Back-to-back WNBL championships for Kia Nurse

[Lynx23]

Kia hits the go-ahead three pointer with 21 seconds left to seal the victory and bring home the WNBL championship to the UC Capitals for the second year in a row.

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[meyers7]

Good for her.

 

[psconn]

Congrats to Kia on the championship and MVP. Interesting stats though... Kia the volume shooter... shot nearly 1.75 times more shots than the next closest competitor on her team but had only the 6th best shooting percentage overall. From the 3 pt line she had the 4th best percentage but shot as many 3s as the next 4 players on her squad combined. Lead her team only in Minutes, Points per Game and free throw percentage. She had less than half the assists of her teammate Olivia Epoupa. On the defensive side, 5th in rebounds and 3rd in steals on her team. She beat out Bri Turner for league MVP. I guess high ppg gets voters attention in every league.

 

[eebmg]

Congrats to Kia on the championship and MVP. Interesting stats though... Kia the volume shooter... shot nearly 1.75 times more shots than the next closest competitor on her team but had only the 6th best shooting percentage overall. From the 3 pt line she had the 4th best percentage but shot as many 3s as the next 4 players on her squad combined. Lead her team only in Minutes, Points per Game and free throw percentage. She had less than half the assists of her teammate Olivia Epoupa. On the defensive side, 5th in rebounds and 3rd in steals on her team. She beat out Bri Turner for league MVP. I guess high ppg gets voters attention in every league.

Guessing there is a reason she plays the most mpg on her team

 

[Lynx23]

Congrats to Kia on the championship and MVP. Interesting stats though... Kia the volume shooter... shot nearly 1.75 times more shots than the next closest competitor on her team but had only the 6th best shooting percentage overall. From the 3 pt line she had the 4th best percentage but shot as many 3s as the next 4 players on her squad combined. Lead her team only in Minutes, Points per Game and free throw percentage. She had less than half the assists of her teammate Olivia Epoupa. On the defensive side, 5th in rebounds and 3rd in steals on her team. She beat out Bri Turner for league MVP. I guess high ppg gets voters attention in every league.

She really had no choice but to become a volume shooter. Griffin was out for nearly the entire year with an injury, and Tolo missed a substantial period of time as well for the same reason. Kia easily became the focus of defensive attention so it's easy to imagine her drawing double and triple teams while leading the entire league in minutes played because she had to. She carried the Caps for the better part of the year. None of this would show up in stats. I don't mean to be rude, but It always amazes me why some people find it so necessary to denigrate a player's accomplishment. It obviously took some real effort on your part. Your first sentence would have been adequate.

 

[psconn]

Any "denigration" is in your head. Those stats are facts, not my opinion. Kia was great at UConn and has been a solid pro, also. I just never thought of her as a volume scorer and the stats surprised me. I always thought of her as being far more efficient on offense. The Caps are Champs. Whatever they were doing worked so good on them.

As far as MVP goes, it kind of reminds me of the Ogunbowale vs Collier discussions for ROY... volume and ppg vs. all-round performance. You didn't mention defense (something Kia is known for) but it is possible that Kia was selected due to her defensive skills. I don't have any advanced defensive stats to look at, just rebounds and steals. Her steals, while only 3rd best on her team were 5th best in the league (tied with two other players). Given that 3 Caps players were in the top 5 in steals, its safe to say they played pretty good D, I guess.

A fact check on Tolo/Griffin missing a large portion of the season: Per the UC Caps website, Kia played 26 games, Tolo played 25 and Griffin 19. All three averaged above 30 mpg in the games they played.