I supported and still support the Kelly hire, she earned the right to get the job. But this was my fear, she had a world class assistant coach on the bench last year who may have been covering up some of her deficiencies. We will see as the year goes on how real those were, and whether she is good at learning on the fly.
I actually thought at one point that Julie was likely taking over. She is one heck of a coach. Not sure of that was the issue or not, but we definitely are off. I feel like simply playing the best players would go a long way. I'd love to have the talent and depth to rotate 10-12 players constantly.... and maybe the benefit is all the girls are getting experience early... BUT I am much more a fan of the UConn type roster management, especially when your entire roster isn't quite elite. Find your best 8 players and give them lots of minutes together. I feel like we have 7 or 8 players we could do that with, but that is going to require playing Jordyn more in the post IMO and going back to a smaller (but faster) lineup.
She insists on playing Dut and she just has not improved over the years, she should be a player coming off the bench about 10 minutes a game...right now Alberte needs to be coming off the bench about 10 a game also. When her shot is not falling she just does not give us much. I was also told we had a flu like illness run through the teams (mens and womens the last few weeks)
Right off the top... Deans, Correa, Rickards, and Merritt should all be playing at least 30 minutes per game... would like to get around 25 out of Kyle as well. The rest of the minutes can be divided up. That's 55 minutes for Rimdal, Warren, Buhner, Dut, Wyches. I like Rimdal, Buhner, and Taliyah for the bulk of those minutes... speaking of... do we know what is going on with Taliyah. Hope it's not serious because I think her growth is a huge piece of the puzzle.
Dut actually has improved steadily over the last two seasons. Still not where I'd hoped, but she is better.
The problem is her upside at this point is mostly gone. Rather give those minutes to develop the future with Taliyah. We have her for 2 more years, along with one more with Kyle as well.
Her getting more minutes then Kyle or Taliyah is pointless unless there is foul trouble. I know she is a great young woman, have met her several times. But this is where you have to decide what type of team do you want.
