Lady Zag Quiz...

This question was posed yesterday on both the Gonzaga WBB's Facebook page and their Twitter page:

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Gonzaga Women's Basketball@ZagWBB

#DYK that Gonzaga leads the @WCChoops
in Player of the Year honors? Your Zags have collected 9 POTY honors, three more than the next closest program.

TrophyTrophyTrophyTrophyTrophyTrophyTrophyTrophyTr ophy

Can you name all of GU’s POTY honorees? #UnitedWeZag

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Gonzaga WBB Twitter Link

9 Lady Zags have been selected as the WCC Player of the Year...Can you name them?

I didn’t do well...

Came up with 5... two of which I believe won the honor twice.

When you play team ball and don’t have the team star... this tells you the type of quality players GU WBB has. And I think there will be more added to this list.

Congrats to all... well deserved.

Go Zags!!

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Originally Posted by SkipZag

Came up with 5... two of which I believe won the honor twice.

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Nope.

All the winners have occurred since 2004-2005 season, so 9 winners in the last 16 years.

2004-2005 Shannon Mathews
2006-2007 Stephanie Hawk (shared with Amanda Rego of USD)
2007-2008 Heather Bowman
2008-2009 Courtney Vandersloot
2009-2010 Courtney Vandersloot
2010-2011 Courtney Vandersloot
2012-2013 Taelor Karr
2017-2018 Jill Barta
2019-2020 Jill Townsend

I forgot Taelor Karr and Shannon Mathews.

Skip, did you think Jill Barta won the award twice?

ZagDad

I thought Heather had won it twice. And Courtney twice. Knew Jill Barta was once.

I was missing Shannon and Stephanie... first started following GU WBB in the spring of 2007

CV pulling it down for three years is impressive... watched the highlights of her in the Louisville game... we forget how good she was in college.

Go Zags!!

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Originally Posted by ZagDad84

Nope.

All the winners have occurred since 2004-2005 season, so 9 winners in the last 16 years.

2004-2005 Shannon Mathews
2006-2007 Stephanie Hawk (shared with Amanda Rego of USD)
2007-2008 Heather Bowman
2008-2009 Courtney Vandersloot
2009-2010 Courtney Vandersloot
2010-2011 Courtney Vandersloot
2012-2013 Taelor Karr
2017-2018 Jill Barta
2019-2020 Jill Townsend

I forgot Taelor Karr and Shannon Mathews.

Skip, did you think Jill Barta won the award twice?

ZagDad

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We have a winner!!! Congratulations ZagDad84, you even got the years correct...

SkipZag, even if you just remembered 5 that is still pretty good...

I thought it would be one of the long-time Lady Zag fans that would be the first to get it right...

Who I was surprised that did not win the WCC Wbb player of the year was Kayla Standish or Katelan Redmon. Their first 3 years, playing with CV, would have made it very difficult for them to win the WCC Wbb player of the year during that period.

Just because I am, at heart, a Lady Zag homer, I wanted to check to see if either Kayla or Katelan should have won the WCC Wbb player of the year for the 2011-2012 basketball season. For the year 2011-2012 the WCC Wbb player of the year was Kristen Riley of BYU. Here are the 2011-2012 season stats for each of the three players:

Kristen Riley (BYU) - 28.9 mpg, 11.4 ppg (@46.3%), 8.2 rpg, 78 ast, 67 t/o, 32 Blks, 40 Stls
Kayla Standish (GU) - 29.5 mpg, 16.4 ppg (@48.0%), 7.5 rpg, 54 ast, 66 t/o, 50 Blks, 47 Stls
Katelan Redmon (GU) - 28.2 mpg, 13.4 ppg (@48.9%), 5.8 rpg, 53 ast, 66 t/o, 8 Blks, 28 Stls

Both Lady Zags scored more and shot a higher overall shooting percentage than their BYU counterpart. Kristen Riley did outrebound and out assist both Lady Zags, but was less than 1 rpg better than Standish. Kayla Standish had considerably more blocks (+50%) and almost 20% more steals than Riley. It is interesting that all three ladies were within one turnover of one another.

Kristen Riley shot the 3 much better than either Lady Zag but both Lady Zags shot free throws much better than the Cougar.

While I can see why Kristen, who had a very good year, eclipsed Katelan Redmon IMO, she certainly did not eclipse Kayla Standish. At least among these three players, Kayla Standish deserved to be named WCC Wbb POY.

Maybe after giving the award to a Lady Zag for 5 straight years, the WCC wanted to give it to another team to the detriment of Kayla Standish.

Just building up a little conference swagger before WBB starts.

ZagDad

Interesting ZD...

I agree with your thoughts on Kayla and also the WCC handing the award to another player on another team.

Here is another thought.... from her freshman year, I could tell Kayla was special. She had the skill and talent. What I felt though, was that KG was not handling her well. He was hard on her... and I felt there was a better way to get the best out of her earlier in her time at GU. It seemed her skill and talent was way ahead of her confidence... almost afraid to make a mistake and have KG come down on her.
My thought is this. After what I have seen CF do with ZR and now the Wirths and what I think you will see with AV, I wonder if Kayla would have been better than she was and sooner with CF as her coach.

The talent level and experience of this years team plus Being gamers... I hope they are allowed to fullfill their dreams. They have earned it!

Go Zags!!

I was fairly surprised to see that Standish never won it. Looks like she certainly should have her Senior season.

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Originally Posted by SkipZag

Interesting ZD...

Here is another thought.... from her freshman year, I could tell Kayla was special. She had the skill and talent. What I felt though, was that KG was not handling her well. He was hard on her... and I felt there was a better way to get the best out of her earlier in her time at GU. It seemed her skill and talent was way ahead of her confidence... almost afraid to make a mistake and have KG come down on her.

My thought is this. After what I have seen CF do with ZR and now the Wirths and what I think you will see with AV, I wonder if Kayla would have been better than she was and sooner with CF as her coach.

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There is significant move away from the "traditional" coaching methods. The type of methods used by Pat Summit, Geno Auriemma. Kim Mulkey, even EWUs own Wendy Schuller etc. are slowly working there way out of the system. When you are constantly winning and in the hunt for national championships, people and players tend to accept the hard nose approach. When the team is not dominating, there is less reason to accept this type of coaching.

With the flexibility in transferring and many of the restrictions of the past on transferring being removed (i.e. can't transfer within the conference), many kids simply will not put up with the drill sergeant type of coaching. You see players transferring in bunches, complaints being filed against the coach and coaching staff (directly and indirectly) quite frequently. For example, Marlene Stollings (Texas Tech Head Wbb coach), was fired on Aug. 6 after a USA Today story detailing allegations of abuse towards players. These type of stories are occurring more frequently.

I don't know that I would put KG in the same hard-nose coaching category as those previously listed coaches, but he certainly had his player preferences and was known to hold a grudge for quite a while.

Late teen - early 20s kids react different ways to different coaching methods. There is no one method that works on all kids. Almost everybody who has flourished under Geno, worships him and his coaching style, saying he got the best out of them. When a player does not flourish under his tutelage, the message is not quite as glowing. Remember one of the best WNBA players (Elena Delle Donne) left UConn after one week and went to play for University of Delaware.

Playing time and winning eases a lot of the anxiety. When you don't get both, it can lead to some problems in the program. I have been somewhat surprised that CLF has not lost more kids due to a lack of playing time. She has made a conscious effort to get everybody some time without (seemingly) alienating the "stars:. It really appears to be an all for one type of team. Great job by CLF. The next couple of years may be her biggest challenge yet.

I am sure she is up for it.

ZagDad

Great post ZagDad.

IIRC, EDD leaving UConn had nothing to do with Geno or his coaching methods. I think she actually left before classes started, certainly before basketball practice began. I believe it was largely homesickness and wanting to be near her special needs sister, who she is very close with. I seem to recall she was also somewhat burned out with basketball. She played volleyball at Delaware initially before eventually returning to hoops.

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Originally Posted by seacatfan

IIRC, EDD leaving UConn had nothing to do with Geno or his coaching methods. I think she actually left before classes started, certainly before basketball practice began. I believe it was largely homesickness and wanting to be near her special needs sister, who she is very close with. I seem to recall she was also somewhat burned out with basketball. She played volleyball at Delaware initially before eventually returning to hoops.

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If I remember correctly, EDD attended one practice and then left the program. I do remember her saying she wanted to be closer to her special needs sister and thus playing at Delaware made sense.

ZagDad

Okay, I had to look it up. EDD withdrew right after the start of summer classes in June. If the team was practicing then...something wasn't right.

I remember watching an interview with EDD and then Geno. EDD said that she really missed her sister... that she felt that she needed to be closer to her. They needed each other. Geno on the other hand just couldn’t understand how she could leave his program. The way Geno acted and what he said really surprised me... since then I’m not a Geno fan. Life and family is more important than the ball game. And he should have respected her decision.
That is why FAMILY is printed on many t-shirts and in the GU WBB case... it means something. That is why one of next years recruit’s parents said they felt comfortable sending their daughter to GU... and the GU family.

Go Zags!!