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2024 Wake Women's Basketball Offseason - Grad transfer SMU PG Tamia Jones

No question about that. But Wake has had some good talent, not UCONN talent but enough to build on to get more talent. But it hasn’t happened. Losing Spear to one of those traditional powers was a gut punch. Jewel Spear should have been a special talent that puts more butts in seats for an emerging program.

Rest assured, if Gebbia does put together a winning program, people will show up.
 
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PhDeac said:
No question about that. But Wake has had some good talent, not UCONN talent but enough to build on to get more talent. But it hasn’t happened. Losing Spear to one of those traditional powers was a gut punch. Jewel Soear should have been a special talent that puts more butts in seats for an emerging program.

Rest assured, if Gebbia does put together a winning program, people will show up.
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All these things are true. ACC WBB is probably better relatively to the rest of the country than it is in other sports too, so that doesn't help. We have had plenty of really good players come through, just not enough of them healthy and on campus at the same time. Feels no unsimilar to baseball to me. We have produced some talent, put a few players in the league, but can't string it together YET.

Losing Jewel Spear made me sadder than almost any transfer out of Wake Forest in any sport. It just felt like something was building. It probably is still building, but certainly changes the trajectory.
 
I was going to end that post with "...like we saw with baseball," but I didn't want anybody to think I was suggesting women's hoops was capable of making the Final Four.

Completely agree about Spear. Even sadder is I don't blame her. She probably wants to play two more seasons, get some NIL money, and make a tourney run. There's no guarantee she could do that at Wake. But imagine if we had a coach who kept Raca and Conti and got Morra to stay for a 5th year and signed some promising freshmen and transfers. Maybe Spear makes the tournament two more times and stays two more years to lead five straight tourney appearances. It's not far fetched. The program doesn't seem far off. Gebbia did a great job last year. I still feel good about the future of the program. She just has to start from scratch now.

Is there a reason the 2023-24 roster isn't updated and there aren't any practice videos on the WWBB twitter account? They've been on campus.




In women's hoops news, the NCAA is starting the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament, a 32 team tourney run by the NCAA for teams that don't make the NCAA Tournament. The puts the number of men's and women's hoops teams in NCAA tournaments at 100 (68 and 32). I assume that will quickly be the women's equivalent of the NIT and bump down the WNIT to the level of the CBI.
www.ncaa.com

NCAA creates Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament

The NCAA has announced the creation of the Women's Basketball Invitational Tournament, a 32-team post-season event that will be held annually beginning 2024.
www.ncaa.com www.ncaa.com
 
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I don’t think it’s too far fetched to think WBB could make the Final Four. Baylor, Stanford, etc. have been very successful as schools with some of the same challenges we have. Obviously a long way to go, but it’s possible.
 
Wondering when WBB schedule will be released. According to the website we'll be playing Wofford on 11/6 (same day as WF Men vs Elon) and Texas A&M on 11/30. Nothing else yet.

Past couple of years we've played straight cream puffs at home and dominated. Not really as much of a problem as men's, because ACC is stacked, but not really great from an entertainment perspective to see us beat Longwood by 40.

We do go on the road to decent mid-majors a bunch, though.
 
Last season, they played Missouri (18-14) and Alabama (#10 seed) in the Bahamas. Two years ago, they played Arkansas in Fort Myers. They played UF in West Palm Beach in 2019-20. The last home game vs. a major conference opponent aside from the ACC/Big Ten Challenge was in 2018-19. They played Xavier and St. Johns. I'd like to see them pick up a major conference home and home, but like you said the ACC is stacked. At this stage it's more important to get to .500 and qualify for that new WBIT.


Gebbia and the staff did some recruiting this weekend.


As far as I understand, we lost Spear (Tenn), Summiel (VT), and Morales (Providence) to transfer. Becker went pro. Pretty sure Mack Maier graduated. But the only incoming players are the three freshmen? So what about the other two scholarships?
 
Yea, I'm pretty sure they have 3 open scholarships now which is super disappointing. They have so freaking much PT to sell at the 4/5 and didn't get anyone. I'm surprised they didn't end up with Imani Lester. May have been medical issues? Here's what they have now:

Guards: Kaia Harrison (Grad), Elise Williams (Jr), Katie Deeble (R-Fr), Makaela Quimby (Fr), Rylie Theuerkauf (Fr)
Wings: Alex Scruggs (Grad), Aliah McWhorter (Sr), Raegyn Conley (Jr), Alyssa Andrews (Jr), Madisyn Jordan (Fr)
Bigs: Demeara Hinds (Sr), Malaya Cowles (Jr)

That's 12 players, you get 15 scholarships. Seems like fielding a full team would be beneficial. Of those 12, only Hinds and Scruggs have any significant game experience playing the 4 or 5. And Scruggs is 5'8" and tbh a below average player for the ACC. Hinds has potential, but she also can't stay out of foul trouble. McWorther technically could be a 4 but she hasn't played in two full seasons. Cowles didn't play or practice last year. Post depth was a massive problem last year, and we lost Summiel and Becker and added nobody.

I mean what the fuck, how did we not get anyone from the portal?
 
inspectah said:
My info is dated, but my understanding is that the women in the past have been offered other venues besides LJVM that would give them more of a home-court advantage but they've always wanted to play in the Joel. I guess they feel like going elsewhere would be settling, which I understand. I don't know if that is still the case today though.
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My info may even be way more dated but the women hating playing in the Joel circa 2001-06ish. Too big, lack of any atmosphere. They played one game a year at the annex (?) and the atmosphere was great, but I think the court itself was awful if I remember right.
 
Going back even further Tracy Connor mentioned in the Deac2Deac podcast how much she liked playing in Reynolds Gym in the mid-90s.

I guess the only possible option for the Fall semester is adding an international player. Right now, any hopes for a decent season rely on Harrison, Williams, and Hinds taking it up multiple levels and the freshmen contributing to a small lineup right away.

Meanwhile MMM’s 15 year old sister is almost dunking. Hopefully Wake will have a program she’ll want to join.

 
MMM’s little sister is 6-4 at 14 years old. She made her debut for the Denmark U16 national team debut in the FIBA U16 European Women’s Championship.



Bella had 12/12/2/2/2, almost 1/4 of her team’s points in her first game against older girls.



I don’t know what Coach Gebbia is waiting for. UVA already offered.



Their family clearly rep the Deacs.

 
The family that balls together.

Has Forbes made any class of 2027 offers yet? It is really early. But Bella could be a special prospect and they already have an in.
 
Somebody needs to go on Twitter (X) and let them know that they misspelled Denmark on their t-shirts.
 
Women's Schedule has been released:

11/6: Home vs Wofford
11/11: Away vs Davidson
11/15: Home vs North Carolina A&T
11/18-20: North Shore Showcase in Laie, Hawaii
11/26: Home vs Villanova
11/30: Home vs Texas A&M (ACC-SEC Challenge)
12/3: Away vs James Madison
12/7: Home vs UNC Charlotte
12/10: Home vs Norfolk State
12/17: Away vs Georgetown
12/21: Home vs Marshall

All in all a decent slate. Two P6 home games (presumably Georgetown will come to the Joel next year), regional mid-majors and a trip to Hawaii.
 
Last year’s North Shore Showcase was Washington State, BYU, and Troy so they could pick up two more good opponents there too.
 
What do y’all think about the roster? What’s the outlook?

I’m gonna try and catch more games this year but being on the other side of the country make it difficult…
 
Strickland33 said:
What do y’all think about the roster? What’s the outlook?

I’m gonna try and catch more games this year but being on the other side of the country make it difficult…
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Not good. Jewel Spear transferred to Tennessee. Summiel transferred to VT. Becker went pro. Gebbia didn’t recruit a transfer.

So this team is last year’s team minus their best player, minus two key frontcourt rotation players, plus three freshman guards. I’m optimistic about Gebbia as a coach but this was a bad offseason.
 
Yea, not optimistic about the season. This will be a very experienced team that has played together a lot, however. We’ll see if any of the returners can significantly improve under their first full off season with the new staff.
 
Strickland33 said:
What do y’all think about the roster? What’s the outlook?

I’m gonna try and catch more games this year but being on the other side of the country make it difficult…
Click to expand...
If Stanford and Cal join the conference, you may get more chances to see them.
 
Comment on TOB was that she felt “unprepared” to work the portal when the transfers hit. This, uh, is concerning. how could you not be prepared? Isn’t that your entire job? I’m sure i have a post on this somewhere up the thread, but the extension had a Manning-esque whiff to it (as did the extension to Hoover for getting blown out in the first four, only to get fired a year later)
 
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