Thought I've had

My guess is all guns are pointed at football right now. Like it or not football pays the bills. 

Add in the fact that for the final couple weeks of the season, Talia was giving A.J. emphatic shout-outs and much love.  She likely knew that her own role as team leader was going to fall on A.J. Marotte's shoulders next season.

I, for one, hope that it does go to A.J.  I have confidence in her abilities. 

Step One & Two in that regard would be for A.J. to: a.) remain a Beav, and b.) even to make a public statement (social media) to that end.  Nothing would do more toward getting the fan base to look ahead, instead of wringing hands over the disbanding of the special group that was the 2023-24 Beaver's WBB team.

The AD has said FROM THE BEGINNING that OSU will do everything it can to remain a P5-funded athletic department. That also means funding women's basketball at a P5 level.

The players made their decisions. There is no "blame" to be assessed, especially to an administration that has done everything it can to keep OSU relevant, and to a coaching staff THAT WORKED ITS ASS OFF to make us one of the last eight teams standing. 

Count me as one who is more than understanding if it's nothing more than the conference affiliation.

A competitive, prideful, confident athlete usually wants to compete against the highest level of competition as often as possible. I'm thinking back to when I was a (mediocre) athlete and essentially made a college decision based almost entirely on that factor, choosing the one school at the highest division that made any effort to recruit me. Was that necessarily the right choice? No, but that's what I thought I wanted at the time. I can imagine how it might seem even more crucial to some of the best of the best.

I doubt these players view the difficulty of the Pac-12 as anything but a positive. I'm guessing every single one of these players was recruited with the idea that they would be playing basketball in arguably the strongest conference in the NCAA. A year or four in, and suddenly that opportunity was taken away from them, having nothing to do with poor play or anything else deserved.

So I think that's the main thing.

Don't get me wrong, I think there should have been a world of appeal in staying together and making a deeper run with teammates they supposedly adored. They know who they're playing for here, they know who they're playing with here, they know what life is like here. They may not like the idea of playing the WCC, but at least they kind of know what to expect from it. Transferring into the unknown is a mystery. It could go better, it could be worse. Which is more likely? (my guess is it's not better, unfortunately).

But this was only expected to be a top team next season if all, or almost all, of the players returned. So once a couple dominos begin to fall, suddenly even the sure things about staying in Corvallis, like loving your teammates, no longer are certain.

It isn't easy putting together a full non conference schedule.  Lots of things, although small, take time to finalize it.   I think the players were discussing the move to the WCC, especially late in the season.  I think some of their minds were made up before the end of the season.  Then others waiting for the first shoe to drop, followed them out the door.