In anticipation of the basketball season, the annual preseason ShesBallin Top 10 is coming. First, here is a review of last year preseason picks. In comparison to the final regular season ranking by
SA Express- News, 8 of 10 ShesBallin picks finished in the Top 10 as predicted. One team not in the preseason Top 10, Incarnate Word was included in the "knocking on the door" section as being a strong candidate to finish in Top 10. However, I totally whiffed on O'Connor and their great year.
2011 SB Preseason Top 10 Picks(1-5)
2011 SB Preseason Top 10 Picks (6-10)
The following bullets are taken from the predictions last year when assessing the teams. They are spot on in many instances.
- - "Wagner must always be in the discussion for top in the city honors".
The T-Birds started off slow and flirted with moving out of the Top 10 during the season. Camacho's crew played a good portion of the season without Top 20 kid, Ashely Ross. The emergence ofTesha Smith and the clutch play of Corrina Moncado played huge in helping the T-Birds reach the regional finals before losing to Reagan.
- - "Terry Barton is one of the better X & O’s coaches in the city and has the
talent this year to match. Many think that the Rattlers will be the top team in
the city"
Terry Barton and crew proved many right and made it to the state semis in Austin. Having three of the Top 20 players in the city in Sabrina Berry, Moriah Mach and Wendy Knight showed that talent and coaching is the recipe for success.
- - "Look for The Wulf to unleash Vorpahl for a monster year......Look for Vorpahl to face constant double teams and rack up the minutes going
into play offs. How she holds up for 35 games will determine the success of the
Chargers come February."
As predicted in the blog, as Vorpahl goes, Churchill went! Where did she go, to the SA Express Player of the Year and deservedly so! The show she put on vs Reagan in one half was as good as ANY performance that I have seen in 6 years on the local scene. Cal Wulfsberg proved to be arguably the best coach in the city as he coached like a boys coach; he established pecking order and rode his best player without regard for politics and worrying about offending the sensibilities of others!
- -"Anissa Hastings is a coach that kids will run through walls for. That type of
loyalty, defensive intensity and passion will make Stevens one of the best teams
in the city."
Sure enough, Hastings ability to motivate and inspire made her squad on of the best in the city. She featured one of the best kids in the city and rode her defense to a near district title. Very few expected Stevens to be as good as they were a year ago. I knew they would be good but did not know that they would be a Top 5 team the majority of the year.
- -"Coach Randy Evans is a very adept coach and employs numerous defensive
strategies to disrupt opponents. "
This was an understatement. Evans' team held teams to horrific shooting nights as his slow down offense proved to be his best defense. Evans, a veteran of 23 years of coaching HS and AAU boys teams has found it relatively easy to limit scoring outputs of the opposition on the girls side.
- -" If pecking order and offensive cohesion are established, Johnson could be the
best team in the city. However, they are probably still a year away.
Both statements probably ring true. Johnson did not have pecking order established nor offensive cohesion last season and that limited them immensely. As noted, they were still a year away.
