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Post by uofaGRAD on Jan 17, 2024 20:24:17 GMT -5
Does anyone have any leads on who Rita wants to hire to replace Deitre? It’s been a couple months since the ASU game and nada. No new coach, no incoming transfers, what is happening? won’t have a scholarship for a transfer until Sofia makes a decision one way or the other I think
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Post by kimdc on Jan 25, 2024 9:37:28 GMT -5
While for my purposes, I trust the sources of transfer/portal news on this forum, to write about it, I like to have some information from someone whose face I know. It's particularly big right now because we've had some people publishing stuff about Arizona Athletics based on dubious sources of late. So, I waited to write about this until I could get something more official, especially since there have been recent posts by the program showing Sofia practicing with the team. Anyway, got my "know your face" confirmation, so I wrote about Sofia Maldonado Diaz's portal entry and what we know of her plans. This includes information about her visits.
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Post by kimdc on Jan 28, 2024 10:26:30 GMT -5
I am bringing the debate about "blowing up the roster" here. The fact is that Rita does have a significantly different roster than the one that didn't ever come together for Dave. Emery left. Kamaile left. Lauren Rumel left. Several DS were shown the door both offseasons. Sofia looks to be leaving. She brought Jordan in. She tried to get Kalen Owes and Becca Morse last year, but both decided to focus on academics shortly after transferring to Arizona. She said neither was able to commit to what she was asking for, so she appreciated them making the call early.
She’s bringing in two All-Americans this year in Carlie (OH) and Avery (S). Rita’s also bringing in help in the middle with Adrianna, although she is likely raw.
Rita has been unable to get a portal MB. Arizona has only brought in Merle there in years despite looking every offseason. But she has 3 scholarships committed to MB right now and Journey as a walk-on. Was she supposed to run off AJ and Nicole in hopes someone better would come along when it's been so difficult to get the position?
Adrianna comes in as a freshman. Next year, Maya Flemister comes in and she's getting a little attention right now. (I just interviewed her. Article soon.)
MB is a question that is likely not completely answerable for a year or two. Libero is far more pressing, anyway, IMO.
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Post by azcatsfan on Jan 28, 2024 13:40:43 GMT -5
I completely understand where you and Az grad are coming from. I guess where my frustration comes from is when I look at tournament teams, I wonder who on our roster would actually start for them. Ana would not start, our middles would not start and certainly none of our DS would start. Recruiting and developing talent has been awful at Az as of late. At the beginning of this season we had ten littles on the roster and not one of them were good enough. That might be mean or harsh, but it’s true. I don’t think we can give Rita, (or Dave for that matter) a pass because they brought in quantity over quality. Or because one of those ten medically retired.
I’m also tired of watching Arizona fall apart late in the set every game. It was like clockwork, they’d end a set on a service error, hitting error or serve receive error. There was no leadership, no grit, no competitive fire most of the time. Watch the opening Pac12 game against ASU and look at the stark contrast. ASU was running around diving all over the place to keep the ball up and AZ looked disinterested. Rita also looked completely lost this season if her sideline demeanor was anything to judge by.
Bottom line I want Rita to succeed. I know this is her dream job but this team is not going to cut it next year, we have watched them fail for years now. I’m not saying that AZ is the transfer destination for volleyball, but it could be. We have seen massive turnarounds at AZ so we know it can be done.
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Post by kimdc on Jan 31, 2024 18:40:53 GMT -5
Talked to Kamaile Hiapo a couple of days ago about playing in PVF. Talked to Rita today about PVF, Kamaile, Kendra Dahlke, and a bunch of other stuff. Talked to 2025 commit Maya Flemister last week. Will have a few things out soon, but I found it really interesting that Rita said Kendra is going to play opp for the San Diego Mojo in PVF.
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Post by kimdc on Feb 2, 2024 11:31:35 GMT -5
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Post by kimdc on Feb 2, 2024 11:35:05 GMT -5
I forgot to mention that Rita told me Kasen Rosenthal is considering playing beach either at Arizona with her sister or elsewhere.
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Post by vballfreak808 on Feb 2, 2024 12:28:26 GMT -5
I forgot to mention that Rita told me Kasen Rosenthal is considering playing beach either at Arizona with her sister or elsewhere. Well if it’s with her sister it’s elsewhere, her sister transferred to LMU after one semester
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Post by kimdc on Feb 2, 2024 13:33:14 GMT -5
I forgot to mention that Rita told me Kasen Rosenthal is considering playing beach either at Arizona with her sister or elsewhere. Well if it’s with her sister it’s elsewhere, her sister transferred to LMU after one semester Thanks. I lose track of the beach players sometimes. I don’t cover that program.
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Post by apr0995 on Feb 2, 2024 14:59:15 GMT -5
Talked to Kamaile Hiapo a couple of days ago about playing in PVF. Talked to Rita today about PVF, Kamaile, Kendra Dahlke, and a bunch of other stuff. Talked to 2025 commit Maya Flemister last week. Will have a few things out soon, but I found it really interesting that Rita said Kendra is going to play opp for the San Diego Mojo in PVF. sounds like it’s time for you to follow a new team.
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Post by uofaGRAD on Feb 2, 2024 15:10:44 GMT -5
Talked to Kamaile Hiapo a couple of days ago about playing in PVF. Talked to Rita today about PVF, Kamaile, Kendra Dahlke, and a bunch of other stuff. Talked to 2025 commit Maya Flemister last week. Will have a few things out soon, but I found it really interesting that Rita said Kendra is going to play opp for the San Diego Mojo in PVF. sounds like it’s time for you to follow a new team. aht aht!! Kim is Arizona’s! I’ll only allow a transfer to Texas🤣
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Post by kimdc on Feb 2, 2024 17:23:21 GMT -5
sounds like it’s time for you to follow a new team. aht aht!! Kim is Arizona’s! I’ll only allow a transfer to Texas🤣 I appreciate Arizona fans of all the sports I cover. I appreciate the players. I appreciate the coaches and parents. And I know the feeling is mutual. I enjoy that. Besides, it's weird that many people think writers always want to cover the biggest teams or the best teams. I care how Arizona does. I am a native Arizonan. I attended Arizona. I even worked there for a while. But from a writing perspective, struggle is often more interesting to write about. Why do things go wrong? How do people persevere? How do things get fixed? What are their stories off the court, win or lose? Those are much more interesting to me than "program X paid $XX for all the top players and hired away some other program's top coach and--surprise--they won!" That's not compelling to me as a fan. It's even less compelling to me as a writer. I am trying to branch out into other West Coast schools, though. I cover the entire Pac-12 in some sports. With it going away, I am looking at branching out to some WCC, MWC, Big West,and WAC teams. As time permits...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2024 23:22:54 GMT -5
I’m curious, what do yall think the odds are that Sofia stays at AZ?
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Post by azcatsfan on Feb 4, 2024 2:56:14 GMT -5
I’m curious, what do yall think the odds are that Sofia stays at AZ? I think in one of Kim’s articles she mentioned there is no scholarship for Sofia, so pretty unlikely.
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Post by Anonymousnow on Feb 4, 2024 17:25:52 GMT -5
I forgot to mention that Rita told me Kasen Rosenthal is considering playing beach either at Arizona with her sister or elsewhere. Interesting since she has NEVER played beach. Maybe one or two juniors tournaments tops.
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