Brian Hamilton-The Athletic GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Hawaii is for doing nothing. A vacation spent at a friend’s oceanfront house on Oahu’s North Shore isn’t for profound reflections or making plans. It is Kelly Rae Finley’s ritual disconnect. Her Pipeline lifeline, revisited almost every summer for the past 15 years or so. Her family is there, too, because they’re important to her, and because they have to fit in somewhere in the overstuffed calendar of a college basketball coach, and making up for lost time is a definite to-do. But otherwise? Mostly nothing. A whole lot of nothing. A zone of pure contentment, letting clouds and thoughts pass by, with absolutely zero inclination to climb aboard a board and join the masses in the Pacific waters. “Come on, I’m from Minnesota,” Finley notes with a laugh, a few minutes before diving into another meeting in the Florida women’s basketball offices. “Where the heck would I learn to surf?” Besides: Better to watch everyone else ride some pretty gnarly waves, for once. The 2021-22 college basketball season ended with the Florida Gators participating in the women’s NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years. It’s not how most people guessed things would end six months prior, when the whole operation sagged under the resignation of a head coach and harrowing allegations by former players of mistreatment and abuse by that coach. What followed was one of the best jobs done anywhere last season, all things considered, particularly that a 36-year-old with no head coach experience led it all. A mix of emotional triage and tactical success and positivity and love executed better than anyone had any right to expect. Something that looked very much like a guidebook for modern women’s college basketball coaching, written on the fly. Kelly Rae Finley defied expectations at Florida last season. Can she do it again?
Losing Zippy for the year is a big loss, great leader with a passion for Defense, could have (with Nina) been the replacement for Kiki
Yep. But we have a number of good guards that we can lean on. We can also go big this season. Teams with quality interior players have been our downfall in recent years.
This is not like LSU hiring Baylors HC after leading the program to become a consistent top 10 program and national titles. We have no idea what we are getting here in terms of talent evaluation and recruiting skills. Leap of faith or roll of dice here. Will not know for 3-4 years in terms of recruiting success and overall program success with her own players. Her current HS recruiting class does not look promising, but transfer rules allow you to build programs differently now. Seems like a nice person. Hope she prevails. Go Gators!
Doubtful she could be much worse than our historically bad coaches from the past. The fact that she did so well under duress last season is certainly a positive. If she flops, she flops. While I want all Gators programs to do well, womens' basketball is down the list of programs I really pay attention to. It has historically been the one program that has never been very good. Even Carol Ross's teams weren't that great, and she's the gold standard for our program.
This current class is definitely a concern that hopefully can get fixed. A lot of upperclass talent, but next 2 years could get rough if we don't find some younger talent to infuse into the program. We haven't had a freshmen commitment since before she was coach. That has to change in the next couple of weeks with early signing period. If we whiff there it could be a problem.
Primarily, I think the program just isn't attractive to any kids that are basketball talents. It'll take a Mike Miller kind of recruit to put womens' basketball on the map.
It's gona take a big break or an actual investment in the program...which I don't see happening. It can be done... Kim at Baylor. Dawn at SC. I just don't see UF ever making that big a move $$$ for WBB. We could have had Becky Hammon when Cam was hired. Where would we be now had we thrown a huge offer to her?
I don't believe landing a Mike Miller is the only way to get to the top. Kelly Rae has brought in some good talent; now we need to put together a second-straight strong season and keep building.
It's exactly what she needs to really turn the program around. She's starting at the bottom of the barrel and has no commitments so far that is going to lure anyone to come play with them.
That's not the only viable model anymore. NIL and the new transfer rules make it possible to change a program literally overnight.
They have doubled the budget for womens basketball, so there are moves being made. The Hammon thing was a major mistake, but recruiting funding, staff fudning, everything is much bigger then it was even 2 years ago
The significant losses are Kiki Smith and now Zippy Broughton... You can say Lavender, but she was already gone when we played our best last season. We added 3 very talented guards though that should absorb losses there. Matharu, Deans, and Correa can all be impact players if they stay healthy. Think Matharu and Deans both have had some injuries in the past. If they are all 3 100% we should, at worst, be as good at guard as we were last season. If Rimdal has worked on driving to the basket to go along with her shooting that will make us better as well. Adding Rashaya Kyle may be the biggest difference. Having a legit post presence this season would be a significant boost. We have really struggled against teams with elite post play in the past... I also would love to see a jump from Taliyah. She was a bit raw last season, but the athleticism and skill are there for her to develop into a threat as well. I'd have been much happier if we had Zippy, but we should still have the pieces to be a little better this year than last year. If we can start better to begin the season and avoid the late season struggles from a year ago then we have a chance to have a really great season. How all the new pieces fit together chemistry wise will be a big deciding factor.
