Class of 2010 (Incoming, Not Outgoing) Key to Pam Borton's Legacy

Gopher Women's Update

Maybe you saw Brittney McCoy's comment to a Strib reporter the other day, just before the Gophers went out and stunk it up again in the Big Ten tournament. "I think there are some people who are checked out.... We're just trying to drag them along with us." Ouch. When was the last time you heard an elite athlete say something like that about her teammates. The frustration must have been thick there at the end.

I have no idea who McCoy is referring to as having "checked out," but I do know that Ashley Ellis-Milan's numbers dropped from 12 ppg last year to under 10 this year, and from 7 boards to 5. Katie Ohm's FT percentage dropped from 72 to 61!

Among the returnees for next year, barring any out-bound transfers: Kiara Buford 40.2 FG percentage, Jackie Voigt 38.4, Brianna Mastey 34, China Antoine 37.8, Leah Cotton 25.3, Katie Loberg 36.

But next year is a new year, and how. Five new players are coming in, "maybe more," according to assistant coach Barb Smith. Does this in fact imply some out-bound migration? Think about that. There are or were 3 sophomores who "played" this year, and 2 first-years (a frosh and a JC transfer). Next year, 5 new kids. Practically half the roster. Only 1 of them a Minnesotan.

Last week the all-Big Ten team was announced and it included Jenna Smith of Illinois and formerly Bloomington Kennedy, and Kachine Alexander of Iowa and formerly Benilde-St. Margaret's on the 1st team. And, Alyssa Karel of Wisconsin and formerly Cretin-Derham Hall, and Kamille Wahlin of Iowa and formerly Crookston, MN, on the 2nd and 3rd teams, respectively. Meanwhile, 2 Gophers, McCoy and Buford, got honorable mention, one from the coaches and one from the writers.

Losing is one thing. Losing with kids from exotic places while Minnesotans are winning at Iowa and Wisconsin, surely that is the road to an early retirement.

Class of 2010 (Incoming, Not Outgoing) Key to Pam Borton's Legacy

Originally posted February 20

A couple days into the new year, I saw the Minnesota Gopher women beat Iowa 72-69 in overtime at the Barn. I quickly emailed my buddy Kevin that "these are probably the 2 worst teams in the Big Ten."

But, no, I was wrong. The young Hawkeyes have improved--after a terrible 1-5 start in the conference, they're now an amazing 8-7. But, the older and more experienced Gophers have indeed been 1 of the 2 worst teams in the Big Ten, and perhaps the worst. After 6 straight losses, they managed a win at Penn State and then a respectable showing against 1st place Ohio State. Still, they're just a half a game ahead of last place Illinois, and they've lost twice to the Illini--it wasn't even close at the Barn, 61-48 Illinois. And, right now, the Gophers are the only Big Ten team with a losing record overall.

As a result, there's been a fair amount of discussion on the Gopher women's basketball forums about Pam Borton's status as Gopher coach. Of course, the only discussion that matters is the one going on inside of athletic director Joel Maturi's head and, as one forum participant said, it would seem likely that "Pam Borton isn't going anywhere."

Her college class of 2010, in other words, won't decide her fate, no matter how hard her critics might wish it to be so. But, on the other hand, the high school class of 2010 very likely will.

But, it would be pretty unheard of for a coach to be dismissed with a 164-86 record, 5 seasons (out of 7, now 8) with 20 wins, and never a losing season until (in all likelihood) this year. And her record in the Big Ten is a more than respectable 77-52. Her 164 wins are just 8 shy of Ellen Mosher-Hanson's record total, and both her overall and conference winning percentages are the best ever for the Gopher program. In fact, she's only the 2nd Minnesota coach ever to fashion a winning record in more than 1 season at the helm. Let's not pretend that this is an easy place to win.

So, for Gopher fans who can still remember coaches LaRue Fields and Cheryl Littlejohn, these are the good old days, even considering the disaster that 2009-2010 has become.

Still, her critics can and do throw a lot of shortcomings up against the wall, and some of them stick. First, even when winning, Borton's crew is excrutiatingly difficult to watch sometimes. Essentially, the theory goes, Borton recruits for defense, and she's not a good enough coach to teach her kids to play offense after they arrive at the U. Their style is, fundamentally, to grind down the other side. But, in doing so, they grind down their fans, too, with those 30 percent shooting nights, and worse. The tangible evidence is that attendance at Gopher games began a long, slow decline even as they won 19, 17, 20 and 20 games the past 4 years, and as this season has wound down, attendance recently has been barely half of what was typical 4 and 5 years ago.

Then there's the general lack of improvement that I referenced above when I noted that the young Iowa Hawkeyes have improved--dramatically improved--over the course of this season. Borton's teams, on the other hand, don't seem to improve over the course of a season and her players don't seem to improve over the course of their careers. Corollary to the first point is the alleged late-season swoon. Her teams, they say, collapse down the stretch.

The evidence for this is mixed. Her overall conference winning percentage is .597. Through January 31, it's .609 and, in February and March, it's .583. That's a difference of 2 1/2 games, or an extra late-season loss every 3 1/2 years. Of course, her hugely talented 2006 squad dropped from 7-1 to 4-4 in the conference, and from 17-4 as of February 5 to 2-6 the rest of the way. From 2006 to 2010, they've gone 27-19 through January 31, and 17-18 thereafter. Of course, the real point may be that since 2006 they've gone just 33-32 in the conference overall.

The one fact that supports the "late-season swoon" theory is the Gophers' disappointing 4-7 record in the Big Ten tournament under Borton, with 4 of the 7 losses coming against opponents seeded lower than themselves.

In the end her legacy comes down to how you regard the 2 great events of her career--the Final Four in 2004, and the mass exodus of players who bolted from her program in 2006. Her supporters celebrate her achievements in 2004 (and 2003 and 2005) with Lindsay Whalen and Janel McCarville) and they tend to cut her some slack because she's had to rebuild the program since 2006. Her critics credit 2003, 2004 and 2005 to Whalen and McCarville and Brenda Oldfield Freese and even Cheryl Littlejohn, who recruited Whalen and McCarville, more than they credit Borton. And, they say, if Borton had to rebuild after 2006, it was her own damn fault for alienating Broback, Davis, Lacy, Podominick and Williams.

And, her legacy comes down to whether you think or thought that the success of 2002 through February 5, 2006 (115 wins and 36 losses) is or was sustainable. The evidence here is pretty conclusive. Minnesota has not produced another player like Lindsay Whalen since, well, Whalen in 2000, with the possible exception of Tayler Hill in 2009. Forget whether the Gophers could recruit such a player, which in the case of Hill they could not do. The point is that such a player did not exist. So the idea that Borton and the Gophers could be expected to replicate that success seems somewhat far-fetched.

On the other hand, the 2006 squad seemed to have the potential to do just that. That team had 5 Minnesota Ms. Basketballs--April Calhoun, Shannon Bolden, Liz Podominick, Leslie Knight and Ashley Ellis-Milan--plus Minnesotans Jamie Broback, Kelly Roysland and Shannon Schonrock. In other words, the Gophers had successfully recruited every Minnesotan worth having and had missed on virtually no one. But, then, in addition to that, there were the fruits of the Final Four--Brittney Davis, Emily Fox, Lauren Lacy and Natasha Williams, highly recruited players from outside the Gophers' natural recruiting area. And it was Pam Borton who recruited every single one of those players to her program.

But, dissension destroyed that nucleus, and some say that Pam has "lost" the class of 2010, too--that the kids aren't really competing, that they've checked out. How much blame the exodus of 2006 you assign to Pam Borton probably pretty much defines your position on whether she should continue as Gopher coach, and it probably also predicts whether you think she's "lost" this year's team, as well.

Recruiting Questions

For some, Borton's recruiting strategies and tactics are almost worse than the griding style of play and the slow decline in the won and lost columns. Most discouraging is the fact that there have been a few of Minnesota's best players who didn't want to play for Pam Borton. Everybody knows that Tayler Hill was never going to go to the U. And highly regarded Lakeville North post Cassie Rochel was rumored to have no interest whatsoever in becoming a Minnesota Gopher. After flirting with the Iowa Hawkeyes, she became a Wisconsin Badger. Theiarra Taylor also made it pretty clear she wasn't going to play for Pam, and ended up in Iowa City.

Then there are the kids whom Pam never offered. That would include such talents as Kamille Wahlin, who became a starter for Iowa as a freshman, and Brittney Chambers, who is averaging in double figures for Kansas State, also as a freshman. Then, to double the heartburn of the Gopher faithful, Minnesota at the same time was short of depth in the backcourt and only filled up the roster with a couple of quick-and-dirty-fixes from the junior college ranks (Kay Sylva and then China Antoine. Antoine proved to be an exciting player--but not nearly as effective as Wahlin or Alyssa Karel, a graduate of Cretin High in St. Paul, for the Wisconsin Badgers.)

Just because Wahin and Karel have become better Big Ten point guards than the Gophers' Antoine and Brittney McCoy doesn't mean they were better prospects. It may mean--and Borton's critics say, it proves--that the Gophers aren't getting as good of coaching in college, and they're not developing the way they should. The Gophers' highly regarded recruiting class of 2009/2013 is another case in point. Rating in the top 20 coming in, Kiara Buford, Briana Mastey and Jackie Voigt are now part of the nucleus of the Gophers' worst team in almost a decade. Is it nature, or nurture? Did Pam recruit the wrong kids, or coach them badly?

Or both? Pam seems habitually to recruit kids who played inside in high school (Leslie Knight, Katie Ohm, Brianna Mastey) and then try to move them to the perimeter in college, only to find they lack the quickness and ball-handling skills to do so successfully. Knight only thrived under Borton when the mass exodus allowed her to move back inside where, clearly, she belonged.

But, like the man said, "Pam ain't goin' nowhere." Still, the die will be cast next year, as Pam brings in her second "big" class of 5 recruits. Disappointing as they've been, this year's senior class will leave some big holes in the Gophers' lineup. Next year's freshmen will have the opportunity to contribute right away, if they can.

2010-2011 Roster

Freshmen in italics

Center--Amber Dvorak, Kristin Dockery

Power Forward--Jackie Voigt, Katie Loberg, Shonte Clay, Micaella Riche, Nicole Mastey

Small Forward--Brianna Mastey, Kionna Kellogg

Point Guard--China Antoine, Leah Cotton, Janelle Cannon

Off Guard--Kiara Buford, Sari Noga

Key roster issues include: 1) There's no obvious post, as Dvorak has red-shirted this year and Dockery has been plagued by injuries and illness throughout her career. Katie Loberg, who has played the 4 this year and seems to shy away from contact a bit, nevertheless may be the best option in the paint. Clay and Riche are smallish posts (at 6-foot-2) who will probably move over to the 4.

2) Guard depth, as no one can say whether Cotton, Cannon or Noga can contribute, potentially leaving the Gophers with only 2 useful guards (at a time when, as noted, Minnesota high school guards are excelling from Iowa to Wisconsin and from Ohio State to Kansas State).

If these holes cannot be filled, and filled quickly, then the Gopher program and Pam Borton are in for a very hard time, and Borton will be gone before the high school class of 2010 has used up their eligibility.