Grace Coughlin the Latest, as Gopher Women Suddenly Stockpiling Guards

EDIT: This post was written back in August, then updated today (10-14-11) with the announcement that Grace Coughlin also has verbaled the Gopher women.

One (of many) knocks on Pam Borton has been her persistent lack of depth at guard. After passing on Minnesota guards like Alyssa Karel, Kamille Wahlin, Courtney Boylan and Brittney Chambers, she had to go out and sign stop-gap, junior-college guards like Kay Silva and China Antoine just to form a minimum rotation at the position.

Now, suddenly--with the verbals she has received from Kenisha Bell of Bloomington Kennedy (back in August) and Grace Coughlin of Benilde-St. Margaret's yesterday--Borton has turned over a new leaf; she's into her "stockpiling-Minnesota-guards" phase.

In 2011, Rachel Banham comes aboard and brings big expectations with her. She and Kayla Hirt--just the two of them--are rated as the #16 best recruiting class in America by Hoopgurlz, though it's also true that Romanian guard Alexandra Ionescu has also signed on.

In 2012, Mikayla Bailey and Shayne Mullaney have verballed. They're not as highly rated as Banham and Kayla Hirt in 2011 but Mullaney, at least, looks to me to have the skills to complement Banham quite nicely. On the other hand, there are better guards on the horizon and I don't necessarily mean Bell.

But for 2014, Bell represents the #1 rated girl in her class and she is of course another guard. Coughlin is rated #5 or #6 among the 2014s, which would translate to the #3 or 4 guard.

But note that Borton still has no verbals from the highly-rated 2013s Rebekah Dahlman of Braham is likely to be the most highly recruited Minnesotan since Tayler Hill. Nia Coffey, Hopkins, the daughter of Gopher great Richard Coffey, would look especially good in maroon and gold for that reason. But does Borton need either one of them now, with all of the guards she's already recruited?

Well, yes, of course, you always need to best player to come out of Minnesota in 4-5 years. Remember when the Gopher men had big Minnesota kids stacked up like cordwood--back in the days of Kevin McHale, Randy Breuer, et al. If you ended up with too many kids, somebody could always transfer to Augustana or Maryland or wherever.

So, as of now, the Gopher roster is projected to look like this at the guard spot if Borton is able to land Dahlman and Coffey. (NOTE: That's a lot of guards.)

Gopher Guards

2011-2012 Rachel Banham (fr.), Kiara Buford (sr.), Leah Cotton (jr.), Alex Ionescu (fr.), Sari Noga (soph.)

2012-2013 Banham (soph.), Cotton (sr.), Ionescu (soph.), Noga (jr.), Mullaney (fr.), Bailey (fr.)

2013-2014 Banham (jr.), Mullaney (soph.), Ionescu (jr.), Noga (sr.), Bailey (soph.)

2014-2015 Banham (sr.), Kenisha Bell (fr.), Mullaney (jr.), Coughlin, (fr.), Ionescu (sr.), Bailey (jr.)

2015-2016 Dahlman (jr.), Coffey (jr.), Bell (soph.), Mullaney (sr.), Coughlin (soph.), Bailey (sr.)

What this says to me is that Borton is preparing and is prepared to lose Dahlman and all the other 2013s. It's true, however, that at 6-feet Coffey could also play the small forward spot.

This also says to me that if Borton can get Dahlman and Coffey, that Mullaney and Ionescu and especially Bailey will be candidates to move out to other schools if they can't adjust to a role coming off the bench, as some cannot or will not do. Heck, it remains to be seen if Leah Cotton will be happy continuing to come off the bench for another year, though it's true that she projects as the starting guard alongside Banham in her senior year.

But, meanwhile, that mythical 2nd D1 program Minnesota State could do worse than load up itself on the guards the Gophers didn't recruit. In other words, you've still got kids like Tessa Cichy and Alexis Foley (2012), Jessica January and Mikaala Shackleford (2013), Ta'Kendra Elbert and Grace Coughlin (2014) hangin' out there--not, again, to mention Dahlman and Coffey.

Which just reinforces the notion that Borton and the Gophers should never be short of guards. The dearth of guards these past few years, in fact, has been entirely self-inflicted, especially when you consider that Kamille Wahlin of Crookston, MN, has been starting for Iowa for almost 3.5 years and earned all-Big Ten honors these past 2 years. Borton's failure to recruit Wahlin was the primary cause of the guard dearth, which forced her to go out and spend a scholarship on stop-gaps like China Antoine and Kay Silva.

But secondly, it's great that Borton has signed the #1 girl among the 2014s but, hey, don't forget about the 2013s!