Originally posted by 73alum
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In continuation of this conversation, i first want to say that i think our starting 5 will be very good next year and depending on work, determination, and improvement we have a chance to go 9 or more deep with quality players
i know i have said it a lot but you if you were forced to bet on starting 5, most minutes etc, you have to go with:
Kallie
Brooklyn
Tori
Timmie
Paige
gotta think UNLESS we get a transfer Mesa gets time backing up the posts
OR we use Tori as the backup post and some combination of Maddie M, Ellie, and Maddie V gets most of the backup minutes
if i were forced to guess which player might be most likely to supplant one of the obvious starters for next year, i would say Maddie M or Ellie
I hope i am wrong but i do not think Hillary will be ready to contribute next year. i guess a likely redshirt but am happy to be wrong and dont mean to say it is impossible she plays. but i would guess Hopp is closer to ready to contribute
I really dont think either of them is the equal of Brooklyn or our freshman guards from this year but they will have a much greater opportunity to play based on NOT having 2 of the top 5 scorers in program history and a former pac 12 assist leader taking time ahead of them.
that is how i see the roster and pt breaking down next year I think they will win the summit with ndsu the biggest threat unless there significant transfer changes in league rosters. to be a threat to win ncaa game or more many to all of the top 5-8 players will need to step up!!! and i think many of them have potential to do it
i think i can illustrate what our team lacked this year as well as what we need next year by comparing this years team to our final 16 team from 2019
i want to begin by saying I think Myah had a great tournament and really ended her career in an amazing way. i believe in her final 2 games she really showed those who may doubt her what a special player she has been. sometimes we might have wanted her to take over more, but she was never gonna be that player. she was team all the way and she did everything she could to help her teammates improve and be the best they could be
i think she showed against USC that she could have put up more points the last two years if she would have been more selfish and looked more aggressively for her own shot, but that was never the best thing for the team. but in the last 2 games when mostly everyone else really struggled she showed that she could still score even against the best competition
EXACTLY like Macy in the 2019 ncaa she did not shoot a great percentage with good defenders and teams geared to make her life difficult, but she still scored and contributed in other ways to do all she could to lead her team
that is gonna be the first thing we need next year. there is no obvious choice to be next years macy or myah even when they could not play because of injuries one of those 2 has been the leader of this program pretty much since 2016- macy may not have been the unquestioned leader as a freshman (we had another all time great waytashek) but she certainly showed she was gonna be. WHO will do that job now?? i honestly feel like everyone of the 5 i list as starters has the ability to take that roll for next year. i have kind of a rank in my mind but i will leave it at that
we will have to see if someone steps up / into that role or will it be more by committee
i still absolutely think we were very close to beating VT, but a bit more help from supporting cast certainly could have helped
FOR INSTANCE
look at the help our supporting cast gave Macy in 2019
in the 2019 ncaas Myah was a sophomore and probably our third option maybe 4th for the year (but i do think plenty of people could see by the end of that year that she was our second best player)
first game
4 of 9, 16 pts (macy 28 like i said her and myah this year almost identical), 9 boards (macy 11), 4 assists (team lead)
2nd game
7 of 14, 17pts, 8 boards (macy 10), 5 assists tie macy for team lead
macy had 11 pts this one
mady shot 6 of 12 with 6 3s and 20 pts (she was 2 of 6 and 1 of 9 in the other 2ncaa games, but huge in this win over syracuse on THEIR home floor)
3rd game vs 2 seed oregon in oregon (team with 4 first round wnba picks and the other would have been but quit BB after college)
6 of 17, 13 pts, 5 boards, and 4 assists (she led or tied for the lead in assists in all 3 ncaa games)
macy had 21 and 8 boards (PG led us in rebounds all 3 games) nobody else had more than 7pts that game
2019 NCAA tournament 3 game average for Myah
15.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists and shot 42.5% from the field
Kallie was easily our best player besides Myah
USC- 10 boards, 6 pts, 2 blocks, 3 steals
VT- 7 boards, 8 pts, 1 block, 2 steals
2 game average
7 pts, 8.5 boards, 1.5 blocks
Paige FG% was good, but she really did all of her scoring in a 9pt burst in the first half USC, FT line, 3rd Q burst against VT
also 8 TOs and only 3 assists
Timmer had 8 boards and 3 steals against USC and a nice little burst i think 8 pts in Q3 vs VT but 6 for 26 FG and 1 for 7 from 3 and 6 TO for the 2 games
(remember paige is barely a year past major injury. i believe these 2 learn from this and come back with a vengeance next year, but to those who thought they already started to take over this team, you can see how special Myah really was and they did not do close to what she did as sophomores in the ncaa)
Tori played mostly good D and had decent stats vs VT. Paiton played hard but was statistically invisible
nobody came close to giving support to Myah this year that Macy got in 2019
as i said in a previous post, i believe we could have beaten VT with almost zero improvement on offense (make a couple easy missed layups and some FTs) by just playing our normal defense in the 2nd quarter, giving up less 3s, and giving up less offensive boards. that is ABSOLUTELY TRUE and i do believe those will be a lot of AJ focus going forward.
I REALLY REALLY hope many of us understand this!!! even with almost no contribution on offense EXCEPT MYAH we were very close to going to the sweet 16 (seriously take away 1-3 of their TWELVE 3s, take away a couple offensive boards, make 2 layups and 2 FTs and we are moving on) believe me i know all about coulda, shoulda, woulda but i just feel like a lot of people dont realize how close we were
but i also think we showed in 2019 that we can win multiple ncaa games if we can get a bit more help from players other than our star and that is also the way AJ prefers to play. he recruits players who want to be part of a team and who win as a team and has also never been overly reliant on 3s. he prefers to have multiple players be a threat as opposed to one gunslinger. if we have anything like a 3pt gunslinger on this team next year i have to guess it is Maddie M or maybe Maddie V. i think Timmie could be our leading scorer and she will hit plenty of 3s but i dont see her making a lot more than the 50 she made this year
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