OSU in 6’9” Jelena Mitrovic top 4

Not much history of redshirting?(Breanna) Brown, Green, Aquino - they all come to mind in recent years.

I guess that is exactly what I meant. Along with SR' statements about not being big on redshirting, that many doesn't doesn't seem like much to me. But, you are correct, this is Basketball, not football, and overall there aren't that many redshirts in basketball. If it had been me, I probably would have redshirted Morris too....maybe even Simmons, but we are all lucky it isn't me. I would have made a mess out of a talented team.

Under Rueck the roster is almost always 11-13. 1 year it was 14. He averages 3-4 scholarships not being utilized. There is always scholarship room for any player Rueck wants to recruit. The roster reflects his philosophy of rarely redshirting, while having at least some playing time for every player on the roster. Green and Aquino were/are injury redshirts. Brown is the only redshirt Rueck has had that was not decided by injury or transfer. Although, from my memory of the article about this it appeared that Brown went to Rueck to ask that she could redshirt. The only redshirts under Rueck were/are Brown, Aquino, Green, and Slocum (unless I missed an injury redshirt in his first couple of years, there were definitely none by choice in that period).

Rueck has room on the roster as Mitrovic puts the roster at 13 next year if no one leaves. This is the max of where Rueck wants to be. So the roster will be right for Rueck and we know he and his staff like Mitrovic's skill set. Rueck likes game planning height and size. Mitrovic will play next year barring injury or other unforeseen events, the only question is how much.

The questions or premises of the discussion revolve around whether players will be satisfied with playing time; therefore there this is some plans afoot to separate players with the same amount of eligibility left. This is assuming that players will be dissatisfied with their role or that incoming/existing players will demand to be the focal point.
This could happen, but at this time just as Rueck has in the past, I would assume he would recruit to the number and types of players wanted and work to help each individual see their value to a successful team. Redshirting is just not part of this plan.

What I think Rueck's vision is versatility. He sees a 6"9" player at center, another 6'9" player that could play 3-4 positions, a 6'6" player that could play 3-4 positions, a 6'3" player that could player 2 positions, another 6'3" player that can play 3-4 positions, a 6'7" player that can play 2 positions, a 5'10" player that can play 4 positions, a 6'1" player that can play 3 positions, a 6'2" player that can play 2 positions, 2 guards that can play all guard positions, and 2 other versatile and quality guards.

New picture at Jelena's twitter site. Couple familiar names following her.....
Interesting to get a sense of scale of her feet from the basketball beneath it. In video as well she doesn't seem to stumble or bumble excessively.



Novi Korak = new step.
Go Beavers!

News is scarce, I found this short article originally in Bosnian, via Google Translate:


basketballsphere.com/jelena-mitrovic-izabrala-oregon-stejt/


Serbia will have another representative in America from autumn! Jelena Mitrovic, the sister of former Red Star captain Luke Mitrovic who has chosen Oregon Steyt's scholarship. It is an extremely talented basketball player who plays in the center position, is 205 centimeters high and in January she was 18 years old.

Iowa, Arizona State and Ratgers were nominated for it, but Jelena chose Oregon State in the women's NCAA League (WNCAA), who is a member of the Pac-12 conference. Oregon State is currently the seventh-ranked school on the Top 25 list, second-placed in the Pac-12, with a record 9-1 in the conference, or 19-3 in total since the start of the season.

How high the opinion they have about her is that she is rated as a talent with a maximum of five stars, and that she is predicting a great career in WNBA ..

Jelena plays for Novi Sad "ŽKA" and this season in the First League average score of 20.1 points and 14.9 rebounds per match. Last season with the Serbian national team in the UEFA European Under-18 Championship in Udine (Italy), they had an average of 11.7 points, 11.3 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game in seven games.

Jelena Mitrovic (C 6’9”, 2001) from Serbia. After Udine 2016 FIBA U16
As a huge knowledge of women basketball said, “Jelena maybe is not the faster player I have never seen”, but Jelena has a huge body and knows about the game. Her size (6’8”) is really impressive at this stage, but her athleticism and mobility are still growing. Although she struggles running up and down, she is able to play for a long lap-time. The Serbian also has big hands (of course) to catch rebounds, but has not leaping ability and sometimes, although she usually keeps high the ball after the catch, she shows not enough intensity to retain the ball after the grab. Although she doesn’t display a great quickness, her footwork is really good playing back to the basket. Jelena also possesses an interesting passing skill set and a good enough vision court/knowledge: she is able to pass the ball (inside/outside) both in double team situations and finding a teammate cutting the paint. Mitrovic struggles putting the ball on the floor and sometimes lost her body balance when she is guarding from the contact (in fact she always is guarding from the contact, and has a huge patient…) Jelena displays a great shooting release from a FT’s range (reliable but bit slow release), and she is really good shooting from the block after a pivot-spin. Inside the paint, Mitorvic shows a soft touch in the bank shots. Despite of her lack of (great) mobility, her wingspan, size and knowledge allow Jelena to be a great shot-blocker and rim protector. From the weak side, Mitrovic is a quite good defender deflecting passes due to her knowledge. Jelena is a prospect with a huge body and good knowledge/fundamentals who only needs to improve her athleticism in the correct way. Her mood is always a fact to follow carefully.

JM analysis from a couple years ago