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2021-22 Wake Women's Hoops Thread - Hoover fired after 10 seasons

I thought everyone was expecting the women's team to struggle this year.

WF played a ridiculously soft OOC schedule and sprinted out to a good record, which may have inflated expectations, but the Lady Deacs were crushed by the only decent OOC team they played (Nebraska). Don't follow WF women's hoop super-closely, but we lost our two best players, and WF barely slid into the tourney last year. So, WF is playing like a team going through a re-building year. Was it unreasonable to expect anything different with this roster?

If the roster is young and WF has a solid recruiting class coming in (not sure if either is true), this season's results don't change Hoover's status IMO because the team is playing as i understand was reasonably expected. That said, for those in the know, if things aren't looking vastly improved next year, then, yes, it would seem like a move would be in order, but if the program is taking a step back, but is about to take two steps ahead, then not sure it makes sense to start over unless Currie feels like he has a rising coaching star in his sights.
 
2021-22 Women's Basketball Thread (12-8, 2-7) vs. Miami Thurs 7 pm RSN

I expected them to struggle because Hoover is the coach and she had benefitted from a very experienced team who managed not to be severely impacted by the pandemic. Last year’s team finished 10th in the ACC at 8-10 only finishing above 5 teams that didn’t play all 18 games including Duke and UVa that ended their seasons after 1 and 2 ACC games due to COVID. They barely made the tournament in a smaller at large pool.

This was the year for Hoover to coach a team to exceed expectations. She isn’t. In fact, she’s below expectations losing at home to bad teams.

This isn’t a young team. The main rotation is one frosh, two sophs (including Spear who should be All-ACC), four juniors, and one senior. The other freshmen are solid but not on par with Spear last year.

And if you watch this team, there’s not much hope that they’ll be better next year.
 
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PhDeac said:
I expected them to struggle because Hoover is the coach and she had benefitted from a very experienced team who managed not to be severely impacted by the pandemic. Last year’s team finished 10th in the ACC at 8-10 only finishing above 5 teams that didn’t play all 18 games including Duke and UVa that ended their seasons after 1 and 2 ACC games due to COVID. They barely made the tournament in a smaller at large pool.

This was the year for Hoover to coach a team to exceed expectations. She isn’t. In fact, she’s below expectations losing at home to bad teams.

This isn’t a young team. The main rotation is one frosh, two sophs (including Spear who should be All-ACC), four juniors, and one senior. The other freshmen are solid but not on par with Spear last year.

And if you watch this team, there’s not much hope that they’ll be better next year.
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I don't watch, but I didn't expect this team to exceed expectations given the losses off last year's roster. Have no idea if the team is well-coached our not. From your description, sounds like WF will return almost everyone next year, and I am aware that the Deacs signed a highly regarded Aussie guard. So, it sounds like there is a basis for WF to be better next year. OTOH, Hoover has had plenty of opportunities to build the program, and it seems like our ceiling is an NCAA bubble team. Given WF's success in other sports, would think that WF women's hoop could be better than that.
 
I would give her another year but next season has to be a return to the NCAAs or else.
 
Pilch, the expectations were lower because of losing Conti and Raca. This team is below those lower expectations.

This team isn't well-coached. They have no real offensive scheme to get the ball into Spear's hands and put her in position to score. She gets very few catch and shoot opportunities. They're constantly out of position on defense.

Yes, Wake could return everyone next year. Morra is a senior who could come back for a 5th year. She's the only real threat to score in the post, so she'd be missed. Everyone coming back from a bad team isn't cause for celebration or a reason to keep a coach.

This is Hoover's tenth season. She's gotten on the NCAAT bubble once, last year, with a smaller at-large pool thanks to COVID. There's no reason to believe she can improve on that.
 
There is zero WBB culture at WF and I think you have to factor that in when assessing her tenure. She may as well have been starting a program from scratch. It's a tough call. You can certainly make a good argument that we should move on.
 
Sure. It's clear Wellman just decided to hire a former player with little experience to check a box. Currie has to decide if he wants to strive for excellence in a sport where Wake surely could do so.
 
FWIW, acknowledge that asking for trouble to bring this up, but I do think not having a on-campus arena hurts women's hoop more than men's hoop. If WF is competitive in men's hoop, LJVM creates a solid home court atmosphere (per KP WF has the #12 home court advantage in all of D1 men's basketball -- 1st among ACC teams). No matter how good the WF women are LJVM will never be right for them. If the ladies played on campus, think that students would be much more apt to attend games, and when the ladies have a solid season, think there could be fun atmosphere for women's game in a small arena. When the women play home games (even big ones), the LJVM looks vacant when they play; it's jarring. Got to believe that is used against WF in women's hoop recruiting.
 
So weird that "we expected to struggle" is somehow justification for keeping a coach that has had a decade to build a program and one single season of "success" to point to. Expecting to struggle is exactly why it's time to move on.

This isn't year 1-3 of a rebuild or an exception due to some bad luck. This is regression to the mean.

Fire her. We have every reason to be a Top 25 program consistently. It should be easier than doing the same on the men's side, and we've shown that can be done over multiple decades, and will be done again under Forbes.
 
Wake HOFer Tracy Connor was on the Deac2Deac podcast a few weeks ago. She spoke fondly about playing in Reynolds Gym in the 90s.
 
RacerDeac said:
So weird that "we expected to struggle" is somehow justification for keeping a coach that has had a decade to build a program and one single season of "success" to point to. Expecting to struggle is exactly why it's time to move on.

This isn't year 1-3 of a rebuild or an exception due to some bad luck. This is regression to the mean.

Fire her. We have every reason to be a Top 25 program consistently. It should be easier than doing the same on the men's side, and we've shown that can be done over multiple decades, and will be done again under Forbes.
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And find a coach that can keep local talent around. Just look at the all ACC team, Cunane and Kitley (daughter of a former Deac player) locals who never even considered playing at Wake. This has happened for years.
 
Pilchard said:
FWIW, acknowledge that asking for trouble to bring this up, but I do think not having a on-campus arena hurts women's hoop more than men's hoop. If WF is competitive in men's hoop, LJVM creates a solid home court atmosphere (per KP WF has the #12 home court advantage in all of D1 men's basketball -- 1st among ACC teams). No matter how good the WF women are LJVM will never be right for them. If the ladies played on campus, think that students would be much more apt to attend games, and when the ladies have a solid season, think there could be fun atmosphere for women's game in a small arena. When the women play home games (even big ones), the LJVM looks vacant when they play; it's jarring. Got to believe that is used against WF in women's hoop recruiting.
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Agree. When I was in school years ago the women played games in Reynolds and at the Coliseum Annex and the atmosphere for those games was great. Reynolds could get wild. I have read many times on here that they still prefer to play in LJVM so they're on equal footing with the men.
 
inspectah said:
I would give her another year but next season has to be a return to the NCAAs or else.
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She's had 10 years, has won less than half her games, has lost nearly 3/4 of ACC games, barely made the NCAAT in year 9 and still finished with a losing record, and the line in the sand is making the NCAAT in year 11?

It's not working and I don't see what evidence there is to justify another year. How does making the NCAAT next year change anything?
 
I can tell she doesn't have it from her post game press conferences. She sounds like Manning and not like Forbes. Time for her to go.
 
I hate it, I think we'd be hard pressed to find a coach that loves Wake more and is a better representative of our women's program, but you've got to win games consistently at some point.
 
Frosty said:
She's had 10 years, has won less than half her games, has lost nearly 3/4 of ACC games, barely made the NCAAT in year 9 and still finished with a losing record, and the line in the sand is making the NCAAT in year 11?

It's not working and I don't see what evidence there is to justify another year. How does making the NCAAT next year change anything?
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IDK, I think there's a long-term upward trend, and they have had some crazy bad luck with injuries. If next season they were to get back to the tourney, I could chalk this year up to youth and transfers. But like I said, there is plenty of evidence going the other way, too. I do feel for Hoover as an alum. She's been better than pretty much every WBB coach we've had in my lifetime, not that that's saying much.
 
Here are her ACC win totals: 5, 5, 2, 6, 6, 5, 1, 7, 8

I think a trend line for the program would put Hoover firmly making the tournament in about 10 years.
 
As someone whose best friends from college (to this day) were on the WBB and who went to most of their games out of friend/roommate obligation, the Joel really is a terrible venue for them. It would be a handful of parents, the men’s team, a few football players and me for most games. They even liked liked playing on the road more bc they had fans. We’ve had. Lot of good individual players over the years and we have a great WBB media connection with former player Lachina Robinson at ESPN. Wake has never devoted any resources to the WBB program and honestly, it’s shameful. Now that Currie has the rest of our sports on the right track, let’s figure this out while Spear is still young. I still think Wake hasn’t done. Good job of exploiting its academic reputation with WBB players, who are often much more focused on getting a high quality diploma than making it “to the league.”
 
Pilchard said:
FWIW, acknowledge that asking for trouble to bring this up, but I do think not having a on-campus arena hurts women's hoop more than men's hoop. If WF is competitive in men's hoop, LJVM creates a solid home court atmosphere (per KP WF has the #12 home court advantage in all of D1 men's basketball -- 1st among ACC teams). No matter how good the WF women are LJVM will never be right for them. If the ladies played on campus, think that students would be much more apt to attend games, and when the ladies have a solid season, think there could be fun atmosphere for women's game in a small arena. When the women play home games (even big ones), the LJVM looks vacant when they play; it's jarring. Got to believe that is used against WF in women's hoop recruiting.
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Not trying to be a smartass. Couldn't they play in Reynolds Gym? Didn't they used to back in the day? You're not going to even fill Reynolds with this team. Seems like it might help create a more intimate atmosphere in which to compete.
 
TheAbster said:
Not trying to be a smartass. Couldn't they play in Reynolds Gym? Didn't they used to back in the day? You're not going to even fill Reynolds with this team. Seems like it might help create a more intimate atmosphere in which to compete.
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Reynolds has been completely rebuilt and reconfigured in the last 5 years.
 
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