Have other programs caught up to UConn in recruiting?
High school star Jones’ choice of Stanford reminds women’s team of new reality
On Wednesday morning, in a gymnasium across the country from Storrs, a high school senior named Haley Jones dealt UConn basketball a painful blow.
In reaching for a red Stanford hat instead of a white UConn one, Jones (the nation’s No. 1 recruit, according to ESPN) left Geno Auriemma’s Huskies with only one Class of 2019 commit and sparked a new round of doubt about the future of UConn’s decadeslong dynasty.
Jones’ commitment to Stanford came seven days after No. 3 overall recruit Aliyah Boston chose South Carolina over UConn and eight weeks after No. 2 overall recruit Jordan Horston spurned the Huskies and pledged to Tennessee. With 99 of ESPN’s top 100 recruits now committed, UConn has essentially run out of options to fill out its 2019 recruiting class, which currently includes only one player: wing Aubrey Griffin, who ranks No. 33. Next fall will mark the first time since 2013 that Geno Auriemma doesn’t welcome a top-15 recruit to campus.
The question now becomes: Is this a blip, or might the rest of the country have caught up to UConn in recruiting?
“We’re used to getting really good players,” Auriemma said Wednesday. “The trick is you’ve got to get more than one good player. You have to get a couple of them a year. For a while there that’s what we were doing. We were doing that every year. But how long can you keep doing that?”
UConn’s dominance over women’s college basketball this decade has owed to numerous factors, from player development to game-planning to team chemistry. But recruiting has clearly played a key, maybe essential role. From 2011-17, the Huskies signed ESPN’s top recruit in four out of seven seasons, landing fu ture All-Americans including Breanna Stewart, Moriah Jefferson, Katie Lou Samuelson and Gabby Williams.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why this year was different. Ultimately, individual players make individual decisions for individual reasons. Jones, for example, said she chose Stanford in part because she wanted to stay close to her Santa Cruz, Calif. home so her parents and grandparents could watch her play.
What’s clear, however, is that more schools than ever are growing their women’s basketball programs. A sport once dominated by UConn and Tennessee now features an ecosystem of contenders across all regions and most conferences.
This dynamic becomes clear when looking at the yearly recruiting rankings. Over the past five cycles, 13 schools have landed a top-5 recruit. This year’s top 15 prospects divided themselves among 12 schools, with only one program (South Carolina) attracting more than one of those players. Even the Gamecocks, who have easily the nation’s best 2019 class, are hardly a dynastic power: They missed the NCAA Tournament as recently as 2011 and had never reached a Final Four before 2015.
The recent rise of pro- grams such as South Carolina, Mississippi State, Oregon and others, both on the recruiting trail and on the court, has naturally threatened UConn’s dominance, even as it has benefited women’s college hoops as a whole. Between those schools and traditional titans such as Notre Dame, Tennessee, Baylor, Texas and Maryland, the sport’s talent is now spread across more teams than ever before.
“When you have other programs that grab some spotlight, that resonates with players,” ESPN women’s basketball reporter Mechelle Voepel said. “In this case, having South Carolina and Notre Dame winning the last two national championships, those are really big positives for those programs.”
Add in the fact that South Carolina’s Dawn Staley coaches the United States Olympic team, Voepel said, and it’s no wonder the Gamecocks have such a stacked class.
UConn has survived recruiting lulls before. In 2013, the Huskies failed to lure a top-ranked recruit (signing only No. 75 Saniya Chong) but proceeded to win the next three national championships anyway.
But whereas those UConn teams had Stewart, Jefferson, Williams and other top players, the Huskies’ next few teams could be short on starpower in comparison. Next year, the Huskies will lose two players who lead them in both points and rebounds, in Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier. And although point guard Crystal Dangerfield will be back, along with Christyn Williams and Megan Walker, those returning starters haven’t averaged anywhere near Samuelson and Collier’s numbers, and depth could remain an is- sue. Griffin and any other newcomers might face heavy pressure right away.
Auriemma, however, resists any instinct to sound alarms. He remembers reading, during a down stretch in the mid-2000s, about how his program’s run of excellence had come to an end. And he remembers responding to that relatively dry spell with a streak of 11 straight Final Fours that continues through today.
“Just because you get the best players doesn’t mean you win, and just because you don’t get the best players every year doesn’t mean you don’t win,” Auriemma said. “We lose two really good players this year for next year — two really great players. These two guys are first team All-Americans. They should be co-players of the year the way they’re playing right now. But I don’t think next year we’re going to be picked not to make the NCAA Tournament.”
Chris Hanson, managing editor of women’s basketball recruiting site ProspectsNation.com, said UConn won’t have to wait long to bounce from this down year of recruiting. The 2020 class is strong at the top, he said, with four or five potential program-changing players, and the Huskies will have plenty of playing time to offer.
With talent dispersed more widely than ever, UConn might not win four straight national titles again anytime soon, Hanson said. But that doesn’t mean they can’t remain college basketball’s biggest power for years to come.
“If they get who they want in 2020,” Hanson said, “they’ll be right back being the annoying team that keeps winning at a standard that’s higher than everybody else’s.”