Iowa WBB Class of 2026 Recruiting Thread
- Thread starter BraydonRoberts5
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Actually need to give credit where credit is due.
We are talking about recruiting here. What is known before their college career even begins.
Think recruiting McDonald's All-Americans are very high on a coach's list (Most years only 24 players can claim this).
If you can't get them, McDonald's All-American Nominees are next in line (~350-500 in this group a year).
Believe being drafted at the end of career gives them some clout as well that they had talent.
As stated, someone could argue the opposite of what you're claiming. Our PGs may have over produced based on other team players around them.
I only included Scott's recent list + up until now and not back 25 years.
Kamille Whalin (2008-2011)
McDonald's All-American Nominee (2007) <---
Big Ten All-Freshman Team (2008)
Kamille Wahlin - Women's Basketball 2010-11
Kamille Wahlin - Women's Basketball 2010-11hawkeyesports.com
Samantha Logic (2012-2015)
McDonald's All-American (2011) <---
Big Ten All-Freshman Team (2012)
Big Ten All-Tournament Team (2014)
Nancy Lieberman Award Watch List Finalist (2014)
2× First-team All-Big Ten (2014, 2015)
Third-team All-American – AP (2015)
All-American – USBWA (2015)
WBCA Coaches' All-American (2015)
First-team All-American by the United States Basketball Writers Association (2015)
WNBA draft 1st round, 10th overall pick - Selected by the Atlanta Dream (2015)
Nancy Lieberman Award Finalist (2015)
John R. Wooden Award Ballot (2015)
2015 Naismith Trophy Midseason 30 List (2015)
Dawn Staley Award Watch List (2015)
Samantha Logic - Women's Basketball 2011-12
Samantha Logic - Women's Basketball 2011-12
Samantha Logic - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Tania Davis (2015-2018)
ESPN Top 40 guard (ranked No. 36) <---
ESPN HoopGurlz Top 100 recruit, ranked as the 36th-best prospect nationally and the 12th-best point guard
"[Davis:] I want to win Miss Basketball my senior year, win a state championship and hopefully play in the McDonald's All-American game," Davis told The Flint Journal earlier this summer. "This is my last year, so I'm just trying to go hard and make the best of it." <---
ESPN Top 40 guard Tania Davis of Goodrich commits to Iowa
Goodrich’s top-ranked floor general Tania Davis has finally made her college decision.www.mlive.com
Kathleen Doyle (2017-2020)
McDonald’s All-American nominee (2016) <---
Big Ten All-Freshman Team (2017)
2x First-team All-Big Ten (2019, 2020)
Third-team All-American – AP, USBWA (2020)
WBCA Coaches' All-American (2020)
Big Ten Player of the Year (2020)
WNBA draft 2nd round, 14th overall pick - Selected by the Indiana Fever (2020)
Kathleen Doyle - Women's Basketball 2016-17
Kathleen Doyle - Women's Basketball 2016-17Kathleen Doyle - Wikipedia
Next is CC (2020-2023) and we you know her long list of accolades including McDonald's All-American. <---
WNBA draft 1st round, 1st overall pick - Selected by the Indiana Fever (2024)
Aaliyah Guyton (2024-?) McDonald’s All-American nominee. <---
Addie Deal (2025-?) McDonald's All-American. <---
Think you're skating on thin ice here. Basketball is a team sport. The PG certainly matters a lot. Think we can all agree on that. However, you still need points from others, defense, rebounds and other high IQ intangibles that don't show up in a box score from multiple players that are on the same page to make deep tournament runs.
Yes, CC is an outlier and she covered up a lot of sins for the rest of the team because she has highly exceptional skills and IQ to match it. There's no one close to CC before and after that can carry a team like she did. Let's try to come back to reality here because that's a haystack needle.
When you look at what this current team is doing in comparison and the way we've played against a Top #2, #4 and #8 team, we're not doing too bad without a generational McDonald’s All-American PG. What you see in our recruiting over these years is its been above average to the point of ~Top 30 or better. It's why we get in the tournament every year. I don't see any abnormal patterns with our PG recruiting or anything that says it's a glaring weakness in past years.
I would argue that if we had a Megan G type on this current team, we might have the same record as last year or even better yet, undefeated. There's no uber PG needed. The point is that it's a team effort and production can come from all 5 spots.
Rather have upgraded potential in the 4 other spots, than expect an exceptional PG is always going to commit to IA and they're going to magically supercharge the rest of the team. Now hopefully we get to that point where we can have that top talented PG or 2 on the squad every year, but we're not there yet. 2026 recruiting is a pivotal key to see if we can keep on elevating our starters/bench with more 4 or 5 stars like the last 2 years of Top 10 and Top 15 classes or do we fall back to normal with ~Top 30 recruiting classes again.
Hell the coach's system even plays a vital part. You can have all the great players starting and also on the bench, but if that coach doesn't have innovative plays to match the players strengths, they can make a Final Four looking team look like a play-in team.
The key is there are many pieces to the puzzle here. PG is not something you can point to and say that it's most definitely a weak link over the years. It's more like Scott said in that it's been hard for IA to get top talent at all or most positions at the same time. When we don't have these other positions with top talent, then opponents can pick on our weak links to keep us at above average instead of us having something around the elite level.
Think of it this way. Top talent wants to play with top talent if their goals are NATTY runs. They want to stack the deck in their favor. We need to fill in more pieces at the other spots as well as PG if we want that top talent to keep on coming back. At that point, hopefully we start to see Top 5 classes as well.
Excellent take
We offered 2028 Payton Caudle and Easton McCollough who are both from Arkansas. I believe Easton has visited. Possibly one of these two.
What makes this one somewhat interesting is that she flew into Little Rock and both Caudle and McCullough are both from the Fayetteville area. I used to live in the area and have flown in and out of Drake field (Fayetteville) numerous times and never had a connecting flight in Little Rock. Also neither player has a game today.
You're correct!
Easton McCollough and Payton Caudle high schools are ~6 miles apart. Depending on how long she stays in that area, suspect she's probably going to watch Easton play tomorrow for sure as she does have an IA offer. Most likely just meet with Payton today instead if she has an IA offer. Only watch Payton if she has an extended stay and if she has an offer. But you would think Raina comes back for our game on the 26th with Michigan.
Easton McCollough plays for Farmington High School (23-1 record) and their next game is tomorrow (2/25) @ 6pm.
Farmington Cardinals Girls Basketball (Farmington, AR) Schedule
View the Farmington Girls Basketball schedule.
Schedule - Farmington Cardinals (Farmington, AR) Girls Varsity Basketball 24-25
View the 24-25 Farmington girls varsity basketball team schedule.
www.maxpreps.com
Payton Caudle plays for Fayetteville High School (14-11 record) and it also shows a game for tomorrow (2/25) @ 5pm.
However this is an away game 60 miles away. Unfortunately no way Raina can watch both games with only 1 hour difference in starting times.
Fayetteville Bulldogs Girls Basketball (Fayetteville, AR) Schedule
View the Fayetteville Girls Basketball schedule.
Fayetteville High School does play later in the week (2/28) which is a home game for Payton. Think Raina comes back for our game on the 26th instead.
Schedule - Fayetteville Bulldogs (Fayetteville, AR) Girls Varsity Basketball 24-25
View the 24-25 Fayetteville girls varsity basketball team schedule.
www.maxpreps.com
Also I'm not 100% sure Payton Caudle has an offer from IA. She has a visit but I can't confirm an offer for her yet.
Can someone confirm Payton Caudle's IA offer anywhere? I'm still missing it in my notes. Please provide the link if you find it. TIA
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You're correct!
Easton McCollough and Payton Caudle high schools are ~6 miles apart. Depending on how long she stays in that area, suspect she's probably going to watch Easton play tomorrow for sure as she does have an IA offer. Most likely just meet with Payton today instead if she has an IA offer. Only watch Payton if she has an extended stay and if she has an offer. But you would think Raina comes back for our game on the 26th with Michigan.
Easton McCollough plays for Farmington High School (23-1 record) and their next game is tomorrow (2/25) @ 6pm.
Farmington Cardinals Girls Basketball (Farmington, AR) Schedule
View the Farmington Girls Basketball schedule.www.si.com
Schedule - Farmington Cardinals (Farmington, AR) Girls Varsity Basketball 24-25
View the 24-25 Farmington girls varsity basketball team schedule.
Payton Caudle plays for Fayetteville High School (14-11 record) and it also shows a game for tomorrow (2/25) @ 5pm.
However this is an away game 60 miles away. Unfortunately no way Raina can watch both games with only 1 hour difference in starting times.
Fayetteville Bulldogs Girls Basketball (Fayetteville, AR) Schedule
View the Fayetteville Girls Basketball schedule.
Fayetteville High School does play later in the week (2/28) which is a home game for Payton. Think Raina comes back for our game on the 26th instead.
Schedule - Fayetteville Bulldogs (Fayetteville, AR) Girls Varsity Basketball 24-25
View the 24-25 Fayetteville girls varsity basketball team schedule.
Also I'm not 100% sure Payton Caudle has an offer from IA. She has a visit but I can't confirm an offer for her yet.
Can someone confirm Payton Caudle's IA offer anywhere? I'm still missing it in my notes. Please provide the link if you find it. TIA
I have not seen anything on Iowa offering Caudle either. I obviously have no idea what Raina’s schedule is but as busy as the coaches are this time of year I just don’t see her spending an extended amount of time in Arkansas unless she is evaluating multiple recruits in different parts of the state. She could have flown out tomorrow morning and had time to get to a game in Fayetteville. I honestly am not sure how much contact coaches are allowed to have with recruits as young as Caudle and McCullough either. I know when Raina went to see Harpring play she could only watch and not have direct contact with Harpring, Her parents or coaches.
This prospect is an hour and half from Little Rock:
Please, enlighten me with your illustrious reading comprehension & acumen to indicate where I suggested third-team all-american status is not an extremely good player. Hold on, I lost any usual benefit of the doubt so I'll explain it for you. I DID, however, suggest that only having two third team all American years across 25 years represents of a pattern of relatively poor recruiting outcomes for that position. All this in the context of the caliber of recruit necessary for *MY* personal ambition and hopes for this program. I hope you understand what the word relative means here but unfortunately for me the evidence heavily suggests otherwise. It's incredibly crucial as that word does a lot of heavy lifting to allow the reader (that's you ad-hawk) to understand both what I'm saying and what I'm NOT saying.
Here's a list of AP All-American point guards since 2015 (Logic's last year). I was fairly liberal with my definition of PG, so Kelsey Mitchell from Ohio State makes the list for 4 years and Paige Bueckers makes it last year even though she really wasn't the PG.
2015- California, UConn, Ohio State, Maryland, Iowa
2016- UConn, Ohio State, Washington
2017- Washington, Ohio State, Syracuse, Duke, Notre Dame, Oregon State
2018- Oregon, Ohio State, Duke, UCLA
2019- Oregon, Notre Dame
2020- Oregon, Louisville, Arizona, Iowa, South Carolina
2021- UConn, Louisville, Iowa, Arizona, Maryland, Stanford
2022- Iowa, LSU, Northwestern
2023- Iowa, Notre Dame, South Carolina
2024- Iowa, UConn, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Syracuse
Iowa has the most years with an All-American PG at 6, followed by Ohio State's 5. Interestingly, Notre Dame had an All-American in 4 of the 10 years and each was a different player.
My point with this is that Iowa has done very well at PG the last 10 years. That would be true even if you exclude Clark. From a quick count, only 19 schools had an All-American PG the past 10 years.
2015- California, UConn, Ohio State, Maryland, Iowa
2016- UConn, Ohio State, Washington
2017- Washington, Ohio State, Syracuse, Duke, Notre Dame, Oregon State
2018- Oregon, Ohio State, Duke, UCLA
2019- Oregon, Notre Dame
2020- Oregon, Louisville, Arizona, Iowa, South Carolina
2021- UConn, Louisville, Iowa, Arizona, Maryland, Stanford
2022- Iowa, LSU, Northwestern
2023- Iowa, Notre Dame, South Carolina
2024- Iowa, UConn, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Syracuse
Iowa has the most years with an All-American PG at 6, followed by Ohio State's 5. Interestingly, Notre Dame had an All-American in 4 of the 10 years and each was a different player.
My point with this is that Iowa has done very well at PG the last 10 years. That would be true even if you exclude Clark. From a quick count, only 19 schools had an All-American PG the past 10 years.
Just ran across this on the-boneyard from yesterday. Thought it to be remarkable that someone from UConn recalled our guards from that time period. A McDonald's All-American and a nominee in 2011 and 2016 respectively.
"But even with Clark to Iowa, Bluder was a proven coach who had recently coached a National Player of the Year, multiple Big Ten players of the year, and hadn't missed the NCAA tournament since the 2016-17. In fact, before Caitlin, Iowa had a fantastic Guard in Kathleen Doyle who was a do everything guard for Bluder. Even a little further back in the history, they had Sam Logic. So, Bluder has evidence of developing talented guards and team success."
I believe there are approximately 65 Power Five teams in the US, so I would say Iowa has had their share of All American PGs, pretty impressive actually.
So back to Raina being in Arkansas. It appears Easton McCullough’s team was supposed to play at Russellville on Friday, Looks like the game got cancelled because of bad weather and the makeup game was played last night. Russellville is approx an hour west of Little Rock so Raina flying into L.Rock makes sense now.
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