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CU's loss

Posted August 14, 2007

The loss of Candace Rucker will be difficult to measure, but more than likely she will be greatly missed. (Rucker decided to transfer closer to home and will play for Southwest Community College in Memphis this season).

The team will likely have Brittany Spears, as well as Hannah Skildum, to play small forward so the loss of Rucker only opens up more playing time for those two.

Certainly, Rucker's potential was great. Extremely fast. Could jump higher than anyone on the court. You knew that someday Rucker would be an extremely talented playmaker.

Her talents rarely came to light during her freshman year at CU, although at times the substitution of Rucker and Whitney Houston greatly changed the tempo of the game (they just couldn't sustain it).

First of all, Rucker was behind health-wise when she came down with a kidney infection. She had to be brought along slowly at first and didn't practice a full speed at first. Her academics weighed on her too. She had to re-arrange her schedule and had to take some night classes, working around basketball practice. She never felt like she could catch up (she had to improve her grades this summer to become eligible this fall).

Secondly, the program was in the second year of its transition to coach KMM's style. You can see that in the future the team will be more up-tempo and make use of playmakers. But the current team isn't set up to take advantage of that just yet. So, Rucker's style never really fit in with the offense and at times it often looked like she wasn't sure what to do on the court. Plus, she came in off the bench for Jasmina Ilic, who was a shooter, not a playmaker, so that changed the dynamic of the team.

Also, although no one ever said this to me, I sensed that she never felt like she was a part of the team, which probably contributed to her homesickness. It's bound to happen on a team. You can't expect all the players to be best of friends (not that they didn't like her, they just didn't quite click).

Combined with all of the other factors, it's no surprise that Rucker transferred. There were no hard feelings between the player and coach. It just didn't work out for her and it looks like she will be much happier in Memphis.

Here's wishing her the best of luck.