We are up to 7 girls in the portal. Latest additions include Camille Jackson and Lakresha Edwards. They join Cori Lard, Hennessey Lu Brown, Emily Bratton, Enjulina Gonzalez, and Ziul Gonzalez. The only starter in the group is Enjulina Gonzalez, although most of them have started at times.
Coach Box made a real attempt to get as many girls in each game as he could. In previous times, that would have been appreciated but under today’s conditions almost all players would like to be starters and if they handle the portal properly they will get that chance. The only girl on this list who should be looking for a higher level should be Enjulina. Others should consider lower mid majors or DII or even DIII ( I remember Camille getting 28 points in about half a game when we played a DIII team. She could dominate at that level.). If you go to a team as good as the one you are leaving, there is no reason to think your playing time will go up. I and I think many others do appreciate the girls who stayed for the WNIT game before entering the portal.
What we have left on our roster is a top level MAC point guard in Tamar and two wings, Neuria who will be a JR and Junior college transfer Mio Sakano.
A big strength should be our post players. We have 6-1 Soph Amber Tretter who will be one of the top post players in the MAC next year. We also added through the portal 6-1 RS Soph Brooke Blumenfeld from NIU. We have 6-3 Freshman Ilse de Vries who started most of the year and 6-3 Freshman Emily van Timmerman who joined the team in January and will be a rs freshman next year
The major pieces I think we need are wings who can score, at least one of whom can also play some point guard. If we get good players to fill those roles, we can compete at the top of the MAC.
The other thing I would mention is that Coach Steele has found a way to minimize players transferring out, He has retained 6 of the 9 players in our rotation from a 25 win team and it might yet be 7 of 9. Instead of trying to find a few minutes for each player, he selected the 9 guys he wanted to use and made sure that each one got a good number of minutes in every game, with the two freshman getting fewer minutes but still a very significant amount. He also was very careful in who he recruited to sit the bench. People who would be happy to be a part of the team and enjoy being part of the team. It seems to work and is something for Coach Box to think about. Even with doing that, all coaches are going to have to keep recruiting every year to end up with the type of roster they want to go to battle with.