We have strong shot to be a serious final 4 contender next year. I don't believe that right now we have the same firepower and talent level of the team that won the national championship and fell short a few years ago. We had Arike, Marina, Jackie, Jessica, and Brianna Turner. Those teams had enough quality bench and role players coming in that kept us from being "thin", and MM did a good job of rotating them. More on this rotation later...
Next year our starters and earmarked positions:
1 or 2 Hannah
2 or 1 Olivia
3 Sonia(Sonni's a guard, but our starting 3)
4 Maddy
5 - Open (I don't believe Koval should be our starting 5 if we want to be a preseason final 4 top contender), read on..
Bench
Kylie - 5
Prosper 3/4
KK 1-4
Emma Risch - 2
Incoming guard - 1 or 2
It is my opinion, and to use football analogy, we need Riley Leonard type of transfer to start at the 5 and bring Koval in rotationally at the 4 or 5. By Riley, this is a conversation and understanding between the recruit, coaches, existing players, (Maddy, Kate) that this is a premium player that we need to that will take us to the next level. I think it works to assume that Koval will start at 5, but the year that we won the national championship, we did not rely on an incoming freshman - quite the contrary.
Dillon knows better who is out there, but I believe we need a Beers type of player and if we can't find a 5, a quality "4" like Timea will suffice - this is assuming Kylee will return to help absorb blows as a 5....
Going back to my Riley Leonard Analogy, the only way a quality 4/5 like that comes in is if they are "promised" a starting spot and the team is onboard.
To those that think we need at least 2 bigs to come in for depth, I dont disagree, but here is the large elephant in our transfer portal room: Nobody wants to transfer in to sit on the bench. Niele - In my opinion - has NOT done a good job of rotating non starting players and giving them needed developing minutes. Look no further than our recent tourney rotations. The only time the main players came out was if they got ahead of the "foul schedule", eg 2 fouls in the first quarters, etc. They also came out in garbage time. A typical rotation that we ran was to keep the four main starters on the bench, and then substitute DeWolfe and KK at the last spot. Maybe it is just me, but if you take each of the main players and did a rotation where they sat just 2 minutes per quarter, that is an extra 8 minutes/quarter, or 32 minutes you could give to other players.
Note, NI will have to rotate our exsiting 1,2,3 - our players will have to play so really, anyone coming in to play 1-4 will have to rotate in behind Cass, Emma, KK, etc. So even without any additions, it will be a tall order to tell any prospective transfer that you will rotate in but be 4th in the depth chart at your position.
That realistically then brings me back to my original point: The "5" spot is your best position to get a premier player in to start. Anything else will be a tough sell..