https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-women/d1/ncaa-womens-basketball-net-rankings

Baylor is 25

Other notable teams:

3. UCLA
6. TCU
10. West Virginia
11. Kansas State
32. Utah
37. Oklahoma State
48. Indiana
49. Villanova
51. Oregon
55. UNLV
67. Kansas
69. Arizona
73. Texas Tech
76. Iowa State (!!!!!!!)
79. Colorado
94. Cincinnati

This hurts my feelings. We have to win some significant games to garner upward movement. Every time we play a descent opponent, we struggle. Hoping for strong conference play. And how is TCU coming out of nowhere to make huge gains in last 2 year's recruiting efforts. And OU, a school with limited financial resources is back. It's early, let's go win.

fredbear said:

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This hurts my feelings. We have to win some significant games to garner upward movement. Every time we play a descent opponent, we struggle. Hoping for strong conference play. And how is TCU coming out of nowhere to make huge gains in last 2 year's recruiting efforts. And OU, a school with limited financial resources is back. It's early, let's go win.

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I suspect primarily with $$$$$. You know that has to be the case with Van Lith. I doubt she is alone in that respect concerning TCU. OU, on the other hand, does have a historical presence in WBB............and of course.......SEC,SEC,SEC (yuck).

blackie said:

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fredbear said:

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This hurts my feelings. We have to win some significant games to garner upward movement. Every time we play a descent opponent, we struggle. Hoping for strong conference play. And how is TCU coming out of nowhere to make huge gains in last 2 year's recruiting efforts. And OU, a school with limited financial resources is back. It's early, let's go win.

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I suspect primarily with $$$$$. You know that has to be the case with Van Lith. I doubt she is alone in that respect concerning TCU. OU, on the other hand, does have a historical presence in WBB............and of course.......SEC,SEC,SEC (yuck).

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I don't understand why our first response is always that someone has more money than us and that's why they have better players. Their big transfers like Scherr, Prince, Bigby, etc., all played for him when he was at Oregon. Hailey is from Washington, and Mark Campbell had a relationship with her trying to get her to Oregon.

Sometimes it is just about relationship and getting players that fit what you are trying to do. They'll slow down eventually when teams have more film and can gameplan better, but the Big 12 is not super strong this year, so I would expect them to be at the top of the pack.

Yes, NIL is a big deal, but you still gotta coach.

This… our fanbase just can't accept that sometimes it's about more than $$
HVL already had huge NIL deals through various companies. So I doubt TCU threw his huge bag at her.

Yeah HVL has plenty of money... I am sure this stop was about trust and freedom to play for her. Mark Campbell and TCU give her that.

We have a close example to at least analyze. What was the difference maker between the recruiting of KM her last two years at Baylor versus her first two years at LSU? Same exact coach. Same exact system. And Baylor vastly had the most WBB historical success, both recent and long term. If it is the same coach, what was the difference?

Iowa, per couple insiders at LSU, none of the four 5-star recruits who committed to LSU (#1 recruiting class for 2025) received NIL's from LSU (at least not yet). 2 of the 4 already had high school NIL's, but none from LSU. Mulkey was personally involved, personally visited all 4. They commented during interviews they wanted to be coached by Mulkey, play in front of 13K loud fans, national exposure, and chance to win natty. Those were the 4 reasons they expressed, NIL at LSU was never mentioned. But who knows what happens in secret without the media.

It's always an ebb and flow. Especially in a world of transfer portal, you run out of space if you sign top classes every year. The last two classes Mulkey had a Baylor were small, but were also during a weird time with COVID. It absolutely doesn't mean there was a fall off. Do you serious believe we would've been bad in 21-22?

What if I told you the defending national champions have ONE (!!) top 100 recruit in this 2025 class. Has Staley also fallen off? No lol, it was just fitting the need that they currently have.

Like Iowa said, NIL absolutely matters (to more recruits more than others) but you have to also have a winning tradition AND/OR a coach who you trust can take you there.

TCU has the latter, they've never won anything but those kids trust Campbell can get them there.

IowaBear said:

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Her recruiting wasn't even that bad at BU, no idea why you keep acting like Bu recruiting just dropped off a cliff. And Mulkey follows this pattern routinely. Big class followed by small class. Last year her class had just 1 player I believe. This years had 4. That's how she's always tried to operate
What you're insinuating is that Nil is magically getting her all these recruits. Which completely ignores the fact that often times the best players want to play for Mulkey. Perhaps her 4 titles mean something? Or the fact that she's quite literally one of the 3 greatest WBB coaches?
NIL matters absolutely, so do other factors that you continue ignoring

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Not ignoring or insinuating anything. The last large class of recruits that KM got at Baylor WAS because of her and her success. But the last couple of years (which includes the one she had lined up before she left - only Dauda, who may or may not have actually enrolled) didn't approach to what we had been seeing that had blossomed with the "Fab 5" and we had started to bring in more transfers than relying on HS recruits. It resulted in us being top heavy with seniors in 2021-22.

Just asking RHETORICALLY why someone like HVL turned Kim down at Baylor, but not at LSU. There must be other factors besides the coach that make the difference in that situation. The main difference I see is LSU/SEC vs. Baylor/XII or money opportunities, either from private sources which may "direct" someone to a particular school or not to another or a consortium of the school itself. Certainly Baylor had the background historical success when that first recruitment was happening, so that was out of the picture.

I think we do agree that NIL matters and I would hope we agree that the amount of NIL that is available to one school versus another can be vastly different. The money might not come from the school directly, but certainly a big donor of whatever school is going to put the bug into a potential recruit's ear of where they should go if they want to get it.

You can't ignore anything. It is more than NIL and it is more than the coach. Today, in probably most cases when you are talking about elite players, you need both.

franke said:

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It's always an ebb and flow. Especially in a world of transfer portal, you run out of space if you sign top classes every year. The last two classes Mulkey had a Baylor were small, but were also during a weird time with COVID. It absolutely doesn't mean there was a fall off. Do you serious believe we would've been bad in 21-22?

What if I told you the defending national champions have ONE (!!) top 100 recruit in this 2025 class. Has Staley also fallen off? No lol, it was just fitting the need that they currently have.

Like Iowa said, NIL absolutely matters (to more recruits more than others) but you have to also have a winning tradition AND/OR a coach who you trust can take you there.

TCU has the latter, they've never won anything but those kids trust Campbell can get them there.

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No, I don't think they would have been bad in 2021-22, but as I said before we were going to be top heavy in seniors and transfers, not HS recruits that had come up through the Baylor program. I would have been concerned, even under KM what our roster was going to look like after the 21-22 season. I suspect we would have had to rely even more on transfers as the recruiting class that year only had the 1 freshman (Dauda).

South Carolina has a balanced roster so they are prepared going into next year. They didn't need to bring in a bunch of freshmen. They will need more the following year, barring getting young players via the portal. We had gone two recruiting cycles and only had only I believe 3 total (Andrews, Gusters, and Dauda) HS recruits across those two years. The result after Kim left and some of the transfers coming in bailed, was a very top heavy senior level roster. The upcoming freshmen and sophomores in the program just weren't there to provide depth.

Will certainly be interesting to see what TCU can bring in next year when the biggest names on this year's team are gone.

HVL situation is less complicated than you're making it. Kim was her second choice out of high school. The first choice (Jeff Walz) had run his course so she went to the next choice, that she knew well and trusted. I would be more skeptical if Mulkey hadn't recruited her and then out of left field she goes to LSU. The relationship had been built way before. Guess who was also in her top 4? Oregon, where she built the relationship with Mark Campbell. It makes a lot of sense sans NIL.

Curious to see if Prince can finagle another year!

franke said:

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HVL situation is less complicated than you're making it. Kim was her second choice out of high school. The first choice (Jeff Walz) had run his course so she went to the next choice, that she knew well and trusted. I would be more skeptical if Mulkey hadn't recruited her and then out of left field she goes to LSU. The relationship had been built way before. Guess who was also in her top 4? Oregon, where she built the relationship with Mark Campbell. It makes a lot of sense sans NIL.

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Thanks for your background on this.

Yes, HVL had final 2 of L'ville and LSU. Close decision either 1A or 1B, flip a coin, she loved both schools. She built strong relationships with both Mulkey at Baylor and the Louisville coach. When it was time to transfer from L'ville, she graduated 1-year early and already made up her mind transferring to LSU. It didn't work out as PG at LSU, so next decision was another strong relationship with TCU coach. All 3 coaches had close, strong relationships with HVL. She still has good relationships with LSU and L'ville. Nothing personal, not NIL related, she brought her national NILs over from LSU and L'ville.

We moved up from 25 to 20 for creaming Texas Southern

NET (today)

3. Kansas State
5. UCLA
9. TCU
12. West Virginia
22. Baylor
26. Utah
28. Oklahoma State
41. Indiana
47. Oregon
53. UNLV
56. Villanova
62. Iowa State
64. Cincinnati
69. Texas Tech
87. Kansas
88. Arizona
95. Colorado
98. BYU

Latest poll on ESPN shows we get 1 vote (point) that puts in at 40... and yet we been winning, Pollsters must not like our competition nor our FF shooting !! Me either , Sic Em !!!

SirBearALot said:

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Latest poll on ESPN shows we get 1 vote (point) that puts in at 40... and yet we been winning, Pollsters must not like our competition nor our FF shooting !! Me either , Sic Em !!!

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This (bolded) has been pretty much the case for 20 years for both our teams (although the men have really bumped up the OOC competition this year). It gets tiring watching opponents (both men and women) hit free throws (even if their team is not all that good) and we struggle. We have a few good games or stretches where we hit, but otherwise it is an achilles heel that doesn't seem to go away.

I have never understood it. It has to be recognized by the coaches as a big problem. Is there not enough time available to a player to work on it?

SirBearALot said:

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Latest poll on ESPN shows we get 1 vote (point) that puts in at 40... and yet we been winning, Pollsters must not like our competition nor our FF shooting !! Me either , Sic Em !!!

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Our schedule isn't good at all. Dec we've played LA Tech, Texas S, and UNLV. Our FT is atrocious.


Lots to fix. But, right now and our two loses we don't deserve to be ranked. Hope it gets better.

Not sure we have a "quality" win thus far this season. Not super confident we are a tournament team at this juncture. Or, if we are, not sure we've earned it.

bawitdaball said:

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Not sure we have a "quality" win thus far this season. Not super confident we are a tournament team at this juncture. Or, if we are, not sure we've earned it.

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I'm confident we're a tournament team. But our resume is not there yet. Our only quality win is UNLV--they may get to 30 wins again.

The question is whether we can get a decent seed like last year, or fall back closer to bubble, like 2 years ago.

I guess one could argue there is more upside too, but the defense feels worse than last year so far.

NET (Dec 19)

4. Kansas State
6. UCLA
8. TCU
10. West Virginia
18. Baylor
26. Utah
28. Oklahoma State
39. Oregon
42. Indiana
48. UNLV
60. Iowa State
63. Villanova
67. Texas Tech
68. BYU
76. Kansas
83. Arizona
84. Cincinnati
86. Colorado

12au said:

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bawitdaball said:

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Not sure we have a "quality" win thus far this season. Not super confident we are a tournament team at this juncture. Or, if we are, not sure we've earned it.

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I'm confident we're a tournament team. But our resume is not there yet. Our only quality win is UNLV--they may get to 30 wins again.

The question is whether we can get a decent seed like last year, or fall back closer to bubble, like 2 years ago.

I guess one could argue there is more upside too, but the defense feels worse than last year so far.

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Yes, what I meant was that I am not sure we have one of the best 64 resumes yet. I also don't think LSU has one. So it is all in the eye of the beholder. But we haven't beaten anyone that was competitive. Still wish we would have gotten out of Eugene with a victory. Bella's injury didn't help. And I think we will end up missing Jana more than we realize.

I think Aliyah is going to help a ton. She is just instant production