I agree. An important piece to the team…not the team

Don't believe SC is coached better. They lost to Iowa the year before.
Give Coach Collen the same talent and she would have just as much success.

BUatbirth said:

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BaylorBears_254 said:

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Lol, we cannot compete with South Carolina. I don't care how much of a "dawg" Jada is, SC has 10 of em and they're coached better.

We are about 3 tiers below South Carolina.

We desperately need Dauda.

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Do we really "desperately" need Dauda? I don't feel that way. I'm open to hearing why I'm wrong.

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If by desperately you mean "needed to be competitive, upper tier B12, make 2nd weekend of NCAAT"……

No.

If by desperately you mean favored/likely to win the B12, upper tier of WBB, potentially make 3rd weekend of NCAAT"……

Yes.

We lack rim protection. She provides it.
We lack quality post depth. She provides it.
We lack sufficient size/height. She provides it.
One more scorer never hurts.
We lack sufficient putback scoring. She adds to it.
We currently have no 5 that can pick & pop. She can.

AP on the money with that post

BUatbirth said:

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BaylorBears_254 said:

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Lol, we cannot compete with South Carolina. I don't care how much of a "dawg" Jada is, SC has 10 of em and they're coached better.

We are about 3 tiers below South Carolina.

We desperately need Dauda.

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Do we really "desperately" need Dauda? I don't feel that way. I'm open to hearing why I'm wrong.

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Vonleh is a very good addition. She appears to be mobile and she is very strong. My question is what will we get from Kyla Abraham? If she is ready to contribute quality minutes, I hope she is she's one of my favorites, desperation may not apply. If she isn't we have to be more concerned with Vonleh's minutes and fouls. BTW does anyone know Bartley's status? Is her back ok? You can never have too much talent and we are deeper and more experienced in the back court and wings than we are in posts. Getting a talent like Dauda changes that.and adds more flexibility.

Brusinbear2001 said:

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dang well i am glad you all are not the coach cause the best way to lose a game against a great team is to walk in with the mindset of losing it already. That's the beauty of sports you get to compete it doesn't matter about stars, all americans, if you come out with the plan which we have a great coach. Coach DS is great as well. But if you come in and say they have 10 Dawgs we can never compete with them you lost the fight before it even begun. I guess i'm just a different competitor when it comes to my mind set than the rest of you. It is what it is.

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Teams know when they're overmatched. Could we steal a game? Sure. Is it likely? **** no.

South Carolina shouldn't even be on our mind. We're competing with the lower tiers again.

We have to work our way back up.

Ha, ok

Dawn is way more proven than NC ever will be at this level.

BaylorBears_254 said:

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Brusinbear2001 said:

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dang well i am glad you all are not the coach cause the best way to lose a game against a great team is to walk in with the mindset of losing it already. That's the beauty of sports you get to compete it doesn't matter about stars, all americans, if you come out with the plan which we have a great coach. Coach DS is great as well. But if you come in and say they have 10 Dawgs we can never compete with them you lost the fight before it even begun. I guess i'm just a different competitor when it comes to my mind set than the rest of you. It is what it is.

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Teams know when they're overmatched. Could we steal a game? Sure. Is it likely? **** no.

South Carolina shouldn't even be on our mind. We're competing with the lower tiers again.

We have to work our way back up.

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The world of college sports has changed, I'd like to think that we are adpting and building an even more successful program.

I definitely disagree, we are a program building like she said there is nothing withering in Waco and it is sad as a fan you believe there is. We went to the Sweet 16 and we put up the biggest fight to any one seed. That was without any post players at all. We return all guards with Bella and Buggs and we add one of the best post players in the pac 12. What do you mean we are battling lower tier teams? If we added Dauda to that what is our weakness to you? This would be the first time since coach Nicki has been here that we have this many returners we get to build in last year's momentum and not start from scratch. I just do not see many issues we would have.

Our initial focus should be on winning the Big12, and doing so again on a consistent basis. Other opportunities will flow from there. Although I hope for one more addition, I do believe that the current roster is more than capable of winning the Big12 this next year

yeah you gotta be a troll there is no way

AP Nailed it! We do need Dauda! We really haven't had a tall player like her since Kalani Brown, Lauren Cox. CNC can help Dauda become more skilled for WNBA too.

Everyone who disagrees with you is apparently a troll. 254 has posted on here a long time. Definitely not a troll

Any updates??

idk i guess i just do not bash the team the way some do, sorry for claiming that. But like i said in a post before they make a claim that NC will never be on a status like DS but just leaves it as a statement and does not say why he thinks that.

Has Lety landed anywhere? I assume she could return…?

He or she didn't even bash the team… now you're just making crap up.
NC has A LONG ways to go if she wants to sniff the status of a coach like Dawn. That's not being a hater, that's being real.

but they said never, i'm not making anything up that's what they posted. And they didn't give reasons why at all. I just want to know reasons. I don't mind different takes i like to talk about them and debate them because i thought that was the purpose of this board. Where people who like baylor wbb could come and discuss topics around the team

i get that Nicki Collen has a long way to go of course she has only been in the head coaching spot for 3 going on 4 years. Dawn did not build SC in one season it took a domino piece like Aja and the Freshies to fall along with her great coaching. But i think Coach Nicki loves the game, is a student of the game, she is sharing all of her knowledge with our girls, she is building something special in waco and i am a believer in that. People want to play for her and our staff. We are still getting high level players in Waco. None of us can tell the future so we never know what can happen but i'm happy with her in Waco.

Brusinbear2001 said:

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yeah you gotta be a troll there is no way

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Troll? Bro Ive been on this site + Baylor Fans longer than you could imagine.

If you truly think that NC could surpass Dawn at this point, you're crazy.

This is not a knock on NC, if she can become a valuable/known coach in WBB I'm all for it.

We're about 3-4 years in with her at the realm and I have not seen a HUGE change in our WBB program outside of other Big 12 teams catching up with us.

If you're going to surpass Dawn, you HAVE to surpass the other Big 12 coaches and I don't believe she's done that.


Also, recruiting HAS to pick up. Getting Dauda back on board would be a great start as she would be a great fit to the team and in my opinion would start over Vonleh

Yes Dawn is a great coach. Here is her record at USCe. It took her 9 years to win her first championship on the back of A'ja Wilson. She took a poor team and made it better and had a lot of good/very good years but never won big until that 9th year. Dawn learned on the job and so will Nicki. Dawn is an incredible recruiter and I think Nicki can be but we will have to see. Anyone comparing NIcki going into her 4th year with Dawn currently is ridiculous. There is no rational way to predict NIcki's path (ascent or descent). We will see. Personally, I think we will continue to grow the program and continue to improve. We will have a very good team if we can get Maryam D that can beat anyone on a certain night. Last year South Carolina could have lost several games to inferior teams and although they are missing 1 player - it is Cardoso who was a tremendous help in making 2nd or 3rd shots, rebounding, and defending. Although they should be fantastic, I think they will drop some in this area, .

We will have very athletic guards that can shoot and drive (hoping that Sarah can stay healthy for the 1st time in 4 seasons and Jada can find some semblance of a 3 - she is in the gym all the time working), size and skill and quickness at wing, and with Maryam very good athleticism (I'm hoping for some growth with Kyla too) and power with Aaronette in the paint with all the amenities that AP listed above.

Whoops. Forgot to attach her record. Y'all can look it up!

We can speculate, analyze, and compare all we want, but our first priority is to recruit better, get one or two top 25 recruit every year, and win the Big 12 every year like we used to. Baylor should be dominating the Big 12 every year now that our nemesis TX and OK are gone. We should be the superior team in the Big 12 from this day forward. Our biggest competition will be Iowa State, who has been consistently good the past 4-5 years.

Dcheetah said:

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Yes Dawn is a great coach. Here is her record at USCe. It took her 9 years to win her first championship on the back of A'ja Wilson. She took a poor team and made it better and had a lot of good/very good years but never won big until that 9th year. Dawn learned on the job and so will Nicki. Dawn is an incredible recruiter and I think Nicki can be but we will have to see. Anyone comparing NIcki going into her 4th year with Dawn currently is ridiculous. There is no rational way to predict NIcki's path (ascent or descent). We will see. Personally, I think we will continue to grow the program and continue to improve. We will have a very good team if we can get Maryam D that can beat anyone on a certain night. Last year South Carolina could have lost several games to inferior teams and although they are missing 1 player - it is Cardoso who was a tremendous help in making 2nd or 3rd shots, rebounding, and defending. Although they should be fantastic, I think they will drop some in this area, .

We will have very athletic guards that can shoot and drive (hoping that Sarah can stay healthy for the 1st time in 4 seasons and Jada can find some semblance of a 3 - she is in the gym all the time working), size and skill and quickness at wing, and with Maryam very good athleticism (I'm hoping for some growth with Kyla too) and power with Aaronette in the paint with all the amenities that AP listed above.

Whoops. Forgot to attach her record. Y'all can look it up!

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I'll disagree on if we can predict the coaching outcomes. Although I just replied to the blasphemous post of people stating NC is on the same level as Dawn, I will disagree with the notion that we can't see how she will turn out in the coming years.

Of the 20+ years she's been coaching, Dawn has only had about 3-4 losing seasons. With it only taking her 3 seasons to get going at SC, and that's bringing them from the BOTTOM.

Dawn is the far superior coach and it does us no good to compare NC projection to hers.

As I stated, she HAS to pick up on recruiting.

i have one question, do you believe the landscape of college basketball was different at that time? The talent of teams was it as spread out in ways that it is now?

Even then Coach Nicki still has never even came close to a losing record. The worst year being the year before last at 20-13 when we relied so heavily on two freshman because of the injury situation with Aijha.

Every year we have gotten great names out of the portal, we have been able to get big names on campus. The best recruiting year out of high school was getting Buggs and Bella.

If we can continue the momentum forward more dominios will begin to fall. But I think it is hard to compare a Coach going into her 4th year with a coach that is in the conversation for GOAT. i hear what you are saying but we do not know what the next 10 years for us look like.

Brusinbear2001 said:

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i have one question, do you believe the landscape of college basketball was different at that time? The talent of teams was it as spread out in ways that it is now?

Even then Coach Nicki still has never even came close to a losing record. The worst year being the year before last at 20-13 when we relied so heavily on two freshman because of the injury situation with Aijha.

Every year we have gotten great names out of the portal, we have been able to get big names on campus. The best recruiting year out of high school was getting Buggs and Bella.

If we can continue the momentum forward more dominios will begin to fall. But I think it is hard to compare a Coach going into her 4th year with a coach that is in the conversation for GOAT. i hear what you are saying but we do not know what the next 10 years for us look like.

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That's what makes Dawn even more established as a coach. She did it from ground up. SC was NEVER considered a Top Tier program back in the day.


We can sit here and say that there are "multiple teams" that are competing but its wrong lol.

There are only about 4-5 teams who are truly COMPETING in WBB and SC and UCONN are ahead of the pack, followed by LSU, UT, and now USC.

After those top tier teams, there is a significant drop off. WE are now in the pool of teams that are in the hunt and working our way back, but we are competing with Big 12 teams again, after running the league for 20 years.

Buggs and Bella are about to be JRs, Im all for the transfer portal, but we've yet to pull in a valuable freshman class after those two.

Blackwell was good, but not the same as Mizzou Blackwell
Edwards was decent
Walker has been the best of the 3

Outside of those 3, we haven't truly reeled in any top players.

Getting Dauda on board would be the start of something as she fills the importance of a post player.

You aren't gonna win in WBB without a valuable/dominant post.

Im rooting for NC, I just wanted folks to pump the breaks on saying she'd be as successful at SC if the roles were reversed.

Historical Reality:

every name on the Best WBB Coach list took about a decade or more to get their program running at an elite level.

Auriemma, Summitt, Mulkey, VanDerveer, McGraw, Staley, Sharp, other Sharp, Conradt, etc.

Demanding that Collen do something that has never been done before seems very unrealistic.
Top coaches uniformly follow a steady upward trajectory that reaches initial peak around ten-ish years into their job.

For the Win Championships Now crowd, are you also requiring her to cure cancer and eliminate poverty?

I guess I'm one that thinks Dawn is NOT a superior coach, just recruiter. She had to have a completely dominant team to start winning big, IMO.

74Bear said:

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I guess I'm one that thinks Dawn is NOT a superior coach, just recruiter. She had to have a completely dominant team to start winning big, IMO.

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To be fair, most elite college coaches would opine that recruiting is the single biggest part of their coaching job.
Don't think that coaching and recruiting are separate items. Recruiting is simply the biggest part of that job [but not the totality of the job].

Guys like Tarkanian won NCs when he couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag on a rainy day.
But he sure could recruit.

The best coaches recruit well, develop players, and have solid game plans.

Staley has never won a championship without the best talent (not uncommon) but has lost with better talent (also not uncommon). Not going to zing her for knowing her strength (recruiting) and sticking to it.
But will agree that she isn't at a Auriemma level.
Hint: no one in WBB history is close to him as being the complete coaching package.

That's ok. We can disagree.

We have 1 top 25-30 for 2025 already - Marcayla J. . Good Interest from several top 25s and a lot of 26s. Nicki is very good in the portal. Give her some time.

5

I'm curious about this as well. Perhaps we will get an update on recruiting soon - after debate team practice has concluded.

BREAKING: Texas A&M transfer Janiah Barker has committed to UCLA. https://t.co/xhtnuqL5vp pic.twitter.com/pwaC4IXTLv

— Talia Goodman (@TaliaGoodmanWBB) May 28, 2024

Our one commit so far, M.Johnson is a 4-star recruit, ranked #35 in Espn top 60. She looks good on film. Good start in the new Big 12. Wish list is for coaching staff to get at least one 5-star, top 10-15 recruit every year to compete against the top teams SC, Uconn, LSU, ND, SC-w, Stanford every year. But #35 commit M.Johnson is a good start--on the road to Final 4's and a NC hopefully within the next 3-4 years.

Not surprising