The Oregon women’s basketball team finalized its recruiting class for next season Tuesday when it signed New Zealand’s Micaela Cocks.
Cocks has played for several teams in both New Zealand and Australia in recent years and will help fill the guard position left by departing seniors Chelsea Wagner and Brandi Davis.
“Micaela has made incredible progress through her years playing with both teams,” coach Bev Smith said. “She’s made an incredible jump to national competition.”
Cocks made her debut with New Zealand’s national team, nicknamed the Tall Ferns, last year at the Tiawan-based William Jones Cup, where the 5-foot-8 guard led her team to a silver medal.
Smith feels that Cocks’ versatility will help her fit in well with Oregon’s style of play.
“As a 1-2 combination guard, Micaela is very dynamic,” Smith said. “Micaela is a different kind of guard that we’ve been able to work in past seasons. She’s a little more athletic and a little quicker off the ball. I definitely think that she is better than most high school level players.”
Being able to switch between the one and two guard positions resulted in playing time for Davis and Wagner in past years, as was the case with Kaela Chapdelaine, Cicely Oaks and Tamika Nurse in the 2005-06 season.
Cocks is the seventh Duck on the 2006-07 roster who was not born in the U.S. The North Shore, New Zealand, native joins fellow signees Taylor Lilley and Mary Sbrissa as freshmen next season.
In four seasons of play in the Women’s National Basketball League, New Zealand’s premiere league, Cocks has delivered consistent numbers offensively. She averaged 10.7 points per game along with 2.9 rebounds.
In her only WNBL playoff game of 2005, Cocks made 4 of her 14 shots from the field and ended with 16 points. She pulled down two rebounds and went 7 of 8 from the free-throw line.
Cocks has her best year in the WNBL playing for Waikato in 2004. She finished averaging 12.6 points per game. She added 23 assists. She highlighted her best defensive season, 2004, with 26 steals and 37 rebounds.
Cocks was unable to be reached for comment by the Emerald.
With the depth Smith will have at guard for the next few seasons, 2006-07 seems a likely redshirt year for incoming freshman such as Cocks.
This may not be the case for her, however, considering that Smith and the Ducks used only 12 of their 15 allotted scholarships. Counting its offseason acquisitions, Oregon will have only six bench players to rotate with their starting five in 2006-07.
On Tuesday, Smith said that the team has all of the players it needs.
“If we have an athlete that we feel can help us then we’ll welcome them in,” Smith said. “But as of now we have everyone we need and we don’t want to waste any incoming freshman’s time. Most importantly, we don’t care to fill scholarships just for the sake of filling scholarships. We want to add people that we know will make contributions and Micaela is no exception.”