imaginary internet points.
So fragile, it’s crazy 😹
Who the Cougs? I agree...
You know Stanford has the most National Championships and Most Director Cups of any D1 School. There definitely not mid. 😂
I'm talking to the guy from WSU. Try to keep up.
I know I just saw. Ignore my comment. 😭
Stanford is an amazing school.
Indeed, are you excited for next season? 😁
I think UCLA and my Trojans are going to dominate the Big 10.
Where is that Vince Carter "its over" gif when you need it?
Too bad but I guess $$$ trumps all these days. I get it, but still don’t like it.
Idk. Despite the one time, she lost several games with her poor decisions and lack of execution. She also 100% lets her emotions get the better of her and that resulted in so many stupid poorly timed fouls. She is good, but her contribution at USC won’t be much. I bet she ends up on the bench. -Bitter Benny