I am incredibly GRATEFUL 🙏🏾that these men, & their families have decided to return to @aggiembk next year!

The genuine love 💗 they have for one another, and #Aggieland, is REAL!

Along with our staff, I am humbled 🙌🏿to be around these guys each day 📅#GIGEM pic.twitter.com/nz8TzqfbV5

— Buzz Williams (@TeamCoachBuzz) May 9, 2024

Buzz has the right kind of players who truly want to be Aggies and are 100% in. I think this is what it will take for our WBB program to be consistently successful. I believe Joni will get there but like it did with Buzz, it will take a little time. Ware, Coulibaly, and Jones are those types of players. Hopefully, they will help recruit like-minded players to continue to build the program.

Breaking my rule of only lurking and not posting. I understand injuries to four players, esp Rogers and Barker, greatly affected the season, i understand lack of NIL money probably is reason our recruiting and portal results that aren't great. but what I don't understand is the total lack of development in the players over the season. Name a player that got better? Won't name those that were turn over machines, one that kept making dumb defensive fouls, two that often shot close in shots that didn't even hit the rim, could go on, but won't , 29 turnovers in a game at end of season indicates awful coaching. it was lack of development that disappointed me. But I am going to do my part. Bought a Powerball ticket and when I win the 331 mil $ will fix NIL money so Joni can compete with Kim for players.

I think this is why you see the better teams playing with such short rosters. They have 2-3 elite players and 3-4 players that play their role. I'll play devils advocate here with regards to Barker. She did improve from year 1 to year 2. She is immensely talented, but incredibly immature on the court. Some days you'd get mature and focused Janiah, and some days you'd get reckless crazy-foul overly emotional Janiah. She is a work in progress, but seemed unwilling to change. She had too many outside distractions (NIL, gf, social media, etc). Bowles played as much as she played her freshman year bc we had nobody else. There are very few freshman and underclassmen that can compete the way we need them to compete. They don't have the game or maturity to do so consistently. There are some, but they are not on our roster. I loved Tineya, but she was a turn over machine as was KayKay. And I mean just turnovers at the worst possible times in the games. They all wanted more time on the court, but their play didn't warrant more time on the court. MJ - great free throw shooter? Hustled hard. That's about it.

In my opinion, what we see happening is not so much the inability to coach or develop but more of an adaptation of how they have to recruit to have a chance to win. They aren't developers anymore. They are managing talent and recruiting experience so they can do just that. What wins in the SEC and beyond is experience. They don't necessarily need to recruit high school players right now. They can effectively build a roster on transfers alone and it seems like that's where their focus is. With regards to Kylie, she did not fit in with SEC basketball. She played way too slow and needs to play for a school that is more of a set play style. We can all agree, Rogers, Lauren, and AC were the stars of the season. All transfers. All came in and bc of their experience and ability to compete, were instant impacts. Janiah was an integral part of the team, but she was not the focus and I think that bothered her. In the games we needed her the most, she had costly turnovers and fouls at the very end of the games. (That would have improved with more experience). I think Janiah just doesn't want to go thru the hard stuff right now. The other players that left - I'm sorry, but they were just filling holes until better athletes come in. You could literally see the difference in focus and fight from Rogers, Ware, and AC compared to the rest of the team.

I'm not saying Joni is the answer, and I am worried (mostly bc I just want to win immediately), but I think we have to give her 3/5 years. AC didn't come in until late last year. I'm sure Joni has some things in the works.

Excellent post aggiedrjdub! I think you hit the nail on the head in your analysis of players and where our program is right now.