https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/high-school-basketball/2025/04/17/all-state-girls-teams-wade-piaa-wpial-city-league/stories/202504170021

Can't understand why we haven't offered her.  Can't understand why we wouldn't target a highly successful player in our own backyard??  What is Burt doing here??  Wade has above a 4.0 gpa, accordiing to her twitter page.  I hope it is not out of lazienss, but given that we were not linked to many local players who are going elsewhere is very odd.  I would love to know if Burt ever offered some of these players, and if he is not offering the best local talent, then he needs to be challenged for it, given we have only ONE recruit for next year!!

From the article:Iyanna Wade finished her career as the No. 2 scorer in WPIAL history, but she had one more accolade to add to her resume.Wade, the Clairton senior, was selected as the Class 1A Player of the Year as part of the Pennsylvania sports writers’ All-State girls basketball teams, which were released on Thursday.Wade is a four-time All-State selection after being voted onto the third team in Class 1A as a freshman and first team in Class 2A in 2023 and 2024. She finished her career with the Bears with 3,119 points and was the only player of the year from the WPIAL selected in any of the six classifications.

 

Thanks for the comment, as yes, I do want to see the program be successful.  And to be perfectly honest, there is very little activity on this particular site, so I will continue to post information and don't care if people loathe when I post, especially if it is critical, but if generates discussion so be it.

The length of this post is not meant to disparage your comments, but I want to bring facts into the conversation to counter your statements about player talent.

As for the the Villanova transfer, she has a name btw, Maddie Webber.  She was highly recruited by Duquesne in high school.  I am friends with Brad Everett, who covers high school sports for the strike-version of the Post-Gazette.  He told me directly that Maddie was very close to committing to Duquesne, but ultimately went to Villanova.  

As far as her getting excess 6 figures, I really don't know if that is true.  She is likely getting a nice package and I curious to know too what it is.  I reached out to Brad and will pass along here if he knows how much she is getting.  I will also say, women's basketball is nothinig like football or men's basketball.  The NIL money isn't there for the majority of the schools and the top-level women's programs have big money to pass out and it is not going to be high figures. 

Yes, there are a few exceptions of women's players getting paid a lot of money, but they are few and far between.  Even Illinois is probably in the red as a women's basketball program as they don't have a history of success, so the money the women's team is getting for NIL is not likely to be significant.

That being said, I realize Duquesne is not dealing with same amount of money as Big 10 schools.

I also want to go back to your comment about WPIAL players not being "A10 level" as I disagree.

Emma Theodorsson is at Loyola, Chicago and currently in the portal, and spent two very successful seasons at Bucknell.  Ashleigh Connor from Mt. Lebanon is currently at LaSalle, where she transferred from St. Louis.  Kylee Lewandowski from North Catholic played and graduated from Richmond.  Eve Fiala, from Indiana is now in the portal, leaving Dayton.  Aislin Malcolm from Chartiers Valley transferred out of Pitt earlier this year. Perri Page, also from Chartiers Valley and the daughter of former Pitt player Julius Page is entering her junior year at Columbia.  Corynne Hauser was a standout at Rochester and she is at Kent State, along with Meghan Murray from Hampton.  

These are just a few examples that disprove you comment about most WPIAL players not "rising" to A10 level talent.  This is not meant to be an attack, just pointing to the players at the A10 level or DI level that disprove your statement.  There is a lot of talent here.  Rylee Kalocay (Upper St. Clair) is committed to Kent State.  Erica Gribble (Greensburg C.C.) is committed to Richmond and will be a senior next year. 

We currently have players on the roster who right now I don't think are anywhere near A10-caliber.  Case in point, Kellie McConnell, accoding to the Duquesne's website in her bio, she was listed as 'honorable mention' in Class 5A/6A all-section, which is nice, but that is not an indicator she is of A10 caliber, when you consider her high school teammate was first team all-section according to the Post-Gazette.  I have yet to see anything from Raymi Coueta that convinces me she is A10 caliber.  I am not looking to disparage these players and wish them well, but I don't think either of them are D1 level, let alone A-10 caliber type players.

My point to this is to say, Iyanna Wade has accomplished so much more than both of these players, given that she is the 2nd all-time leading scorer in the WPIAL history and was a 4-time all-state selection, she has proven much more that she is of A10 quality, than either Kellie McConnell or Raymi Coueta.  And to be perfectly honest, if Jerni Kiaku had committed to Duquesne over NC Central in high school, I don't think many would assume she was A10 caliber, but that would be a wrong assumption as she proved to an excellent guard.

In conclusion, I disagree with you that Wade is not A10 caliber, and that most local players are not good enough to compete in the A10.  I disagree with you that our staff works hard, as we have only one signed recruit for next year.  I also think the new coach at Robert Morris is going to lock up all of the local talent as as she is stocking up right now on players from the portal.

Here is a great article about the talent of Wade: https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/high-school-basketball/2025/01/23/iyanna-wade-clairton-carlton-wade-wpial-piaa-scoring-record/stories/202501210106 and yes, I firmly believe she is A10 caliber and has the accolades to prove it.

I would love to know just how hard our staff really works, because we are not getting anybody to be interested in our program, let alone local players. 
 

Last edited by DU90 (4/18/2025 2:02 pm)

I haven’t seen Wade play in person, so it’s hard to say if she is A-10 caliber, but I am also confused as to why we travel to Eastern Europe for players but seem to ignore local talent.  Even when we recruit the U.S. it tends to be Ohio over Pennsylvania.  If Richmond comes to the WPIAL for talent, I question why we stay on the sidelines.

I saw that.  I am surprised she didn't take the Robert Morris offer, but I expect she will be in the portal next year and will move up.

We still need a PG and I would take Wade over Kellie McConnell in a heartbeat.  I don't mean to knock McConnell here, but she wasn't the best player on her team when she was a senior in her high school year.  In my opinion, I see what Wade has accomplished (4-time all-state performer) and she is about the same size as McConnell, but more sturdy and is probably more effective at driving the paint than McConnell.  McConnell was honorable mention all-section as a senior, which basically means she was not good enough for first or second-team honors.  I think Kellie would be better suited playing for her aunt Kathy at CMU than to be playing in the A10.

I hope to be proven wrong and McConnell may prove to be a better player than I see now, but I don't ever see her playing significant minutes in college and Wade will likely start day on at SRU and be in the portal next year and may be looking to move up to DI.

Last edited by DU90 (4/26/2025 2:53 pm)