What’s wrong with the women’s basketball program?
Utah State has yet again become subject to having one of the best players on a team leave the team.
Funda Nakkasoglu decided to test her talent somewhere else and USU women’s basketball lost its top scorer.
Well, at least this time it wasn’t during the season and two days before conference play started — looking at you, David Collette.
In the 2014-2015 season the Collette-plague struck the women’s basketball season but because it happened in that program, there wasn’t mass media attention and most people didn’t think much about it.
On Dec. 5 in 2014, Makenlee Williams and Stephanie Bairstow both left the Aggies citing personal reasons. Williams was the teams leading scorer and Bairstow was a big piece of USU’s puzzle, though she didn’t score as much. The team had a game the next day and started conference play on Dec. 21. Nakkasoglu stepped up in a big way after Williams and Bairstow left and it gave Utah State a glimmer of hope for the future.
In 2015, the women’s basketball team finished 8-23 overall, just 1-14 on the road. The 2015-2016 season was immensely better. The team finished 14-17 and most of the games it lost were extremely close. Now the improvement of the team is yet again halted, and the glimmer of hope that started with Nakkasoglu as a freshman left with her as a sophomore.
I’m really not sure what the problem is within the program or if there is one. Any time I’ve had interaction with the coaching staff they are extremely open and focused on winning, and they seem to care a great deal about the players.
Senior night this past season was a great example of that. Mariah Miles family flew in and honored all the coaches and players with a Native American presentation. I specifically remember Miles’ father saying, “To any parent or athlete out there wondering about playing for Coach Finkbeiner, you won’t find a better coach but you also won’t find a better person. He’ll take care of you like you’re family.”
During the season, the players seem to be all aboard a train headed for improvement and a change in culture from the bottom of the Mountain West to the top. They speak kindly of the coaches and act like they want to win. But somewhere there’s a disconnect; something isn’t getting through and I haven’t figured it out yet.
There’s comments on the bottom of our story about Nakkasoglu leaving calling out the coach for running the best player off the team and one that says, “He’s a horrible coach and he’s ruining the women’s program single handily.” As for me, I really like the guy and think he’s a great coach.
The problem, in my opinion, is that players can sometimes forget what they like about the coaches and the team when they start thinking about themselves. If Williams, Bairstow and Nakkasoglu had all stayed, this season would have been great. Even without Williams and Bairstow, next season was looking bright with Nakkasoglu, all the young talent and only losing three seniors.
I think players forget that, and want to know what they can do for themselves to be better. If they could look past the last seasons problems and realize what they have then they could achieve greatness, and likely a MW championship, at Utah State. I guess if they don’t want to wait for that, it’s fine, if they do it like Nakkasoglu, in the offseason. If a player feels like they need to leave, that’s their right.
Just don’t get impatient, hang your team out to dry and leave in the middle of the season.
— Kalen Taylor is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism and Spanish. If you would like to chat, get at him on Twitter: @kalen_taylor or via email at kalen.s.taylor@gmail.com.