Sweet 16's: The Future Of UO Women's Basketball
11/27/15 | Women's Basketball, @GoDucksMoseley
The third in a three-part series looking at how Kelly Graves and staff assembled the nation's No. 6 women's basketball recruiting class for 2016.
by Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
Earlier this month, the UO women's basketball program announced the signing of a six-player recruiting class ranked No. 6 in the country by ESPN. The class was the fruits of 18 months of focused effort by new UO coach Kelly Graves and his staff to remake the program into a national contender.
During that period, Graves adopted a motto for those efforts – "a vision so powerful, it has to become a reality." That proved prophetic as the recruits' letters of intent began to arrive.
Graves and his staff took over the Ducks for the 2014-15 season. As the roster stood coming out of that year, it had just two players – guard Lexi Bando and Jacinta Vandenberg – in line to be around two seasons later, in 2016-17. That's when the class signed this month will arrive.
But it won't be the first time the whole group is on campus together, with one exception.
Among the most remarkable aspects of the Ducks' 2016 recruiting class is that all six players who signed in November – Oregon is in pursuit of one more player in the class, who could sign in the spring – made verbal commitments prior to taking their official visits to campus. Instead, they waited to make their official visits as a group, this October.
While in Eugene, Jayde Woods, Sierra Campisano, Mallory McGwire, Lydia Giomi and Ruthy Hebard met as a group, along with their families. Australian guard Morgan Yaeger wasn't able to join them, but the other five got to spend the weekend getting to know each other, attending an Oregon football game, and participating in a photo shoot in the uniforms they'll eventually wear.
Months before, Graves and his assistants had presented the option of coming to Eugene earlier, as individuals. If you need to make your official visit in order to make your decision, by all means do so, he told the recruits. None did. All opted to visit as a group in October.
“What it became was a celebration weekend,” UO assistant coach Nicole Powell said. “If there's one word to define this group, it's 'unity.' This is a team game, and these kids are all so unselfish. That's why I'm so excited about this class – we got the right people. And you win with the right people.”
When the staff set out to recruit the 2016 class, Graves had as a model the group he signed in the second year at his previous job, Gonzaga. The class that arrived for 2001-02 helped the Bulldogs go 11-18 overall, a six-game improvement over the year before, though just two of those wins were in conference.
Three years later, when those players were seniors, Gonzaga went 14-0 in conference play, and 28-4 overall. “Not all of them were starting by their senior year, but they were the ones that took a chance on us,” Graves said. “We hope this group will have the same effect.”
On the court, the defining feature of the 2016 class is length. It features, the 6-6 Giomi, the 6-5 McGwire, the 6-4 Hebard and the 6-3 Campisano. Even Woods is a long wing at 6-1.
“Length is huge for us,” Powell said. “It just allows you to do so many things.”
Defensively, McGwire, Giomi and Campisano can anchor the front line. And the staff is downright giddy about the potential of the super-athletic Hebard out on the ball at the top of a zone defense.
Graves believes Woods is “one of the best perimeter defenders in the country,” and called Campisano “the most skilled big kid in the country.” McGwire is an “elite post” who “doesn't know how great she can be,” and Yaeger is a “versatile guard” for whom “attacking the basket is a strength.”
The class has academic chops, too. Giomi, Graves said, “is going to be the kind of kid that has a master's degree in four years.” All the 2016 recruits fit into the culture the Ducks sought to create, Powell said.
“Our practices are going to be highly competitive,” said Powell, the former Stanford and WNBA star. “And I love saying that. You want to get to the pros? It's going to take somebody pushing you every day in practice. Here's who's going to do it.”
At Gonzaga, Graves turned a mid-major program into the most dependable pipeline on the West Coast to the WNBA. “And at Gonzaga, he wasn't signing top-100 kids,” assistant coach Mark Campbell said. “Yet he had more kids drafted in the last five years than any school out west. So what is Kelly going to do when he signs top-100 kids and has four years to develop them?”
Ultimately, the 2016 class could include another guard, should the Ducks add another player. Regardless, the six current signees will join a roster next fall that includes Vandenberg as a senior post, Bando as a junior on the wing, and Maite Cazorla with this season under her belt at point guard.
Oti Gildon and Lauren Yearwood will be sophomores as well. This year's transfer additions, guards Mar'Shay Moore and Megan Trinder, also will be back.
“The 2016 class has all the pieces you need to compete at the highest level,” Campbell said. “It's got length, it's got athleticism, it's got shooters. You blend that with the upperclassmen, it's going to be a great mixture of veterans with youth.”
The program is trending upward. After a 13-17 finish in his first year, Graves had the Ducks out to a 4-0 start to the 2015-16 season, entering Saturday's home game against North Dakota. In the final season with Jillian Alleyne leading the Ducks, they hope to break through to the postseason.
That would put the 2016 signing class ahead of the curve compared to the early Gonzaga recruiting class Graves was hoping to emulate. If the 2016 recruits can enjoy a similar career trajectory, they might just be able to make Oregon a contender for Final Four appearances, the impetus for Graves' move from Spokane to Eugene two years ago.
To get there, Graves knew, the 2016 class would be critical. Miss with too many spots in the group, and his stay in Eugene might not be long. But succeed, and Oregon women's basketball could be in store for a renaissance.
When the staff set out in the fall of 2014 to begin recruiting the class of 2016, it had six or seven spots to fill. In order to make a deep enough investment in each recruit, the staff figured it could only truly target 10 to 12 players for the class. That made for a thin margin for error.
At the time, Graves called to mind the words of his own coach back at New Mexico, Gary Colson.
“Kelly, if you spend too much times recruiting your 'ones,' you end up signing your 'threes,” Graves recalled. “It's a great line. He said, 'Sometimes those 'twos' are the ones you build your program around.'
“So yeah, there was a risk. We had a deep pool, but we kind of put our chips in with a few players. And we were fortunate enough that worked out.”
When the fall signees for the 2016 class finally became official on Nov. 11, the same day the Ducks hosted their 2015-16 exhibition opener, Graves called it one of the best days of his career, no small thing for a coach who made seven NCAA Tournaments at Gonzaga.
But the day was the culmination of 18 months in which Graves and his staff set a vision for the future of Oregon women's basketball, then hit the road looking to make that a reality. With a top-six class that included four top-100 players in the fold, Graves couldn't mask his joy.
“For him to say that shows the hard work we put it,” Powell said. “And that it actually paid off.”
Read the first two parts of this series, "The Plan" and "The Hunt."
