i guess my beef is....

[molly jabali]

...not that i don't like jane...i've said before that she is probably a really nice person. i have a friend on a wsu coaching staff who really likes her, and sings her praises. my beef is:

HOW HARD WOULD IT BE TO HAVE A GREAT TEAM IN THIS LEAGUE???

answer...not that hard at all...IF dynamic coaching was applied to this program.

i'm gonna try NOT to beat a dead horse this year, but i think wsu could be, in the right situation, VERY good.

[SubGod22]

Considering no team in the Valley has been GREAT since Styles it must be tougher than you think.

Parity will slowly start to spread through womens basketball. More and more young ladies are playing the game and getting better and that will help spread talent around. You're starting to see sme of this but it takes time.

Womens basketball at WSU has never been very good. I'm not completely sold that Jane can/will get the job done. I do like the team we have and the young players that are here. There's potential to be a good team if they can get it together. The talent is there.

[Cdizzle]

I maintain that they should have signed a contract with Heights High, as a developmental team.

[The Mad Hatter]

The fact is that WSU has never been good at women's basketball and it seems unlikely that we could get a coach with a better track record than Jane has over the course of her whole career. Even if a coach is doing poorly, it is unwise for an AD to fire that coach unless they know they can get someone better.

Having heard the assistants before games previous years, I believe that the assistants that left were a big part of the problem. Numerous times I heard the scouting report from the assistant, and then watched the game and it was evident that the scouting report was wrong. You can't blame a head coach for making game plans on bad scouting reports. You can blame Jane for being too loyal with those assistants, but I will be interested to see what the new assistants can do (along with Erika, who has done a good job with recruiting and whom I always considered the most competent of the initial group).

[1972Shocker]

We are so far away from being a Great team on a national scale it is not even worth discussing. As Sub stated, parity in women's basketball is at least a generation (maybe 2) behind the men's game. Right now the traditional powers dominate.

However, there is no reason WSU can not field a team that can consistently compete for MVC Championships and post season appearances in the NIT and the occassional NCAA appearance.

That's what we should shoot for over the next 10 years.

Unfortunately, we don't have any real good match ups at home in the non-con schedule to get a real good feel for how good or bad we are. The non-con schedule away from Koch Arena is our only reliable measuring stick. If we can at least be competitive with that part of the schedule than we might have shot of finishing a couple spots higher than our 9th place preseason slot.

The next 4 games should give us a lot better feel for where this year's team really is, good or bad.

The Texas-San Antoinio game should be a good step up from what we saw in the opener vs Texas Southern, plus it is on the road where Jane's teams have not done well in the past. This is a winnable game for the Shocks, but if they play like they did against Texas Southern they will lose.

A win would also be very helpful for the team's confidence going into the Paradise Jam Tournament vs Texas A&M, Indiana and Wake Forest.

We will know a lot more about this year's team come 10 days from now.

Good Luck, Ladies! Time to show us what you've got.

:goshocks: