WBB: Portal Notes, a Mailbag, and the draft
WBB: Portal Notes, a Mailbag, and the draft
Week 4 brings a lot of portal signings to the WAC, the WNBA draft, and our first mailbag of the offseason.
This week in our WAC Hoops Nation women’s basketball newsletter we have a transfer portal update, some mailbag questions to answer, and a WNBA draft update.
Webb enters WNBA draft:
WAC Player of the Year Chloe Webb from CBU declared for this year’s WNBA draft, held on Monday, April 15 after a year where she finished 18th in scoring at 20.7 points per game.
However, she was not selected in the three round draft and now will have to look for either a free agent tryout or international opportunity to begin her professional career.
Portal Corner
As of Monday, April 15 there are currently 46 WAC women’s basketball players in the portal with seven having announced new destinations.
That group includes…Destini Lombard (Purdue), Peyton Howard (Eastern Washington), Makayla Moore (Arizona State), Mya Moore (Cleveland State), Tyler McCliment-Call (Idaho), Kaylee Byon (Point Loma), and Caitlynn Jordan (Oklahoma Christian).
Lombard is the current WAC Defensive Player of the Year.
Over the weekend Stephen F. Austin had this offseason’s biggest portal addition to date in Ashlyn Traylor, a junior guard from Franklin, Indiana.
While at Radford last year, Traylor was part of a side that reached the Big South tournament final before falling to Presbyterian.
Last season, Traylor earned First Team All-Big South honors while averaging 16 points per game, shooting 37 percent from the field (26 percent from 3-point range), and averaging 2.4 assists. Traylor was Radford’s leading scorer and just outside the top-100 nationally in points per game.
Mailbag:
Let’s open up this week’s #WACHoops women’s basketball mailbag…
When you look at the mid-major picture nationally, as of April 13, the WAC is fourth in terms of players entering the portal at 46.
In terms of all conferences, that’s sixth nationally. The three mid-major conferences with more portal entries are the Coastal Athletic Association with 48, SWAC at 57 and new Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell’s old conference the Sunbelt at 73.
Restocking the roster with portal entries is part of this new normal college basketball has been experiencing…no matter your feelings good, bad, or indifferent.
In terms of who has the best chance of getting quality players from there look at the usual suspects.
Of those signees that have been announced so far, Leonard Bishop and SFA have definitely won the portal wars.
But I expect CBU, GCU, and ACU to be competitive also.
“They’re completely different skills with not a lot of transference between the two,” CBU coach Jarrod Olson said with reference to portal recruiting versus high school last summer. “Our track record here has been pretty good with regards to player development when we get them here for four years and also picked up some impact transfers. We don’t go all in one way or the other and try to go for that blend.”
With regards to your first question, not a lot of signings have been announced at this point. As of Wednesday, April 17 only 169 players nationally have announced new homes. That’s basically 14 percent of portal entries. Here’s a list of the current WAC portal signees so far.
Ashlyn Traylor to SFA from Radford
Sophie Benharouga to Seattle from North Texas
Kaitlyn Elsholz to GCU from Cal State Northridge
Bre Davis to ACU from North Texas
Koi Love to UT Arlington from Southern California
Tamia Stricklin to Seattle from Fresno State
Aspen Caldwell to Utah Valley from Idaho
Danja Stafford to Utah Valley from Santa Clara
Olivia Moore to Seattle from Long Beach State
Nneka Obiazor to GCU from UNLV
Erin Woodson to ACU from Purdue/Fort Wayne
The WAC/CUSA challenge will be renewed for this upcoming season with games being played on November 9 and December 16. Matchups are forthcoming. CUSA won the women’s challenge last year.
In terms of teams with strong cores returning, ACU and CBU will bring back much of their core from last year.
Also, Utah Tech is expected to return Maddie and Macie Warren along with Calyn Dallas and Nicole Willardson. The Warren’s and Dallas combined to average just under 40 points per game while Willardson was clutch in the win over Oregon.
Grace Schmidt, Khloe Lemon, Filippa Barros, Nhug Bosch Duran and Emily Sewell are expected to return for the defending champions.
Jarrod Olson will obviously need to replace Kinsley Barrington and Nae Nae Calhoun, but the Lancers likely start next year as the preseason favorites.
Although ACU loses Addison Martin and Aspen Thornton as portal entries, Bella Earle, Payton Hull, Meredith Mayes, Zoe Jackson, and Emma Troxell are expected to return.
Mayes started five games for the Wildcats while Martin was sidelined with an ankle injury sustained in the win over CBU, and averaged nine points per game in those starts, logging 25 or more minutes of floor time four times.
Troxell entered all 30 games last year, and averaged 20 minutes a contest.
Hull earned All-WAC Freshman honors last year and Earle was an all WAC selection as well.
As far as I am aware, there are no plans to move the WAC tournament away from Vegas.
I don’t profess to know the intricacies of college recruiting that well, but in my opinion, we’ll move back towards the center.
With the COVID year and portal together, I feel like recruiting made a drastic shift to the right, as represented by the fact that some programs didn’t sign one high school senior.
High school seniors will get more looks than when the COVID year was a thing, but portal recruiting is here to stay.