ODJ: Transition Game

Coach Dawn Staley is gone.

The Temple women’s basketball team also needs to replace its top scorer, starting point guard Ashley Morris, and its top rebounder, starting center Lady Comfort.

But Staley’s replacement won’t inherit an empty cupboard, particularly if the Owls are able to retain their current team members and this year’s two new recruits. It’s a fact of life in the college game: You might call it “Transition Basketball.”

It’s impossible to measure the team’s reaction to Staley’s departure. The Owls are off-limits to the media until a new head coach is hired.

According to one source, several players were visibly shaken after Staley informed them of her departure at a team meeting last Tuesday night at The Liacouras Center. Of course that’s no surprise.

It will be interesting to hear their feelings a month from now.

And it could be a month before the Owls hire a new head coach, according to Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw’s comments to Philadelphia Inquirer beat writer Mel Greenberg. Bradshaw also told Greenberg that all of the current team members and this year’s recruits are planning to stay with the Owls.

Again, it’s no surprise to hear Bradshaw make those comments.

The question is whether that could change between now and the end of the summer.

You would expect all of the players to wait and see who gets hired before considering if they want to join Staley at South Carolina. Then again, Staley may have told her former players that they should stay at Temple.

These are delicate matters.

In this particular case, there are plenty of reasons to think that Staley and her staff members might not be the only ones relocating from Philadelphia to Columbia.

Several members of the current Temple squad are from the South, including North Carolina natives Marli Bennett and Qwedia Wallace. Both of them will be sophomores next year.

You wouldn’t expect a senior to transfer, but in the case of power forward Shanea Cotton, you’re talking about a Mississippi native who joined the Owls last year as a junior college transfer. So her situation is different than, say, frontcourt mate Shenita Landry, a senior-to-be from Milwaukee who’s been at Temple for three years.

Also consider that Staley has inherited a South Carolina roster with only eight players – three seniors and five sophomores. She’s also got four high school signees that she’s trying to convince to stick with the Gamecocks. (It’s hard to imagine she’ll lose any of them.)

Still, even with everybody in place, Staley has room to add three more scholarship players this fall. And with three departing seniors, she’ll have no less than six active roster spots to fill in 2009-10.

If she did tell her former Temple players – “On principle, I can’t take you” – you have to give Staley a ton of credit.

Staley has not returned multiple phone calls from OwlsDaily.com over the past seven days. OwlsDaily.com has also been unable to get in contact with Temple recruits Miranda Tate and Kristen McCarthy. Both of them signed with the Owls in November.

Staley’s two-member class was ranked 20th in the nation by All-Star Girls Report. In many ways, Tate and McCarthy are the keys to Temple’s “Transition Game.”

Tate, a 6-0 guard from Bolingbrook, Ill., is rated as the No. 48 senior in the nation by All-Star Girls Report. McCarthy, a 6-0 forward from Southern California, is rated No. 53. Last year, the Owls added quantity and quality with five signees. This year, they added top-level quality.

Tate, however, left the team at Bolingbrook High School in December, reportedly due to differences with the head coach. Bolingbrook is a perennial power that captured the state title earlier in Tate’s career. She moved to Illinois from Euless, Texas, following her freshman year.

McCarthy had no apparent trouble during her senior year at acclaimed Bishop Amat High School in La Puente, Calif. She also tasted success in the state playoffs and twice earned all-state honors.

If the Owls are able to hold on to Tate and McCarthy, they may have two potential impact players. And while they won’t directly replace Morris and Comfort, they could help fill the scoring gap left by those two. Because Staley left a team filled mostly with role players.

Between Cotton, Landry, and junior forward Jasmine Stone, there’s plenty of size in the frontcourt. Junior guard LaKeisha Eaddy is next in line to fill the point guard role, though she’ll be pushed if she doesn’t quite fit the job.

The question is whether all of the above will still be on North Broad Street in September. The only thing we know for sure is that Staley won’t be.