Oct 23rd, 2009
The idea that Cal’s recent women’s basketball challenge to Stanford was a fluke of circumstances is losing some credibility.
The Bears can’t expect to overtake Stanford this year, because the Cardinal is loaded and Cal is reloading, but in a year or two, Cal
Joanne Boyle keeps bringing talent/Photo Associated Press
may have more talent than Stanford — if you believe the recruiting services, that is.
Although the bulk of the Bears’ landmark recruiting class of 2005 is gone, Cal has brought in one of the top recruiting lcasses in the country with seven highly-rated players, four of whom were McDonald’s All-Americans. The unfortunate loss of one of them, Tierra Rogers, to a heart disease will hurt, but the amount of young talent is noteworthy. Top players usually unwilling to jeopardize playing time by entering into a situation with so many other top players.
More significant is that Cal coach Joanne Boyle is putting together another top recruiting class on top of that one. Already two players ranked among the top 30 players for 2010 by ESPN.com — No. 15 Afure Jemerigbe and No. 29 Lindsay Sherbert — have given verbal commitments to Cal for next season, and another top-10 recruiting class is possible. How Boyle will integrate all this talent remains to be seen, and the Bears had three players transfer out after last season, presumably to get more playing time. But the influx of top players has to translate into continued success.
Now Stanford is not exactly sleeping. The Cardinal has a McDonald’s All-American of its own (Joslyn Tinkle) coming in the his year, and next year’s Stanford class may be ranked higher than Cal’s, especially if it lands the nation’s No. 1 recruit Chiney Ogwumike, which is a distinct possibility. But the Bay Area rivalry that simply did not exist until two years ago should be of national interest for years to come. Crowds of of five figures for women’s college basketball (Cal drew 10,126 for last year’s Stanford game) could be part of the Bay Area landscape.
Thanks for your thoughts, Jake. Since we are Cal WBB season ticket holders, naturally we agree. Another interesting possibility is that of a WNBA franchise in Oakland; Oakland councilmember-at-large Rebecca Kaplan hopes to find potential investors to back a women's team at the Arena (http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2009/10/oakland_pol_hopes_wnba_scores_in_her_town.html#). One way and another, the west coast is slowly becoming a WBB power.
This is what I thought too lol.