Loyola WBB Tean In Full Revolt

[1972Shocker]

This link was originally posted by @Dave Stalwart on the Around The NCAA thread but I think it has enough relevance to WSU women's basketball to be posted here.

http://www.loyolaphoenix.com/2016/04/players-challenge-swoopes-conduct/

I thought we had problems with Jody but losing 10 of 13 players to disgruntlement plus one of the remaining 3 expect to leave due to graduation. That includes their 2 best players which are 2 of the better players in the Valley.

Not sure why this kind of thing seems to be so much more prevalent in women's basketball then it is in men's basketball. I'm sure at least part of it has to do with the difference in he female psyche vs the male psyche but a coach needs to be able to deal with that.

In any case, it will be interesting to see if Sheryl Swoopes wills survive this. Hard to see how she would. This kind of thing can just kill your recruiting and your program.

Maybe the other Valley coaches will get together and lift Swoopes onto their shoulders in a show of support.

[Kung Wu]

I wonder what percent of the players decrying "abuse" were raised by single mothers, and never had a male disciplinary figure in their life.

[Dave Stalwart]

I definitely have room to respect the difference between women and men in this type of stuff. It's important to address the fact that it's okay if they handle things differently. I think my red flag goes up when the exodus is the entire team rather than just a handful. In other words, if 3 girls got mad that the coach was mean and left, that's one thing, but it's hard to unite 10 different people in anything, let alone something as important to them as the game they love. If you've got a huge majority like that, I'm pretty sure the coach does have some self evaluation to do. I feel bad for them. When you step back and remember that they are young people who are devastated, disappointed, depressed, already broken by a situation to the point of bailing out, it kinda makes you feel bad for them. I liked what the one girl said, "You shouldn't be stressed out playing the game you love." My first reaction to that was that I thought she maybe needs to toughen up, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to arrive at the truth in her statement. Yes, you should WORK hard and be held accountable and pushed to your physical limits, but stressed out? hurt? I don't know... Being a guy who never played high level sports of any kind, it's an interesting subject for me. Especially, since our own team has apparently been going through similar things.

[ShockTalk]

This link was originally posted by @Dave Stalwart: on the Around The NCAA thread but I think it has enough relevance to WSU women's basketball to be posted here.

http://www.loyolaphoenix.com/2016/04/players-challenge-swoopes-conduct/

I thought we had problems with Jody but losing 10 of 13 players to disgruntlement plus one of the remaining 3 expect to leave due to graduation. That includes their 2 best players which are 2 of the better players in the Valley.

Not sure why this kind of thing seems to be so much more prevalent in women's basketball then it is in men's basketball. I'm sure at least part of it has to do with the difference in he female psyche vs the male psyche but a coach needs to be able to deal with that.

In any case, it will be interesting to see if Sheryl Swoopes wills survive this. Hard to see how she would. This kind of thing can just kill your recruiting and your program.

Maybe the other Valley coaches will get together and lift Swoopes onto their shoulders in a show of support.

I see what you did there.

[ShockTalk]

I definitely have room to respect the difference between women and men in this type of stuff. It's important to address the fact that it's okay if they handle things differently. I think my red flag goes up when the exodus is the entire team rather than just a handful. In other words, if 3 girls got mad that the coach was mean and left, that's one thing, but it's hard to unite 10 different people in anything, let alone something as important to them as the game they love. If you've got a huge majority like that, I'm pretty sure the coach does have some self evaluation to do. I feel bad for them. When you step back and remember that they are young people who are devastated, disappointed, depressed, already broken by a situation to the point of bailing out, it kinda makes you feel bad for them. I liked what the one girl said, "You shouldn't be stressed out playing the game you love." My first reaction to that was that I thought she maybe needs to toughen up, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to arrive at the truth in her statement. Yes, you should WORK hard and be held accountable and pushed to your physical limits, but stressed out? hurt? I don't know... Being a guy who never played high level sports of any kind, it's an interesting subject for me. Especially, since our own team has apparently been going through similar things.

If you are referencing WSU above, keep in mind that the whole team was at the meeting with fADES that was taped during the "1st round" of problems. You also had two very strong (and very talented) young women who held the team together. Upon their graduation, other keys players left.

[Dave Stalwart]

If you are referencing WSU above, keep in mind that the whole team was at the meeting with fADES that was taped during the "1st round" of problems. You also had two very strong (and very talented) young women who held the team together. Upon their graduation, other keys players left.

I actually wasn't. I know very little about the details of our situation. That number was arbitrary.

[oldtimewomen's hoopcoach]

I actually wasn't. I know very little about the details of our situation. That number was arbitrary.

The difference is other schools deal with this. WSU does or did not deal with it; and, if former greats Alex and Kelsey went public and just didn't move on gracefully, I know it would have been much uglier for WSU. But again, I doubt if anything would have happened. A no money sport = no concern for women's athletics at WSU. A super- star like Swoopes is not that uncommon. She was driven and her players not as much, and she drove them too hard, or harder with unusual tactics, which is typically getting into their personal lives to mold them into one type of student/athlete. No different than HCJA. Players can handle harsh coaching, just stay out of their personal lives. That is why you don't hear this from the men. The coaches don't delve into their personal relationships, social activity, other than harming themselves or the school. This old guy is not surprised.

[1972Shocker]

As you would anticipate Loyola has opened a formal investigation into it's Women's basketball program.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-loyola-sheryl-swoopes-transfers-spt-0416-20160415-story.html

Loyola finally getting some press in the big Chicago media market.

You would think that Loyola would need to move very quickly to resolve this situation. If they really do have 10 of 12 returning players leaving and 3 players signed from this past November (assuming they don't ask to be released from their LOI's) they will need to move rapidly to have much of a chance to field a team next year. The Spring signing period has already started and runs through May 18th although at this point the pickins are probably getting pretty slim.

OTOH, if an under-recruited player wants to go where playing time will be abundant then Loyola may be about as good as it gets.

Not sure if women's basketball is really worth all this drama. SIU went through this a few years back, then WSU has dealt with this recently and now Loyola. This is just doing wonders for the level of play in the Valley. Nothing like giving coach's of competing conferences prime fodder to use against you.

[shockmonster]

Competitively, NCAA Women's basketball is already a joke. Many of these coaches learn from their mentors. Pat Summit coached this way. Probably, Geno Auriema also coaches with a lot of aggression and success. If you win, nobody cares, but if you don't, your team will crucify you. I don't remember where Swoopes went to school, but she probably was pushed hard and they won. Few schools win but those who do win all the time. It's tough for a team to break into the Top 20. It seems to be the same teams every year.

Mistakes are made (push ups or sit ups not a good idea at half time and Lengths of practices need to be handled properly). Maybe, I'm wrong, but I think that the majority of women just don't like to be pushed to the limit (both mentally and physically) as men are willing to pushed.

3G has a culture where his players expect and demand him to push them. So far, Gregg's players have even been doing it to themselves.

[1972Shocker]

The difference is other schools deal with this. WSU does or did not deal with it; and, if former greats Alex and Kelsey went public and just didn't move on gracefully, I know it would have been much uglier for WSU. But again, I doubt if anything would have happened. A no money sport = no concern for women's athletics at WSU.

I think the key factor for the way the issues at WSU were handled is that ADES and SWABE were complicit in allowing the treatment (or perhaps mistreatment) of WSU players to continue and, in fact, essentially gave it their stamp of approval when they allowed Jody to hire Dana Eikenberg (who was the head coach at SIU when it hit the fan there) and then gave Jody Adams a big raise with guaranteed raises and much improved job security well after the players' concerns had been aired directly to ADES. That may have made it very difficult for President Bardo to terminate HCJA for cause without being slapped with a wrongful termination suit although he could have bit the bullet and bought Jody out for $500,000 if they had chosen that route. Neither option was particularly appealing. So they decided to give HCJA a reprieve and a second chance. If she gets her act together than perhaps that's acceptable. So far seems to be going okay on that front. No word of any Shocker players transferring out this year which is a good sign I guess.

ADES is now out of the picture and I suspect Interim ADDB, SWABE and HCJA have been put on notice that a repeat of that episode will not be acceptable.

[1972Shocker]

Competitively, NCAA Women's basketball is already a joke. Many of these coaches learn from their mentors. Pat Summit coached this way. Probably, Geno Auriema also coaches with a lot of aggression and success. If you win, nobody cares, but if you don't, your team will crucify you. I don't remember where Swoopes went to school, but she probably was pushed hard and they won. Few schools win but those who do win all the time. It's tough for a team to break into the Top 20. It seems to be the same teams every year.

Mistakes are made (push ups or sit ups not a good idea at half time and Lengths of practices need to be handled properly). Maybe, I'm wrong, but I think that the majority of women just don't like to be pushed to the limit (both mentally and physically) as men are willing to pushed.

3G has a culture where his players expect and demand him to push them. So far, Gregg's players have even been doing it to themselves.

I can't really speak for the Loyola players but I think the WSU women's players that went to ADES were plenty tough. I am assuming you listened to the audio of that 2012 meeting with ADES. There is a difference between pushing players to their physical limits and pushing them to ignore injuries and serious health conditions that in one case could have been life threatening. There is also a big difference between criticizing a basketball play and making ad hominem attacks on players. The one common thread I do see between the Loyola situation and the WSU situation is the complaints alleging that the coaches in question trying to control and manipulate the player's lives outside of basketball. In any case, I do not question the physical or mental toughness of the young ladies in the Shocker program during the period in question. In fact, I think that applies across the board to Shocker women athletes.

We have not had those kind of problems in our very successful Volleyball program, or in our successful track and field team, or in our very successful women's tennis team. We did have some issues with Judy Favor and the softball team some years back but nothing since then that I am aware of.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a tough, aggressive coach as long as you know where to draw the line. Some do. Some apparently don't The point being you can be a successful coach without crossing the line. I prefer a good, tough, no nonsense coach who has the total respect of his or her players.

[1972Shocker]

Competitively, NCAA Women's basketball is already a joke.

I do agree that the parity in Women's college basketball is not very good. The growing popularity of Volleyball and Soccer may make it that much more difficult for the parity in WBB to grow at a very rapid pace. Not sure what, if anything, can be done about it. The depth of the talent pool simply many not be enough for the parity we now see in the men's game to ever really develop.

Not totally sure what has happened to Valley women's basketball. During the last 3 years the Valley ranked 19th, 20th and 21st in conference RPI. In the 6 years prior to that the Valley was ranked between 8th and 11th. Replacing Creighton with Loyola has contributed some to that but that, in and of itself, doesn't account for that precipitous decline. Next year the Valley looks to be even weaker, especially if the implosion at Loyola proves to be as bad as it appears it might be.

[shockmonster]

No. I really don't remember too much regarding the misdeeds of JA.

My statement really is that the women's game is a real mess. Even during WSU's best year a couple of years ago, there was such a wide competitive gap between us and UCONN. I really am not trying to create anything here because I don't listen or watch women's basketball unless it has anything to do with WSU. To me, it has a long way to go to create a good product for the masses. It seems like it is a product for the tastes of a few.

One thing I will add is that JA didn't learn how to coach in a vacuum. I would wager that Pat Summit was sometimes hated by her players (just as Bobby Knight's players did) and was as tough as could be. The women just seem to have more problems in this area than men do. This happens rarely in men's basketball but you hear about this every year with the women. I'll admit that I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

[flyingMoose]

I don't remember where Swoopes went to school, but she probably was pushed hard and they won.

Texas Tech, where she was coached by Marsha Sharp. The Lady (Red) Raiders won the NCAA Championship in 1993, Swoopes' senior year. Coach Sharp continually had competitive teams made up of ladies from small towns in west Texas. (At least, that is the way I remember the rosters.)

[oldtimewomen's hoopcoach]

No. I really don't remember too much regarding the misdeeds of JA.

My statement really is that the women's game is a real mess. Even during WSU's best year a couple of years ago, there was such a wide competitive gap between us and UCONN. I really am not trying to create anything here because I don't listen or watch women's basketball unless it has anything to do with WSU. To me, it has a long way to go to create a good product for the masses. It seems like it is a product for the tastes of a few.

One thing I will add is that JA didn't learn how to coach in a vacuum. I would wager that Pat Summit was sometimes hated by her players (just as Bobby Knight's players did) and was as tough as could be. The women just seem to have more problems in this area than men do. This happens rarely in men's basketball but you hear about this every year with the women. I'll admit that I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

Again, women want to be pushed and driven like the men; they also want to be treated like the men in their personal lives. I know when the WSU men go on a tournament trip to the Bahamas or elsewhere they have some time to enjoy and are not monitored every minute of the day. The WSU women can barely breathe without permission. They are completely and totally controlled, but expected to blossom into mature women and be an important factor in the community as HCJA states in her PR statements. It doesn't set well with very good student/athletes, like we had for a few years. I don't know if it will every change, just the reality of it all.