Is this true? Justine transferring

Y'all go look at Mulkey and Staley's coaching records by year. Staley didn't even make the tourney for like 3 year at SC and lost 13 games her last year at Temple. Took Mulkey like 11 years at Baylor to win a Natty. In my opinion, there was a shift this year that we haven't seen in awhile. The team could've folded and didn't, ended up beating the nation champion and returns a strong core of players. I was hoping good things for Pissott but she's hardly amongst the highest profile players in the portal. I'm not silly enough to count Kelly and Co out and I'm a little worried about recruiting. But, I've also gambled with hiring decisions to make sure I got people that fit my team. Hopefully it's the same thing here. I'm excited to see what happens. I'd love to see them back on top.
 
Sam's bursting to tell us about a win. Something's definitely up.

Hate that it turns out this way. The dark side of the portal. But if we want a talent upgrade, this is going to happen. Maybe both Justine and the staff realized this is not the best situation for her. I thought Justine could have made a significant upgrade with some hard work this offseason, sorry to see her go.

This trade off (and there better be one, no other reason for JP to go now) is a really delicate culture balance for the coaches. Good thing they have a good foundation.
Assume the foreign player they watched in Spain.
 
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I pointed one key flaw in Justine's game during the pre-season (and got flamed for it) but I think it is relevant to understanding some of her travails. First off, defense seemed to be the big liability that kept her off the floor particularly early in the season but, on the offensive side, Justine shot a "push shot" with a shoulder level release. That release transforms a 6-3 player into a 5-8 player. If Justine had a more classic high release, like Tess or Rickea or Caitlin Clark, at her height she could have shot over anyone even if being guarded tight (like Caitlin Clark). It also makes a much qucker release.

Then, JP would not have been easy to close down or have to run a mile to find open space to get her shot off. It is hard to re-engineer a shot but the push shot is a anachronism in today's women's game.

Please always give your honest assessment, because I get called names just for pointing out the flaws in a player. I just call it like I see it.
 
Assume the foreign player they watched in Spain.
A good start might be greeting her in the right language. The TBA sign is in French I believe. Some speculate a nod to Chula, whose country Mali speaks French. Hey maybe it's Dutch and Haley Van Lith is visiting! Donarski isn't French is it?

Seriously, if an untried, raw Spanish post is running Justine off something is really wrong.
 
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you people in this forum are miserable. I promise if she ends up transferring it won’t kill our program. I personally believe she was recruited over and we will hear about a good recruit soon (seems promising after sam’s tweet) . She’s raw talent and tbh could never reach it. I hope she does, she’s a sweet girl.
What was Sams tweet
 
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So the initial flurry of speculation has been vented, and I'm writing this before we have any public announcement that the decision has been made--and if so, why.

I retired from a boarding school, and you cannot imagine how many students left, or left for a year, because of things going on at home: illnesses of every kind, domestic strife, income instability, homesickness, etc. If a student feels like she/he could be helping at home, the best ones are deeply compelled to get back home and contribute their help. And while most overcome homesickness, for some "home" is a defining part of their identity, and they will forever be homebodies.

The point is, we are speculating based on very few data points. We can connect 5 dots and create a story, but we don't know if the picture contains 8 or 80 data points!

I don't know why it's so hard for people to hold their fire and just live with a few more days or hours of "We don't know." Maybe we've all been effected by the 24-hour "news" channels, and speculation is the new American pastime.
 
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She also tweeted "Its going to be a great day" and also a picture of several of the team gathered in her office. On another thread, someone said Rickea was livestreaming something that looked like a possible announcement.

29 countries in the world speak French, so let the transfer/recruiting rumors procéder.
 
At least were really thinning out those 3-4 position players. Puckett, Striplin, Jackson, and Darby are the ones playing those positions most.
Pretty soon it will be so thin it will be like cellophane,we will be able to see right through it .
 
Pretty soon it will be so thin it will be like cellophane,we will be able to see right through it .
No were going to add players real soon. This is just a totally different process were not used to that is going to be the norm. A lot of the top schools are losing their freshmen that did not think they play enough. These days players can just up and leave one time and a lot of them are doing it. Stanford, Louisville, Arizona, and several other schools have lost their recruiting classes of the last couple of seasons. We didn't have but one to lose which is about five or six less than some of them had to deal with.
 
I don't know why it's so hard for people to hold their fire and just live with a few more days or hours of "We don't know."

Because some of the posters on this board get off on making fun of the program whenever it suffers setbacks or failures, and validate themselves by rubbing everyone else's faces in those failures whenever the occasion arises. They don't need to know details. As long as a situation makes Tennessee look bad, you can bet they'll be on here crowing to everyone else about how much everything sucks - repeatedly.

A star recruit tranferring? What a perfect opportunity to tell everyone how much the coach and the program suck. Why'd they leave? What are the details? Who cares! That doesn't matter. Details be damned. It makes Tennessee look bad, so let's go celebrate and spread the good news.
 
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She also tweeted "Its going to be a great day" and also a picture of several of the team gathered in her office. On another thread, someone said Rickea was livestreaming something that looked like a possible announcement.



Prediction: The in-coming transfers are Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese who proclaim that they are are now BFFs and that only Kellie Harper "could bring us together."
 
I think the best way to keep players now is recruit them after they get in the portal. Make sure they have two to three years eligibility left. They are locked in if they sign with you unless they want to sit out a season. Freshmen are free agents from the day they sign and have a free pass out anytime from their freshman year until they graduate.
 
To me this is disappointing, but not unexpected, news given how she was handled at UT. I tend to think she was (or she could have been) the real deal. The US national team staff certainly saw something in her. I don't think she was misevaluated. She was one of the most decorated high school basketball recruits in the country last year. She was both a McDonald’s and Jordan Brand All-American and she won a gold medal with the 2022 USA U18 National Team at the FIBA U18 Women's Americas Championship. There is absolutely no evidence that she was "recruited over." In fact, the Lady Vols have no new recruits, particularly not ones with "All American" on their resumes. I doubt this is fatal to the Lady's program, but it sure doesn't help.


I'm curious to know how much playing time she got in the National Team games. Does anyone know? I did not see her play this season, because she hardly played, so I just scanned the 2022 McDonald's AA game to analyze her game. Pissott started for the East and yet did very little in the game, from what I noticed. On offense she hung around the 3-point line and did not do much more than that. I saw her miss a 3 early in the game (rattled out) and miss a 3 in the 2nd half. She was mostly ignored by her ball-hogging All Star teammates, and on the rare occasion when she got the ball, she shot the ball--because that's her strength and otherwise she might not ever get another scoring opportunity. Understandable. Puckett played a bit like that this year--and in fact Pissot reminds me a lot of Puckett. I saw her get a couple of rebounds and she had a nice assist on one first-half play. I can't find a box score so don't know what her final stats were. She might have made a basket or two that I missed.

I saw obvious issues with her game. I'm not going to say what they are, in my view, because I don't want to sound critical. But I will say that, IMO, she was misevaluated and seems to be one of those MANY players who are good at one level but whose skill set may not rise to major college level. And that is the most obvious logical deduction one can make when a high school AA hardly plays so little as a freshman. I just checked and was surprised to read that she averaged almost 7 minutes a game. That number must have been derived mostly from non-conference games that I didn't see. A student-athlete with a true major-college skill set would have played more. Our coaches, like all coaches, want to win. If they thought Pissott would have helped us win games, she would have played more. A lot of top prospects do not pan out at the major-college level.
 
I'm curious to know how much playing time she got in the National Team games. Does anyone know? I did not see her play this season, because she hardly played, so I just scanned the 2022 McDonald's AA game to analyze her game. Pissott started for the East and yet did very little in the game, from what I noticed. On offense she hung around the 3-point line and did not do much more than that. I saw her miss a 3 early in the game (rattled out) and miss a 3 in the 2nd half. She was mostly ignored by her ball-hogging All Star teammates, and on the rare occasion when she got the ball, she shot the ball--because that's her strength and otherwise she might not ever get another scoring opportunity. Understandable. Puckett played a bit like that this year--and in fact Pissot reminds me a lot of Puckett. I saw her get a couple of rebounds and she had a nice assist on one first-half play. I can't find a box score so don't know what her final stats were. She might have made a basket or two that I missed.

I saw obvious issues with her game. I'm not going to say what they are, in my view, because I don't want to sound critical. But I will say that, IMO, she was misevaluated and seems to be one of those MANY players who are good at one level but whose skill set may not rise to major college level. And that is the most obvious logical deduction one can make when a high school AA hardly plays so little as a freshman. I just checked and was surprised to read that she averaged almost 7 minutes a game. That number must have been derived mostly from non-conference games that I didn't see. A student-athlete with a true major-college skill set would have played more. Our coaches, like all coaches, want to win. If they thought Pissott would have helped us win games, she would have played more. A lot of top prospects do not pan out at the major-college level.
She has work to do and looks like it won't be here.
 
There's certainly a new reality, and that is that competition is extremely tough for younger players with the transfer portal. Tennessee brought in top talent in the portal last year, many with valuable playing time and experience already under their belts. Next year, players who didn't get much playing time would likely have to compete with new highly-experienced players on the team, and most very high quality players. It's should be no surprise that quality players would want to transfer to TN with its storied program. The transfer portal is working as it was designed to do. Pissott, Suarez, and Miles are all fine young, talented ladies who might get opportunities to get more playing time in their new homes. No doubt, Justine has been watching very closely to the Lady Vols incoming portal activities with her antennas up and her windows down. With the timing, I would agree with others' speculation that some really good news could be coming our way soon. All the best to Justine (and Brooklynn and Marta) in their future. I don't think for a minute it's a negative refelection on the Lady Vols program or coaching staff. It's just the new reality.
 
I am on board with that!
Yes but how we gonna get Tess, Sara, and a few others their minutes. This seemed to be a problem last season that Coach Kellie actually admitted to in her last press conference. I think going forward her strategy of who plays will be different at least she seemed to indicate that when she spoke recently.
 
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Y'all go look at Mulkey and Staley's coaching records by year. Staley didn't even make the tourney for like 3 year at SC and lost 13 games her last year at Temple. Took Mulkey like 11 years at Baylor to win a Natty. In my opinion, there was a shift this year that we haven't seen in awhile. The team could've folded and didn't, ended up beating the nation champion and returns a strong core of players. I was hoping good things for Pissott but she's hardly amongst the highest profile players in the portal. I'm not silly enough to count Kelly and Co out and I'm a little worried about recruiting. But, I've also gambled with hiring decisions to make sure I got people that fit my team. Hopefully it's the same thing here. I'm excited to see what happens. I'd love to see them back on top.
Staley pretty much BUILT the SC program. She didn't INHERIT it. Teams lose talent all the time. But, context matters here. The replacements will have to come via the portal...again. Or you may have others in the class. Which also isn't the case. If you think HS recruits don't see what is happening to frosh at TN, then you're not realistic. Pissott is a loss. No doubt about that. I'm not buying the defense excuse either. I can give you a list of average SEC defenders longer than this thread. Or the standard..."she's not SEC material." Please stop. I'm neutral on Harper as a coach. But, she needs to do a deep dive into her vision for the program and come up with a solid way towards that vision. Looks like she's treading water and hoping someone (out of the portal) is going to keep her from drowning. She often speaks about culture change. Problem is that starts from the ground up...not with portal players.
 

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