It's Official: Marlene Stollings is the new Gophers women's basketball coach

The quality of some comments is really at a low level.
 



I'm not going to pretend I saw any VCU women's basketball and know Stollings

I don't know much about this coach Stollings, just that she has been a head coach three years, and an assistant coach for 12 so she started as a coach at a young age. Teague and Ellis picked her at VCU and they went to the well again for the Gophers so they must see something in her that is not obvious on paper based on record 33-29 or the post season experience 0-1 in WNIT. That and she calls her offense the "Fury" the run and gun up tempo style, I like offense as much as anyone but if you play zero D in the Big 10 your getting whipped every game, there is a lot of physical contact that the referees in this conference simply let go. One thing the Gophers do not have right now is athletes that can play that fast paced style in the womens program. The Gophers have a significant weakness in overall team speed. Hopefully this coach doesn't try to cram a square peg in to a round hole like Brewster did with the Gopher football program his first couple years, that set's you up for failure.

What I can say is this Gophers women's basketball has been plagued by lack of depth, athleticism and speed for 6 plus years now. When you look at the top level of the Big10 conference Nebraska, Purdue, Penn State, Iowa, when they play the Gophers there always is considerable speed and length difference those teams have on the Gophers, especially at the guard and post positions. Under Borton the Gophers have never been in the top 4 in the conference in recruiting. She was plagued for a long time of a negative perception of the program by local instate players, and I'm not going to lie, when talking with coaches it was her communication style and negativity toawards the players I always heard about first as to why the better local players were always leaving.

When the Gophers have had Rachel Banham all of the elite level Big 10 programs have 3 guards like Banham that they can rotate and spread the minutes around, the Gophers have not had that since Banham has been here. She takes a considerable beating on the court, without her the Gophers would not match up well at all with any Big 10 team. That and until Zoie B came along they did not have a post player that could board worth a pinch of salt. Problem is this team needs more than warm bodies, it needs a lot more Banhams than what Minnesota can provide in local talent. I don't think the negative perception the program has with the AAU and high school coaches is going to change quickly. The new coach Stollings is going to have to find some players out east and in the south that the SEC and ACC are not gobbling up. This team needs talent up-grade on the roster that is for sure, a lot of waste on scholarships.
 

Not impressed that she didn't meet with the team before the press conference.
 



Not impressed that she didn't meet with the team before the press conference.

I heard she told Norwood she would only take the job if she didn't have to meet the team until November.
 


Not impressed that she didn't meet with the team before the press conference.

She isn't black, some people on gopherhole don't think she's attractive enough, she might be a lesbian and now she's not scheduling her day according to sec105's needs. With all these scandals already cropping up, I don't think she'll coach a game before she's forced to resign over a bad haircut or the disapproval of AJ Barker's mom's best friend.
 



She isn't black, some people on gopherhole don't think she's attractive enough, she might be a lesbian and now she's not scheduling her day according to sec105's needs. With all these scandals already cropping up, I don't think she'll coach a game before she's forced to resign over a bad haircut or the disapproval of AJ Barker's mom's best friend.

Lol. Very good.

Congrats on the new hire WBB. Hope it ends up being an improvement.
 

I don't think she has such a bad haircut.
 

I don't think she has such a bad haircut.
:clap:


Watched the press conference--well spoken but certainly not dynamic like young Rich. Interesting with the Ron Edwards article there was a question to Norwood on whether he had any black candidates. Didn't catch who asked the question, but pretty sure it was from the same paper. Undoubtedly more "proof" of racism to a certain group. Norwood assured people there certainly was and that there were a lot of great coaches who wanted the job. Not sure if I would buy a used car from Norwood.
 

:clap:


Watched the press conference--well spoken but certainly not dynamic like young Rich. Interesting with the Ron Edwards article there was a question to Norwood on whether he had any black candidates. Didn't catch who asked the question, but pretty sure it was from the same paper. Undoubtedly more "proof" of racism to a certain group. Norwood assured people there certainly was and that there were a lot of great coaches who wanted the job. Not sure if I would buy a used car from Norwood.

Edwards preferred a black man be hired. How sexist of him
 



She is not a dynamic reader.....I mean speaker. Pitino was much more impressive. Surprised she needed notes to lay out her vision and plan.
 


In 2014 at a major university

She's a coach, not a public speaker

I think it's pretty basic that you are both. You are on television quite often, on the radio and asked to speak to boosters and organizations pretty regularly.
Pretty hard to recruit if the first impression is not impressive.
 

She didn't win the press conference. We're doomed!
 

Reusse: Short search for Stollings figures to be big upgrade for Gophers women's basketball

After Tuesday’s conversations with Teague and Ellis, this is my strong impression: Stollings was the leading candidate from the time Teague fired Borton.

The men’s basketball coach at VCU was also the Gophers’ first choice in 2013. When Shaka Smart said no, that put Teague and Ellis into a scramble that led to Richard Pitino.

A year later, followers of the men’s program seem to be unanimous in the opinion that young Pitino is an improvement over Tubby Smith. At a minimum, Stollings figures to be the same in comparison to Borton.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/254472571.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

Go Gophers!!
 

I think it's pretty basic that you are both. You are on television quite often, on the radio and asked to speak to boosters and organizations pretty regularly.
Pretty hard to recruit if the first impression is not impressive.

She didn't do well when she was reading, but when she was answering questions she seemed to do fine. Either way, talking to the press is different than talking to boosters and recruits. For all we know, she could just get nervous around the press (which is why she wrote out her statement ahead of time), but in a conversation she does just fine.
 

I think Young and Ben Johnson are the " ace " re recruiters for Pitino. I'm sure Stollings will have the same.
 



Norwood should give her an extension today and then fire her tomorrow.

New Norwood does not extend, then fire. That WAS Maturi's job.

Maturi's heart was in the right place, but his head was up his ass.
 


For those concerned about whether Coach Stollings is animated enough I recommend checking out the picture that went with this story in the Strib: http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/254229031.html It looks to me like she gets after it when it matters most.:)

I think the coach spoke from a written speech because she had a lot of details that she wanted to include. Hard to remember all that. Beyond that there wasn't much to talk about. Pretty hard to talk about Minnesota, the university, or the team when everyone in the audience knows more about the subject than you. And it was probably a good thing that she didn't want to spend a lot of time talking about herself. A trait that will wear well in Minnesota.

Personally, I only tuned in to hear if there was going to be any news about the assistants and there wasn't. Probably because after the Jimmy Williams fiasco, the AD makes sure all coaches know that there will be no coaches hired until after the background check is completed and upper management says the hire is OK.
 

It is over-rated, but I hope she doesn't read off sheets like that in recruit's living rooms....

That would be pretty funny to watch actually.

Hello, mr. And mrs. (Glances down at paper) Stevens, how are you? I'm here to recruit your daughter, (glances down at paper) Brittany Stevens. We want her to play (paper) PG for our (paper) basketball team. At the university of (paper) miss (paper) I mean, Minnesota.
 

That would be pretty funny to watch actually.

Hello, mr. And mrs. (Glances down at paper) Stevens, how are you? I'm here to recruit your daughter, (glances down at paper) Brittany Stevens. We want her to play (paper) PG for our (paper) basketball team. At the university of (paper) miss (paper) I mean, Minnesota.

The visual of this made me laugh. I'd sign on immediately.
 




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