Women's BB in the Big Ten.

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ruppertflywheel

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other then Ohio State is pretty bad. Watching the Lady Gopher's this afternoon drop a two pointer to the Illini Pam Borton has absolutely no one on that team other then China Antoine; the
little point guard. You really have to question her coaching ability after looking at seniors McCoy, Milan, Ohm, and Harper. Zoe Harper had seven traveling violations. I felt like I was watching 6th and 7th graders play. Unreal.
 

If you're not five feet tall you can't ride the roller coaster.
 

Pam Borton

ruppertflywheel said:
other then Ohio State is pretty bad. Watching the Lady Gopher's this afternoon drop a two pointer to the Illini Pam Borton has absolutely no one on that team other then China Antoine; the
little point guard. You really have to question her coaching ability after looking at seniors McCoy, Milan, Ohm, and Harper. Zoe Harper had seven traveling violations. I felt like I was watching 6th and 7th graders play. Unreal.
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A friend of mine who follows women's basketball told me that Pam destroyed a very successful program at Vermont just the way she is slowly destroying Minnesota. Didn't Voelz hire her just as Maturi was taking over? And didn't Maturi just give her an extension and a raise?
 

It's been a tough season for the women's team considering they had a logical shot making a run 3rd place finish on paper before the season. I don't know what went wrong. Ellis-Milan looked like she was ready to carry the load in the post and Buford one of the better wings in the conference. Ohm has struggled, Mastey from Becker is getting DNPs, and McCoy has been shaky at times too.
 

akgopher said:
It's been a tough season for the women's team considering they had a logical shot making a run 3rd place finish on paper before the season. I don't know what went wrong. Ellis-Milan looked like she was ready to carry the load in the post and Buford one of the better wings in the conference. Ohm has struggled, Mastey from Becker is getting DNPs, and McCoy has been shaky at times too.
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They have too many slow-footed non-athletes. Borton can't recruit athletes and she can't coach up non-athletes. Probably time for a change.
 


Borton did make one good move this year when she benched Ohm and put Antoine in the starting lineup. That may be the best decision she has made in her tenure. The recruiting has dropped, many valuable MN girls leaving the state for other Big Ten schools (Jenna Smith, Tayler Hill, Alyssa Karel, Kachine Alexander). It doesn't help that the emphasis in the women's game this year is to crack down on traveling. So that means Ohm and Harper are screwed every time they touch the ball. She should be playing the bench more with Ashley Ellis-Milan struggling all year even if that means 3 minutes a game.
 

Borton's record at Minnesota is 152-73. The last three years when she has used her own recruits it's 57-40, and the women play a tougher non-conference schedule than the men. She went to the NCAA Tournament the last two years. Last year the Gophers beat Notre Dame there, Ohio State there, and Michigan State twice. All three teams were ranked then and have been highly ranked this year since they returned most of their players. She has eight Minnesota kids on the roster and only one caused people to question why the recruitment. Yes, she has let some get away, but, personally, I think she might have too many Minnesota kids.

I think it's the state of women's basketball in the Big Ten in general, but her teams are wildly inconsistent. Ellis-Milan had her best game of the season last Thursday against Northwestern with 19 points against a good center and today did nothing. Buford, her best player, had 23 last Thursday and got 2 today. Voight got 3 last Thursday and today played her best game of the season getting 17. You never know which team is going to show up; sometimes it's like two different teams in the same game which does make for ugly basketball. Yet I enjoyed the Iowa and Northwestern games here as much as I enjoyed watching the men beat Ohio State yesterday. Different sport almost, but both were fun, well-played games.

Not trying to be Friend of Pam here though I sort of felt like it in the first paragraph, but it's clear that some of the posters (unlike bigmwc and akgopher) don't follow the women at all. They just sort of have a knee-jerk reaction if they get a chance to bash Borton.
 

That was incredible strategy today to continue to feed the post with the back-up center in the game so she could travel or throw up a brick. The twelve point lead was gone very soon. Borton's in game strategy makes me shake my head every time I watch one of their games.
 

I'm not sure Borton should be fired, but it is very obvious that the Final Four run will never happen again while she is head coach. I completely agree with Mulligan that Borton may have too many MN girls on the team (and possibly the wrong ones). Which is why the recent influx of Cotton and Antoine is a pleasant surprise. Hopefully next year will bring some more diversity with 2 Illinois recruits, one from Ames, and a Canadian joining Parkers Prairie Sari Noga.
 



I would feel a lot worse about the long stretches of terrible play except for one thing: Just about every other team in the league looks just as bad, if not worse, much of the time. Taking that into account, it's really hard to say how good or bad of a job Borton is doing. I will say that Harper had several turnovers of the "wtf?" variety today. And McCoy made several out-of-control drives to the hoop. For what purpose? It was really tough to tell. Voigt and China had very good games while Ellis-Milan, Ohm, and Buford were missing in action. That about sums it up for me.

Other than that, I guess we'll just have to see where the ladies are at the end of the year before making a complete assessment.
 

Well , if you look at her pre-season talk

Pam said I expect great senior leadership with Ohm, Milan, McCoy, and Harper. That leadership should allow us to be a very disiplined team and with the mixture of talanted young players on the team I expect us to do very well. Well, so far things couldn't be further from the truth. Ohm has regressed to where she sees about 10 minutes a game. Milan is a head case;yesterday at least 5-6 times she missed defensive assignments. A look at McCoy's face tells you she can't wait for the season to end. The kid is tighter than a drum and plays like it. The one that perplexes me is Harper. She has the body of McCarville and I thought when she came in she would end up being that type of player to some degree. We talk about being coached up. I'm not seeing it.
 

>>They have too many slow-footed non-athletes. Borton can't recruit athletes and she can't coach up non-athletes. Probably time for a change.<<

That says it all in a nutshell.
 

I rarely agree with Ruppert, but I agree on this one. Big 10 women's basketball is pretty much unwatchable this season. Ohio State is the only one that looks like it could compete nationally. The rest including Michigan State (which has some nice wins but has too many chubby, non-athletic girls who turn the ball over) are downright dreadful to watch, unless you like watching turnover after turnover.
 



Mulligan said:
Borton's record at Minnesota is 152-73. The last three years when she has used her own recruits it's 57-40, and the women play a tougher non-conference schedule than the men. She went to the NCAA Tournament the last two years. Last year the Gophers beat Notre Dame there, Ohio State there, and Michigan State twice. All three teams were ranked then and have been highly ranked this year since they returned most of their players. She has eight Minnesota kids on the roster and only one caused people to question why the recruitment. Yes, she has let some get away, but, personally, I think she might have too many Minnesota kids.

I think it's the state of women's basketball in the Big Ten in general, but her teams are wildly inconsistent. Ellis-Milan had her best game of the season last Thursday against Northwestern with 19 points against a good center and today did nothing. Buford, her best player, had 23 last Thursday and got 2 today. Voight got 3 last Thursday and today played her best game of the season getting 17. You never know which team is going to show up; sometimes it's like two different teams in the same game which does make for ugly basketball. Yet I enjoyed the Iowa and Northwestern games here as much as I enjoyed watching the men beat Ohio State yesterday. Different sport almost, but both were fun, well-played games.

Not trying to be Friend of Pam here though I sort of felt like it in the first paragraph, but it's clear that some of the posters (unlike bigmwc and akgopher) don't follow the women at all. They just sort of have a knee-jerk reaction if they get a chance to bash Borton.
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I'm not a huge follower of the Women't team, but I do pay attention. Has everyone forgotten how truly awful they were not much more then 10 years ago? They could barely win a conference game. Now they routinely make the NCAA's. Borton may not be the one of the top coaches in the NCAA, but she's also not one of the worst by any means. Do those calling for her head feel a great deal of confidence that whoever replaced her would do better? I don't.
 

>>Do those calling for her head feel a great deal of confidence that whoever replaced her would do better?<<

Extremely poor reason to retain a mediocre coach, IMO.
 

Agree G4L

Gopher4Life said:
>>Do those calling for her head feel a great deal of confidence that whoever replaced her would do better?<<

Extremely poor reason to retain a mediocre coach, IMO.
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Monson by most accounts was mediocre ( to some,worse) The Whalen years were actually fun and we went to several games. Pam didn't recruit those kids. The attendance has steadily dropped and Pam has had players leave the program. She loses 4 seniors and other than Buford has no under classmen ready to step in. Buford and Antoine will be her best players next year and I believe Antoine is a senior ( JC transfer) Her current recruiting class has no one in the top 150.
 

I've never played womens basketball so I will refrain from commenting.
 

I followed the women's basketball team for several years fairly closely, starting with Whalen's coming out party in 2001-2002. For several years, beginning at that time, they played a very exciting style of basketball, primarily because of Whalen. However, that same style of play carried over even after she graduated, first with McCarville, and then with Emily Fox. However, for the last three or so years, that excitement and energy has faded to the point where this year's team is flat-out boring to watch.

I echo the comments from above...they don't have the athletes to play an exciting style of basketball. They play a style that is somewhat plodding, methodical and just plain boring. They may win 20 games again this year, particularly with what seems to be very mediocre Big Ten conference; the difference, with out an exciting style of basketball, nobody will really care, and the attendance will continue to go down.

Unfortunately, in women's basketball (very similar to Gopher women's hockey), you have to give fans more than just wins...they need excitement, too. When they had Lindsey Whalen, they had both; now, they have just the wins. And if attendance (and interest) continues to drop, they may not have either before long.
 

Harper was found in the summer before her frosh season, so it's not like she was an elite prospect to begin with. I heard the Canadian recruit is supposed to be really tough and Noga could be a real sleeper. It's too bad that the season has turned the way it has. I think Coach Borton has done some things and her best performance might have been fielding a competent team a few years ago after the mass exodus. I really though Ellis-Milan and Buford were going to carry the team and sophomores like Voight and Mastey were going to develop from last year. Even the frosh class headed by Loberg and Cotton has been sporadic.

It's tough to watch a team that looks like it isn't having fun.
 

For those of you that follow the women's team, how good is Sari Noga and what kind of a player is she?
 

For those of you that follow the women's team, how good is Sari Noga and what kind of a player is she?
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Actually, I'll be surprised if she turns out to be as good as her statistics show. Being from that area of the state, I've seen her play a few times. She's good, but I'm not sure if she's Big Ten good. There are some good teams up there, but there are some rough spots up there as well. I've talked to several others that question her abilities. I'm hoping I'm wrong, but I'll be surprised if she turns out to be a solid player at this level.

Then again, about 10 years ago, this same analysis could have been just as easily been written about Lindsay Whalen at Hutchinson, or for that matter, Dusty Rychart at Grand Rapids, and nobody would have batted an eye, so what do we really know until they actually get on the court...
 

Put it this way...

sal said:
I've never played womens basketball so I will refrain from commenting.
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I agree, the Whalen and "Shaq" years were fun but outside of that, it's still women's basketball.

A wise man once said, "I love women, and I love basketball, but I dont' like women's basketball. Similarly, I like spaghetti, and I like ice cream, but I don't like spaghetti ice cream."
 

A wise man once said, "I love women, and I love basketball, but I dont' like women's basketball. Similarly, I like spaghetti, and I like ice cream, but I don't like spaghetti ice cream."
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Do you think if you did, you would put the spaghetti on top of the ice cream, or would you put the ice cream on top of the spaghetti? It's a thought that may very well keep me up all night...

I did find this...it actually looks pretty good

Spaghetti-ice-cream-on-blue-plate.jpg


http://spaghettiicecream.com/welcome.htm

I guess I must like Women's basketball then, too...
 

It is Kind of Sad, Really.

akgopher said:
Harper was found in the summer before her frosh season, so it's not like she was an elite prospect to begin with. I heard the Canadian recruit is supposed to be really tough and Noga could be a real sleeper. It's too bad that the season has turned the way it has. I think Coach Borton has done some things and her best performance might have been fielding a competent team a few years ago after the mass exodus. I really though Ellis-Milan and Buford were going to carry the team and sophomores like Voight and Mastey were going to develop from last year. Even the frosh class headed by Loberg and Cotton has been sporadic.

It's tough to watch a team that looks like it isn't having fun.
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Kind of mirrors my thoughts. Players don't develop all that much under Borton and her staff. By just watching the team on the court, the bench and the coaches....they don't look like they are having a good time at all. There is just something "off" with Borton. It is hard to put your finger on it without being involved with the team on a regular basis, but something is not right with this staff.
 


Gopher4Life said:
>>Do those calling for her head feel a great deal of confidence that whoever replaced her would do better?<<

Extremely poor reason to retain a mediocre coach, IMO.
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Perhaps. I would argue she's been better then medicore. She has led us to multiple NCAA berths and a Final Four. I know the Final Four was mostly with players recruited by someone else, but that still counts for something. I don't buy comparisons to Monson. He never did any of the above.
 

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