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Another one bites the dust
Mulkey transfer continues trend of collegiate ‘free agency’
Remember that bang up recruiting class Oklahoma women’s basketball coach Sherri Coale inked less than two years ago?
It was only two players, but one season into their Sooner lives, everything looked great.
Chelsea Dungee, a guard with many skills and an aggressive streak, and 6-foot-9 center Nancy Mulkey, the tallest player in program history, combined to start 36 games during the 20162017 season.
Mulkey’s starts were inflated. She was often inserted just to win the tip before being replaced by Vionise Pierre-Louis. Nevertheless, she could change the game defensively and offered a soft touch given time to get her shot away.
Now?
Neither will be returning to the program, and that fact may say more about the current climate of the game than anything having to do with Oklahoma women’s basketball other than the fact that being a member of the program demands a certain level of accountability and responsibility that, despite a changing climate, will not be removed.
The program announced that Dungee had been released and could therefore transfer only last Tuesday. On Monday, the announcement came on Mulkey.
It arrived via release, and was short, sweet and to the point.
“Oklahoma freshman center Nancy Mulkey has been granted a release and will seek to transfer following the conclusion of the spring semester, head coach Sherri Coale announced Monday,” it read.
What’s happening to OU is not remotely unique.
In 2007, the transfer rate for women’s college basketball was 6.8 percent. In 2015 it was 9.2 percent. In 2017, it is 9.8 percent.
The Sooners have lost two players. So has Kansas State. So has Texas Tech. Three players will not be returning to Baylor and four will not be returning to West Virginia and that’s just the Big 12 Conference.
C. Vivian Stringer, a pioneer and still very successful coach at Rutgers, has lost four players this offseason. Ohio State has lost three. Maryland has lost three, Notre Dame has lost two, Florida State has lost two, as has Nebraska, including 2015-16 Big 10 Freshman of the Year Jessica Shepard.
Speaking to The Transcript Monday, Coale did not want to talk about Dungee and Mulkey’s impending departures specifically, though she was willing to speak about the issue generally.
“These kids start so early with such intensity and everything is geared toward being recruited and getting an opportunity and then, when they get there, they have no idea what’s required,” she said.
A hot topic when coaches run into coaches, Coale said “it’s all anybody’s talking about on the recruiting trail.”
It was not so long ago that players would transfer for opportunity. Wherever they were, if potential playing time appeared scarce, they might exit in the name of more of it.
Now, Coale intimated, the prevailing thought among the coaching community is that too many players are taking an approach resembling a trip through a smorgasbord.
A player might decide she likes this particular element of the program’s offseason regiment, yet not this one. And so on, and so on.
Over the years, players departing before their time has not been an issue for the Sooner women.
It’s difficult to come up with a list from memory precisely because it’s been so rare. Still, here’s a short one over the last eight or so years: DaShawn Harden.
Felesha Gibbs.
Jacqueline Jeffcoat.
Nicole Kornet.
Good chance, if you remember them, you remember they didn’t play much. Kornet played the most, 11.9 minutes in 201415, before transferring to UCLA where she played one season — last season — and averaged 20.7 minutes.
That’s the old model.
The new one?
Everybody’s sure to have their reasons, and they’re certain to be very personal to each transferee, yet the game has changed and the coaches are clearly talking about it.
The Sooners shouldn’t think about selling out their time-tested focus of “Classroom, Community, Court,” a phrase Coale reiterated Monday, but her program might have to vet just a little more fiercely going forward.
Coale loves her most recent group of signees: Ana Lianusa, a guard from Choctaw; Shaina Pellington, a point guard from Canada, who already has international hoops on her resumé; and Mandy Simpson, a forward from Boise, Idaho.
They’ll have a chance to play right away. Of course, down the road, they could face competition from future Sooners they’ve yet to meet or consider.
Because OU has two scholarships available and, all of a sudden, in this new world of women’s college basketball, too many players to count have become available.
Mulkey transfer continues trend of collegiate ‘free agency’
Remember that bang up recruiting class Oklahoma women’s basketball coach Sherri Coale inked less than two years ago?
It was only two players, but one season into their Sooner lives, everything looked great.
Chelsea Dungee, a guard with many skills and an aggressive streak, and 6-foot-9 center Nancy Mulkey, the tallest player in program history, combined to start 36 games during the 20162017 season.
Mulkey’s starts were inflated. She was often inserted just to win the tip before being replaced by Vionise Pierre-Louis. Nevertheless, she could change the game defensively and offered a soft touch given time to get her shot away.
Now?
Neither will be returning to the program, and that fact may say more about the current climate of the game than anything having to do with Oklahoma women’s basketball other than the fact that being a member of the program demands a certain level of accountability and responsibility that, despite a changing climate, will not be removed.
The program announced that Dungee had been released and could therefore transfer only last Tuesday. On Monday, the announcement came on Mulkey.
It arrived via release, and was short, sweet and to the point.
“Oklahoma freshman center Nancy Mulkey has been granted a release and will seek to transfer following the conclusion of the spring semester, head coach Sherri Coale announced Monday,” it read.
What’s happening to OU is not remotely unique.
In 2007, the transfer rate for women’s college basketball was 6.8 percent. In 2015 it was 9.2 percent. In 2017, it is 9.8 percent.
The Sooners have lost two players. So has Kansas State. So has Texas Tech. Three players will not be returning to Baylor and four will not be returning to West Virginia and that’s just the Big 12 Conference.
C. Vivian Stringer, a pioneer and still very successful coach at Rutgers, has lost four players this offseason. Ohio State has lost three. Maryland has lost three, Notre Dame has lost two, Florida State has lost two, as has Nebraska, including 2015-16 Big 10 Freshman of the Year Jessica Shepard.
Speaking to The Transcript Monday, Coale did not want to talk about Dungee and Mulkey’s impending departures specifically, though she was willing to speak about the issue generally.
“These kids start so early with such intensity and everything is geared toward being recruited and getting an opportunity and then, when they get there, they have no idea what’s required,” she said.
A hot topic when coaches run into coaches, Coale said “it’s all anybody’s talking about on the recruiting trail.”
It was not so long ago that players would transfer for opportunity. Wherever they were, if potential playing time appeared scarce, they might exit in the name of more of it.
Now, Coale intimated, the prevailing thought among the coaching community is that too many players are taking an approach resembling a trip through a smorgasbord.
A player might decide she likes this particular element of the program’s offseason regiment, yet not this one. And so on, and so on.
Over the years, players departing before their time has not been an issue for the Sooner women.
It’s difficult to come up with a list from memory precisely because it’s been so rare. Still, here’s a short one over the last eight or so years: DaShawn Harden.
Felesha Gibbs.
Jacqueline Jeffcoat.
Nicole Kornet.
Good chance, if you remember them, you remember they didn’t play much. Kornet played the most, 11.9 minutes in 201415, before transferring to UCLA where she played one season — last season — and averaged 20.7 minutes.
That’s the old model.
The new one?
Everybody’s sure to have their reasons, and they’re certain to be very personal to each transferee, yet the game has changed and the coaches are clearly talking about it.
The Sooners shouldn’t think about selling out their time-tested focus of “Classroom, Community, Court,” a phrase Coale reiterated Monday, but her program might have to vet just a little more fiercely going forward.
Coale loves her most recent group of signees: Ana Lianusa, a guard from Choctaw; Shaina Pellington, a point guard from Canada, who already has international hoops on her resumé; and Mandy Simpson, a forward from Boise, Idaho.
They’ll have a chance to play right away. Of course, down the road, they could face competition from future Sooners they’ve yet to meet or consider.
Because OU has two scholarships available and, all of a sudden, in this new world of women’s college basketball, too many players to count have become available.