WBB New Additions

[BullyPulpit]

Every day this week (at least until Saturday) the Bulls will be announcing one of the 6 new additions to the 2023-2024 roster. 

The first newcomer is Evelien Lutje Schipholt, a  6'2'' forward from the Netherlands who was a 4-year starter at Cal. Over the last 2 years she averaged 9 ppg and nearly 6 rpg on a pretty mediocre Cal team. She will be a welcomed interior presence with the loss of DFM and only further adds to the international presence on the team (Netherlands, Finland, Columbia, Canada, Sweden, Spain (x2)). 
 

 

[BullyPulpit]

Today's new addition is Vittoria Blasigh, a 5'9'' Italian point guard who currently plays professionally in Spain. I'm guessing she redshirts given the positional depth, but she should be ready to help replace Wilson next year. 

 

 

[Mike Stuben]

1 hour ago, BullyPulpit said:

Today's new addition is Vittoria Blasigh, a 5'9'' Italian point guard who currently plays professionally in Spain. I'm guessing she redshirts given the positional depth, but she should be ready to help replace Wilson next year. 

 

 

Redshirts just for competitive reasons are real rare in basketball. Most occur due to injuries. 

Not disagreeing with your thoughts, just adding that the redshirt for competitive reasons is mostly a football thing. (exceptions being kids at JUCOs have taken them to have an extra DI year)

[BullyPulpit]

2 minutes ago, Mike Stuben said:

Redshirts just for competitive reasons are real rare in basketball. Most occur due to injuries. 

Not disagreeing with your thoughts, just adding that the redshirt for competitive reasons is mostly a football thing. (exceptions being kids at JUCOs have taken them to have an extra DI year)

You may be right, but I don't see many minutes available for her barring injury to Asensio and Wilson. Hopefully she is so good that CJF can't help but to play her. She has posted mediocre shooting numbers and  her assist to turnover ratio isn't outstanding. 

[panchosanchez99]

1 hour ago, BullyPulpit said:

Today's new addition is Vittoria Blasigh, a 5'9'' Italian point guard who currently plays professionally in Spain. I'm guessing she redshirts given the positional depth, but she should be ready to help replace Wilson next year. 

 

 

Don't forget that one was already announced a few weeks ago. Romi Levy is a 6'3" Israeli transfer from Auburn. Of these three, I like Levy's game the best. She has a good defensive and offensive game. She has a good outside shot and has the ability to drive and score. The only thing that concerns me about her is her knee, which I believe she had ACL surgery on a couple years ago.

Priscilla Williams is gone. I was disappointed with her game. She seemed more concern with looking good (excessive makeup and long fingernails) than playing ball.

One player that I thought would have been better at the point than Wilson was Aarnio. Wilson had no offensive game whatsoever and was the weakness on this team offensively last year. She had the ball-handling skills and quickness to get to the basket but would drive and have an open layup but would stop and dribble back out. By midseason, opponents were leaving her wide open and double- and triple-teaming Dulcy and Elena. This not only made it more difficult for those two to score but also resulted in an ineffective scorer at the point.

The best point guard on this team last year, in my opinion, was Aarnio. She was perhaps the quickest and fastest player on the team. She has great ball-handling skills and shoots way better than Wilson. And she is 4" taller than Wilson. Despite being listed as 5'10", Wilson stood eye to eye with the 5'7" players, such as Tsineke, Alvarez, and Asensio. 

Here is a comparison of Wilson to Aarnio:

Minutes: Wilson - 925, Aarnio - 157

Field Goals: Wilson - 15/65 = 23%, Aarnio - 13/26 = 50%

3p%: Wilson - 5/32 = 15.6%, Aarnio - 1/4 = 25%

FT%: Wilson - 8/20 = 40%, Aarnio - 8/10 = 50%

You can see that Wilson's offensive stats are just awful.

I think Aarnio, who is the same height as Brito, is a better player than Brito. Here is a highlight video of Aarnio prior to joining the Bulls. In this video, you see that she plays against and schools Brito several times.

 

[panchosanchez99]

15 minutes ago, BullyPulpit said:

You may be right, but I don't see many minutes available for her barring injury to Asensio and Wilson. Hopefully she is so good that CJF can't help but to play her. She has posted mediocre shooting numbers and  her assist to turnover ratio isn't outstanding. 

My guess is that Blasigh will be more of a shooting guard than point guard. She has good skills but is not very quick.

[BullyPulpit]

8 minutes ago, panchosanchez99 said:

My guess is that Blasigh will be more of a shooting guard than point guard. She has good skills but is not very quick.

She hasn't been much of an offensive force thus far in her career. Hopefully she develops. 

I agree on Wilson. She was an offensive liability, but wasn't really needed with Puisis, DFM, and Tsineke on the floor. Now that just Puisis is left, I feel like we will need more production from the PG spot. 

I just feel like Aarnio's sample size was too small. I think Asensio seemed like a better option at PG. A 2/1 Asst. to TO ration is necessary for a PG and she adds just enough offense that you have to pay attention to her. I think Aarnio will serve the team better as a SG. 

[panchosanchez99]

4 minutes ago, BullyPulpit said:

She hasn't been much of an offensive force thus far in her career. Hopefully she develops. 

I agree on Wilson. She was an offensive liability, but wasn't really needed with Puisis, DFM, and Tsineke on the floor. Now that just Puisis is left, I feel like we will need more production from the PG spot. 

I just feel like Aarnio's sample size was too small. I think Asensio seemed like a better option at PG. A 2/1 Asst. to TO ration is necessary for a PG and she adds just enough offense that you have to pay attention to her. I think Aarnio will serve the team better as a SG. 

I like Aarnio at either position. I am just saying that she is a better point guard than Wilson. In games where Tsineke got in foul trouble, it seems like Aarnio was the sub. So, maybe the goal was to take over for Tsineke when she graduated. 

I hope that we can get another capable big at least 6'3", preferably taller, because I would like to Johansson develop her game. I think she has the potential to be great. If it were up to me, based on the players we know about so far, my starting five would be:

PG: Aarnio

SG: Puisis

Center: Johansson

F: Levy and Lutje

This would be a big, fast, awesome shooting lineup. I think our lineup was too small last year. Besides Dulcy and Puisis (6'1"), nobody was taller than 5'11". Our two guards were 5'7". Tsineke often got her shot blocked by guards who were guarding her at 5'11" and taller. And the two teams that we struggled against (Villanova and USC) were much taller. Villanova did not have players that were very tall; I think the shortest player was 5'11" but everyone else was between 6'1" and 6'3". Height and Wilson were our weaknesses last year.

On another note, Puisis should spend the offseason developing her skills as a ballhandler and scoring while driving to the basket. Outside of her 3p-shooting skills, I would say that she is below average as a scorer as she struggled to create her own shot.

[Dave_Glaser]

Based on what we saw last season, your next point guard up after Ariel is Marina Asensio.

[CousinRicky]

49 minutes ago, panchosanchez99 said:

I think Aarnio, who is the same height as Brito, is a better player than Brito. Here is a highlight video of Aarnio prior to joining the Bulls. In this video, you see that she plays against and schools Brito several times.

Aarnio and Brito are two distinctly different players. Even if they are the same size, you won't see Aarnio banging with the bigs under the boards. Brito is a bit of a hot dog with needless no-look or behind the back passes but you can't fault her effort. I remember one time she fell out of bounds on the sideline and hustled back to get into the play defensively. I also remember one time she went out of bounds behind the baseline and did not hustle back.  CJF pulled her and I don't remember her not busting it after that.