Transfer Station

#1 posting 4.4.2006
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BROBACK LEAVES GOPHERS
MN
Leading scorer Jamie Broback is the third player to leave the Minnesota program in the last two weeks. Here is the St. Paul Pioneer Press story by Ray Richardson http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/sports/colleges/14256241.htm
What makes this story a bit different from the ones below is that
#1. Broback played major minutes and started;
#2 Broback led the team in scoring;
#3. She was a second team all Confrence player;
#4. She is close to home.

MULLANEY DECIDES
MN
Kelly Mullaney, Breck, who once made a verbal to Minnesota but reconsidered, is now headed to Colorado State officially. This was made known on KARE 11 at the 6 pm newscast today. There were no links when I checked.

TRANSFER STATION
There has been a rash of transfers lately from four schools in the coverage area, and I am sure it is not finished.
Here is the List of transfers of the schools in the area (there are probably a lot more through the nation)
Player, College, Game Started, Minutes, PPG, Year, High School
Jamie Broback, Minnesota 23 24.9 13.7 jr Eastview MN
Brittney Davis, Minnesota 0 7.2 1.0 so Portland Jefferson, OR
Lauren Lacey, Minnesota 0 12.8 5.1 so Marian Catholic, IL
Shari Welton, Wisconsin 8 14.4 2.7 so Thornwood, IL
Tiffanie Shives, Michigan State 0 8.7 1.7 fr Lansing Christian, MI
Natalie Carda, South Dakota State 0 13.5 5.2 fr Beresford, SD

As you can see most of the time players are not getting major minutes. Only Broback and Welton got a starting assignment. Most players are coming in at about 20% of the game. Broback is the exception with about 62.25 of court time.

The point production comes in at 3.14 without counting Broback. Most of these players were big time scorers in high school Shives was scoring 25.1 in high school. I will point out that it was coming at class D in Michigan.

As you can see sophs and frosh make up the majority of this list which is why the Broback case is puzzling. In fact one out of every five players recruited out of high school don't make it to the sophomore year. The collegiate 2007 class started out with 1221 in the frosh year, but only had 972 in the sophomore year. Division 1 is not for everyone. But it is about the same at D2 where only 83.8 make it on to the soph year.

Homesickness may play a part in the transfers, but Shives and Broback are right there close to home.

The recruiting process may have an impact in these decisions. Players need to have their eyes wide open to all possibilities. The mental toughness needed to play at the next levels need to be examined closely. I put up a link to an article from Carly Benson, a freshman at Michigan on Saturday April 1st (check it out if you missed it). But there are some areas that are common to all players:
Learning curve...most players don't realize how much they don't know
Physcial play
Athletic ability around and against you has increased....in high school it was the big fish in the small pond.
Time management.....after school and hoops, free time-social time is minimal
Team Chemistry.....each team has a different personality and it usually takes on the personality of the coach.

I think that a 20% turnover in the recruiting game is too high. That is why I crunch the numbers of these high school players. Too much is riding on the selections.

By the way, of the states I covered this season all the Players of the year, or Gatorade Players of the year were called in October in my publications. If one was an AP player, the Gatorade player was #2 on my list (Wisconsin).
Check out my profile and order the 2006-07 analysis out in Late September, or if you have questions, let me know.

Next up tomorrow afternoon