With the big variety of departures this Gonzaga group noticed on the finish of the yr and restricted quantity of big-time, begin on day one, recruits, I used to be actually anticipating Coach Lisa Fortier and Co to be very energetic within the switch market, specific with a backcourt that’s solely returning 2 gamers in Claire O’Conner and, doubtlessly, Bree Salenbien.
Low and behold, Fortier ended up snagging 4 transfers:
G — Tayla Dalton — St. Mary’s
G — Ines Bettencourt — UConn
G — Vera Gunaydin — South Georgia Tech (JuCo)
F — McKynnlie Delan — Minnesota
Right now, we’re going to be protecting the inter-conference transferee, Tayla Dalton.
Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, Tayla Dalton arrives to Gonzaga through Moraga, California after attending St. Mary’s for the previous 4 years.
The 5’9” guard featured closely for her nation’s youth groups rising up with appearances on the 2017 u16 Asian Championships, 2018 u17 World Cup, 2018 u19 Asia Cup in India, and the 2019 u18 3×3 World Cup (the place she really received bronze within the expertise competitors). Together with her worldwide pedigree, Dalton stepped into the group instantly along with her first yr because the sixth particular person off the bench and subsequent starter thereafter as she solely failed to start the sport on the ground in 14 of 92 video games.
In these three years beginning, Tayla has performed almost 3000 minutes, averaged 9.1 factors, shot 48.5% from two and 29.8% from deep, 2.0 assists, 2.5 rebounds, 1.2 steals, and a couple of.1 turnovers. If we’re simply these profession numbers, I’d say these are strong and symbolize a strong pickup for this squad for a number of causes. Gonzaga will get an excellent senior at a place of want, somebody with tons of expertise, a capability to attain constantly, and a participant that sounds dedicated to serving to this program obtain success, if this interview clip tells us something (full interview right here; you’ll need to scroll, but it surely’s episode 785)
Moreover, I believe we’re getting a participant on the rise. In her last yr at St. Mary’s, Dalton had her finest season as posted a profession excessive in minutes with 33.6, factors with 10.1, capturing share with 49.7% from two and 36.0% from three, distribution with 2.5 assists, and protection with 1.7 steals and 0.3 blocks whereas solely committing 1.7 fouls per recreation. I solely anticipate these numbers to climb provided that her earlier group, the Gaels, averaged the slowest tempo within the WCC at 65.7, ten factors decrease than Gonzaga, seventh lowest variety of factors with 61.0, almost twenty decrease than GU, and the seventh lowest variety of assists with 13.6.
I’m going to save lots of a few of the particular person recreation performances and dialogue about her position on this upcoming yr’s group for one more time, however the wanting it’s that I believe Tayla Dalton will likely be attention-grabbing to observe in a Gonzaga uniform. Within the meantime, get pleasure from some clips under:
