Women’s team commitment...

[MajorMajors]

Liatu King from the DC area. She’s 5’11” — and she has played football!

Here’s a write up I found from Feb 2018.

“From Lady Hoops Guru:
Liatu is a very solid athlete. She currently plays FOOTBALL with a helmet and shoulder pads against all boys! Liatu is long and agile, she can play multiple positions on the basketball court.

She has not played a lot of AAU so she is a little under the radar but, that won’t be for long as she is playing with an elite group of girls with Team Prime out of the DMV area. Liatu blocks shots, rebounds, and occasionally plays the point too. Just recently she had a game of 20 plus points, double digit rebounds, and quite a few blocked shots.

She will occasionally make a few “wow” plays and has talent “in spades”, but is a little raw offensively. Liatu scores most of her points with athleticism in transition and drives to the basket.

She clearly divides her time between the different sports. If she gets in the gym and works on her shooting – watch out! Liatu has a tremendous upside and with proper coaching she will be a force for many years to come. As she continues to progress and puts more time in with basketball, Liatu will do very well. Coaches are already lining up...”

Supposedly UNC was interested.

Go Pitt.

 

[MajorMajors]

Liatu King from the DC area. She’s 5’11” — and she has played football!

Here’s a write up I found from Feb 2018.

“From Lady Hoops Guru:
Liatu is a very solid athlete. She currently plays FOOTBALL with a helmet and shoulder pads against all boys! Liatu is long and agile, she can play multiple positions on the basketball court. She has not played a lot of AAU so she is a little under the radar but, that won’t be for long as she is playing with an elite group of girls with Team Prime out of the DMV area. Liatu blocks shots, rebounds, and occasionally plays the point too. Just recently she had a game of 20 plus points, double digit rebounds, and quite a few blocked shots. She will occasionally make a few “wow” plays and has talent “in spades”, but is a little raw offensively. Liatu scores most of her points with athleticism in transition and drives to the basket. She clearly divides her time between the different sports. If she gets in the gym and works on her shooting – watch out! Liatu has a tremendous upside and with proper coaching she will be a force for many years to come. We expect her to want to continue to play football but as she continues to progress and puts more time in with basketball, Liatu will do very well. Coaches are already lining up...”

Supposedly UNC was interested.

Go Pitt.

Forgot this — both her parents are deaf. She’s not, but she says she learned sign language around age one...

Go Pitt.

 

[pittchagg]

Hard to argue with this kid’s work ethic. https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...bd4a22-1280-11e8-9065-e55346f6de81_story.html

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Hard to argue with this kid’s work ethic. https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...bd4a22-1280-11e8-9065-e55346f6de81_story.html

Has anyone seen any predictions/projections on Pitt women's hoops likely wins and finish in the ACC this coming season?

Based on the recruits added--especially the bigs added, I would expect a significant W-L improvement over last season's 11-20 (2-14 ACC).

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Has anyone seen any predictions/projections on Pitt women's hoops likely wins and finish in the ACC this coming season?

Based on the recruits added--especially the bigs added, I would expect a significant W-L improvement over last season's 11-20 (2-14 ACC).

Just found it. We are picked next to last (14th) by both the "Blue Ribbon Panel" (have no idea who is on it) and by the head coaches. Wake Forest is picked last in both polls. See link--

http://theacc.com/news/2019/10/16/l...acc-womens-basketball-preseason-favorite.aspx

This prediction truly makes me wonder if the members of the panel and the coaches have really seriously looked at all teams' roster changes and made realistic assessments---except, seemingly, for teams that finished in the upper half of the league last season.

I will be both extremely disappointed and surprised if we finish that low again since that would be an exact repeat of last season's finish at 2-14 ACC and only better than Wake's 1-15 ACC record. Here is link to last season's final standings.

http://theacc.com/standings.aspx?path=wbball

I have to believe looking at our roster realistically that we are very much improved in overall talent over last season especially by having added much better height inside (added several 6-3 and 6-4 young ladies) which should improve our inside scoring, overall rebounding and team defense. Here is the new roster--

https://pittsburghpanthers.com/roster.aspx?path=wbball

I would logically expect that we should at least be able to double or triple last year's meager ACC win total---win at least 4-6 ACC games this time (vs only 2) and move up a few spots in the standings.

Or--Am I crazy?

 

[MajorMajors]

DC - I would agree, but those prognosticators probably don’t realize how poor Coach Suzie’s recruiting was and what an upgrade the new faces will be.

Having said that, only two players from last season will see significant minutes this season (Bugg and Judkins) so that does introduce a lot of uncertainty.

BTW, briefly spoke to a couple of the women’s players today before the football game. They couldn’t have been nicer or more engaging. I think they were shocked that I recognized them as being on the women’s team. Easy to root for these young ladies.

Go Pitt.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

DC - I would agree, but those prognosticators probably don’t realize how poor Coach Suzie’s recruiting was and what an upgrade the new faces will be.

Having said that, only two players from last season will see significant minutes this season (Bugg and Judkins) so that does introduce a lot of uncertainty.

BTW, briefly spoke to a couple of the women’s players today before the football game. They couldn’t have been nicer or more engaging. I think they were shocked that I recognized them as being on the women’s team. Easy to root for these young ladies.

Go Pitt.

Glad to hear they are a nice group of young ladies.

Hadn't looked at last season's stats before but decided to look at them today to see if they support my belief that our team's lack of height last season was a significant factor.

Our women were outscored last season by 9.4 points per game. The per game number has to be larger than that if only ACC games are considered. Also, they were out rebounded by 4.8 rebounds per game. Again it must have been worse for the ACC games.

If we could wipe out that 4.8 rebound margin and only get to even for rebounds (2.4 more boards to Pitt plus 2.4 fewer boards to our opponents) the scoring deficit changes from -9.4 to -5.1 simply based on Pitt vs opponents shooting percentages (both 2s and 3s proportionately). That alone should translate into several more wins. And, if we could flip things and out rebound our opponents by 4.8 boards per game the scoring deficit per game would be approaching zero.

 

[VincePITT]

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

DC - I would agree, but those prognosticators probably don’t realize how poor Coach Suzie’s recruiting was and what an upgrade the new faces will be.

Having said that, only two players from last season will see significant minutes this season (Bugg and Judkins) so that does introduce a lot of uncertainty.

BTW, briefly spoke to a couple of the women’s players today before the football game. They couldn’t have been nicer or more engaging. I think they were shocked that I recognized them as being on the women’s team. Easy to root for these young ladies.

Well we are all assuming that the new faces will be a large upgrade. Perhaps some people want to actually see it for themselves before they assume it to be true. The other thing to consider is that it's not like we brought in a class full of top 10 or top 20 recruits. Or in other words, the kinds of players that people would have reason to expect would make an immediate large impact. However several of our in-conference competitors actually have signed players like that.

Speaking of meeting players, at the Party in the Paint dinner a couple weeks ago I was at the same table as Jahsyni Knight. She seemed like a great young woman. It's easy to root for someone like her.

 

[Chescat]

I believe our new players will represent an upgrade in talent from what we
had. However, I'm not surprised at how low this team has been predicted
to finish in the ACC. Figuring we'll start Bugg and Judkins means that three
newcomers will also start. The JUCO guard appears to be the best of
the newbies and the good news is she's not a frosh. The other two will
probably be frosh. It's a big hurdle when three starters are new to the
program.
I obviously haven't seen them play, but I feel they'll win more than the two
ACC games they won last year. Why?....
1. The talent is better (how much, I have no idea but it is better IMO).
2. The coach proved to me last year that he CAN coach. They were
badly out talented in ACC, yet they were competitive, hustled, and had
a clue as to what they wanted to do. I didn't see that with Suzie's
last few years.
3. I'm not at practices obviously, but I sense a real upbeat attitude with
coaches and players.
I won't predict anything until I see them play, but I suspect they'll have more than
two ACC wins, and will finish higher. How much higher.....No comment until
I see them play.

 

[Tonyt66]

On there Friday night madness they scrimmaged Five Guys and they look pretty good. The one guard I'm not sure what her name is but she's a beast and she's going to be a very good player for us.

 

[wbrpanther]

Liatu King from the DC area. She’s 5’11” — and she has played football!

Here’s a write up I found from Feb 2018.

“From Lady Hoops Guru:
Liatu is a very solid athlete. She currently plays FOOTBALL with a helmet and shoulder pads against all boys! Liatu is long and agile, she can play multiple positions on the basketball court.

She has not played a lot of AAU so she is a little under the radar but, that won’t be for long as she is playing with an elite group of girls with Team Prime out of the DMV area. Liatu blocks shots, rebounds, and occasionally plays the point too. Just recently she had a game of 20 plus points, double digit rebounds, and quite a few blocked shots.

She will occasionally make a few “wow” plays and has talent “in spades”, but is a little raw offensively. Liatu scores most of her points with athleticism in transition and drives to the basket.

She clearly divides her time between the different sports. If she gets in the gym and works on her shooting – watch out! Liatu has a tremendous upside and with proper coaching she will be a force for many years to come. As she continues to progress and puts more time in with basketball, Liatu will do very well. Coaches are already lining up...”

Supposedly UNC was interested.

Go Pitt.

Can she play TE.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Well we are all assuming that the new faces will be a large upgrade. Perhaps some people want to actually see it for themselves before they assume it to be true. The other thing to consider is that it's not like we brought in a class full of top 10 or top 20 recruits. Or in other words, the kinds of players that people would have reason to expect would make an immediate large impact. However several of our in-conference competitors actually have signed players like that.

Speaking of meeting players, at the Party in the Paint dinner a couple weeks ago I was at the same table as Jahsyni Knight. She seemed like a great young woman. It's easy to root for someone like her.

I was not focused on overall player skills (i.e. Hoop Gurlz top 100s types) when thinking about the incoming group. Instead, I was focused on our filling an obvious need. I am hoping that by now having multiple players taller than 6-2 on the roster we will have the requisite size to be more effective defensively and offensively close to the basket. It is unsurprising that the coaches went this route considering how truly awful we were as a rebounding team last season.

Out of curiosity I did the exercise of looking at ACC only stats (including the ACCT loss to Duke). We lost by an average of 18.9 points/game and were out rebounded by an average of 10.2 boards/game vs ACC opponents. That is double the 9.4 points/game and 4.8 rebounds/dame deficits we averaged last season for ACC and OOC results combined.

Of note, we only out rebounded an ACC opponent in two games last season (by 2 vs UVA and by 3 vs UNC). In six games we were out rebounded by 15 or more boards--including once by 25 boards. Given those results it is no wonder that the coaches added 6-3 Ezeja, 6-4 Ibokwe and 6-4 Lamark to a roster that last season only had two players 6-2 or taller. IMHO, none of the these 3 ladies need to be true stars for the team to be improved. They just need to defensive rebound adequately and be reasonably adequate "rim defenders" to improve the team significantly. The fact that there is now also inside depth (the three ladies plus returning Cara Judkins at 6-2) also means, IMHO, that we won't often be in the situation of playing without a big late in a game due to foul trouble. The depth in bigs also provides for the possibility that they can play two bigs at the same time.

Like all I am looking forward to seeing them play to decide if these new big girls are athletic and not just happen to be tall.

 

[jrosenal]

On there Friday night madness they scrimmaged Five Guys and they look pretty good. The one guard I'm not sure what her name is but she's a beast and she's going to be a very good player for us.

Does anybody know who the freshman guard is? Her name?

 

[Tonyt66]

Does anybody know who the freshman guard is? Her name?

I went and looked at there pics and I think her name is:
DAYSHANETTEHARRIS

• POSITION
  
  Guard
• HEIGHT
  
  5-7
• CLASS
  
  Freshman
• She was a 4yrs starter in high and scored over 2800 points.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

I believe our new players will represent an upgrade in talent from what we
had. However, I'm not surprised at how low this team has been predicted
to finish in the ACC. Figuring we'll start Bugg and Judkins means that three
newcomers will also start. The JUCO guard appears to be the best of
the newbies and the good news is she's not a frosh. The other two will
probably be frosh. It's a big hurdle when three starters are new to the
program.
I obviously haven't seen them play, but I feel they'll win more than the two
ACC games they won last year. Why?....
1. The talent is better (how much, I have no idea but it is better IMO).
2. The coach proved to me last year that he CAN coach. They were
badly out talented in ACC, yet they were competitive, hustled, and had
a clue as to what they wanted to do. I didn't see that with Suzie's
last few years.
3. I'm not at practices obviously, but I sense a real upbeat attitude with
coaches and players.
I won't predict anything until I see them play, but I suspect they'll have more than
two ACC wins, and will finish higher. How much higher.....No comment until
I see them play.

Looks like the 1st TV game is Central Conn St on ACCNX.

 

[King Of All Message Boards]

Can she play TE.

Hopefully she can catch a basketball better than the TEs can catch a football. Which should be pretty easy since it’s a fairly low bar.

 

[MajorMajors]

Here’s a copy of the latest Hoopsgurlz notes on new commit Liatu King:

“Nike Nationals-July 2019: Athletic perimeter prospect cleans the glass, handles and attacks coast-to-coast in transition game; mismatch creator in the key, knocks down jumpers, rises over defenders; a stock-riser in the class of 2020. (Olson) “

Also, they list her as being 6-foot and rate her as a “90” three-star ... (And it should be noted that Hoopsgurlz always has highly flattering evaluations...)

From what I’ve read and seen on short video clips, the new faces are a definite upgrade over our previous coach’s recruits. I haven’t seen the new faces play but I have seen the others — they played hard last season but with limited skills.

Knight played about 12 min. per game as a backup point guard, averaged 2 points per game, shot 25% from the floor and 50% from the foul line. She rarely even looked to shoot the ball. My guess is she becomes a defensive specialist.

Prapa averaged 7 min. per game, averaged less than 2 points, shot 26% from the field, 25% from 3 and 50% from the foul line.

The other guard in Suzie’s final class (all guards!) transferred out. As you can see, Suzie’s last class had no impact on the team and I’ll root for them but I’m afraid they’ve been recruited over...

Go Pitt.

 

[MajorMajors]

BTW, I had a chance to talk to Paul Zeise for a bit yesterday before the football game. He pointed out to me that the Pitt women play Stony Brook this season. Paul’s daughter Hailey is a starter for Stony Brook. She’s a 5’10” junior guard/ forward.

Hailey averaged 4 points per game last season but shot 41% from the floor.

The Pitt - Stony Brook game. Is Dec. 8th.

Go Pitt.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Here’s a copy of the latest Hoopsgurlz notes on new commit Liatu King:

“Nike Nationals-July 2019: Athletic perimeter prospect cleans the glass, handles and attacks coast-to-coast in transition game; mismatch creator in the key, knocks down jumpers, rises over defenders; a stock-riser in the class of 2020. (Olson) “

Also, they list her as being 6-foot and rate her as a “90” three-star ... (And it should be noted that Hoopsgurlz always has highly flattering evaluations...)

From what I’ve read and seen on short video clips, the new faces are a definite upgrade over our previous coach’s recruits. I haven’t seen the new faces play but I have seen the others — they played hard last season but with limited skills.

Knight played about 12 min. per game as a backup point guard, averaged 2 points per game, shot 25% from the floor and 50% from the foul line. She rarely even looked to shoot the ball. My guess is she becomes a defensive specialist.

Prapa averaged 7 min. per game, averaged less than 2 points, shot 26% from the field, 25% from 3 and 50% from the foul line.

The other guard in Suzie’s final class (all guards!) transferred out. As you can see, Suzie’s last class had no impact on the team and I’ll root for them but I’m afraid they’ve been recruited over...

Go Pitt.

Having more and better bigs should take some pressure off the guards and thereby help their stats to improve

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Having more and better bigs should take some pressure off the guards and thereby help their stats to improve.

Having MORE bigs doesn't do a damn thing unless they can play. That's something that you often seem to forget. A 6' tall woman who can play is much, much better than a 6'6" woman who can't. Notre Dame made the Final Four a couple years ago while starting four people shorter than 6'. Because they had a whole bunch of people who could play. The fact that some of them were 5'10" or 5'11" didn't hold them back at all.

Let's hope our bigs are BETTER. Because at the end of the day that's all that really counts.

 

[joeydavid]

 

[Chescat]

Having MORE bigs doesn't do a damn thing unless they can play. That's something that you often seem to forget. A 6' tall woman who can play is much, much better than a 6'6" woman who can't. Notre Dame made the Final Four a couple years ago while starting four people shorter than 6'. Because they had a whole bunch of people who could play. The fact that some of them were 5'10" or 5'11" didn't hold them back at all.

Let's hope our bigs are BETTER. Because at the end of the day that's all that really counts.

Exactly! If the bigs can't play, it won't do us any good. We know what we have in Judkins, a 6'2'' Big who in the ACC last season was IMO average at best. I
doubt anyone on here has seen the new bigs actually play. Hopefully they are
better than Judkins, who is serviceable. There is a 6'4" center who has been at
two schools already, Pitt is the third. Can she help?
There are two forwards coming in as Frosh, one is 6'4" the other is 6'3". I have
no idea what these three can actually do on the floor. It actually would be a
good sign if they were an upgrade over Judkins. This not to degrade Judkins,
because she's played to her ability IMO. She also is a worker, and really
hustled and fought on the boards last season.
I'm fairly certain (having only seen Bugg in person) that we've upgraded the
guard position. Bugg returns, the JUCO appears to be legit, and the guard
from Ohio (Harris) averaged 28.ppg and scored over 2000 career pts. I have
to believe those three will play a lot. Anything we get inside will hopefully be
better than the little we got inside last year.
Those are all opinions and nothing more, as I haven't seen these newcomers
actually play. Time will tell.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Having MORE bigs doesn't do a damn thing unless they can play. That's something that you often seem to forget. A 6' tall woman who can play is much, much better than a 6'6" woman who can't. Notre Dame made the Final Four a couple years ago while starting four people shorter than 6'. Because they had a whole bunch of people who could play. The fact that some of them were 5'10" or 5'11" didn't hold them back at all.

Let's hope our bigs are BETTER. Because at the end of the day that's all that really counts.

Joe--I agree. That's what I am hoping also.

The last ACC level big we have had was the 6-3 grad student former Pitt volleyball player during Coach Suzie's first season. That was the best team of her tenure at Pitt because it also had a future WNBA point guard. Strength at both the 1 and the 5 spots is generally the best foundation for success.

FWIW, I believe I pretty much said something similar about the new bigs to what you have said. I concluded my prior longish post by stating-- "Like all I am looking forward to seeing them play to decide if these new big girls are athletic and not just happen to be tall."

We will know more in a week or two.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Is the women's team plan to start and play 3 guards and two bigs? The Roster lists two of the 4 bigs (Judkins and Lamark) as centers and the other two (Ezeja and Ibokwe) as forwards. Every other player on the roster is listed as a guard. it will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Chescat]

Is the women's team plan to start and play 3 guards and two bigs? The Roster lists two of the 4 bigs (Judkins and Lamark) as centers and the other two (Ezeja and Ibokwe) as forwards. Every other player on the roster is listed as a guard. it will be interesting to see what happens.

None of us on a message board has any idea what the "plan" is.
I would assume that the coach will put his best players on the floor. If two
of the best are bigs, that would help. At this point it's hard to tell without
having seen them play, but more than likely one will have to be a big. Any
others?...that's hard for us to know at this point.
Like you said...."it will be interesting to see." Nov.1 vs Pitt Johnstown which
I think is an exhibition game, will give us an idea.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

None of us on a message board has any idea what the "plan" is.
I would assume that the coach will put his best players on the floor. If two
of the best are bigs, that would help. At this point it's hard to tell without
having seen them play, but more than likely one will have to be a big. Any
others?...that's hard for us to know at this point.
Like you said...."it will be interesting to see." Nov.1 vs Pitt Johnstown which
I think is an exhibition game, will give us an idea.

Since there will be no TV for that one, I look forward to what other women’s team fans who will attend the game will have to report. My first opportunity to see them appears to be the Central Connecticut State game on ACCNX.

 

[Chescat]

Since there will be no TV for that one, I look forward to what other women’s team fans who will attend the game will have to report. My first opportunity to see them appears to be the Central Connecticut State game on ACCNX.

Good point. We'll get some info from posters who attend the exhibition.
Hopefully we'll get to see some film on here following soon after.
Coaches' comments. statistics, etc. following the exhibition will at least
give us somewhat of an idea.
When it comes to this pre season info, it seems that women's Bball is
so different than men's. We have some idea with what's going on with
the men. The h.s. and AAU reports along with player ratings, actual
player films etc.is so much more in abundance for the men than for
the women. We'll get to know soon enough.