Caroline Ducharme (Caroline Ducharme) Video

[CocoHusky]

While I am not sure whether Caroline will meet your definition of "elite," she likely will be part of an elite team. Geno has more resources than in many years and will be able to use her shooting and playmaking ability to open the floor for others. Defensively, she has the size and quickness to fit in nicely with UConn's defensive schemes. Few remember what a player was ranked in high school but we all remember the players that made up the championship teams.

Caroline talents will be utilized in the best way possible because ALL of Geno's players are. As I have said before Caroline does not have to be elite to be a UCONN contributor. IMO UCONN has 1 elite ingredient going forward and that is Paige as primary play maker. Regarding Caroline's defense, while UCONN does not have an Elite perimeter defender I would project Aubrey, Saylor, Nika, Mir & Paige (in that order) to be better perimeter defenders at this point.

 

[Alydar]

In that same range of rankings as Gordon and Ekmark was Kia Nurse at 33 & Stevens at 23. One thing I have learned about these rankings is that getting a high one requires a player to be highly visible, and those who aren't sometimes don't even get in the top 100, like Chong, until she committed to UConn, when she appeared there for the first time.
Being 25-30 or thereabouts is not a death sentence. Prospect Nation has Ducharme at 23 and Iriafen, who had several here salivating until she went to the barnyard instead of the boneyard, at 20. If you think that Ducharme's ranking is right then you have to believe Iriafen's is equally justified.

 

[CocoHusky]

In that same range of rankings as Gordon and Ekmark was Kia Nurse at 33 & Stevens at 23. One thing I have learned about these rankings is that getting a high one requires a player to be highly visible, and those who aren't sometimes don't even get in the top 100, like Chong, until she committed to UConn, when she appeared there for the first time.
Being 25-30 or thereabouts is not a death sentence. Prospect Nation has Ducharme at 23 and Iriafen, who had several here salivating until she went to the barnyard instead of the boneyard, at 20. If you think that Ducharme's ranking is right then you have to believe Iriafen's is equally justified.

You can go back and look at any year of the rankings and find players that out or under performed their rankings for any school. We can wait 5 years and do the same for Caroline. All the players you mentioned (Lexi, Courtney, Kia, Azura, Kiki, Saniya, Kiki) were appropriately ranked IMO based on how they performed up to the time of the ranking. I get that some think that Caroline is ranked two low. What I don't get is those that think she will outperform her ranking just because she's coming to UCONN. I expect Caroline to perform up to her ranking and be a UCONN contributor.

 

[Alydar]

You can go back and look at any year of the rankings and find players that out or under performed their rankings for any school. We can wait 5 years and do the same for Caroline. All the players you mentioned (Lexi, Courtney, Kia, Azura, Kiki, Saniya, Kiki) were appropriately ranked IMO based on how they performed up to the time of the ranking. I get that some think that Caroline is ranked two low. What I don't get is those that think she will outperform her ranking just because she's coming to UCONN. I expect Caroline to perform up to her ranking and be a UCONN contributor.

Appropriately????? Yeah, but not correctly unless not seeing them play more than a few minutes is apprropriate methodology. No one can make an accurate judgement based on 15 minutes of one or two AAU games, which is what most AAU players get. It would be more helpful for fans if the rankers would list the events in which they actually saw the players they are ranking. Seems to me that there are about 30 AAU teams that get 90% of the coverage. The rest are left to themselves to get the word out. Sure, if you are an elite player on an elite AAU team you get an "appropriate" ranking, but if you are Kia Nurse, out of the loop, you are definitely not going to get an accurate ranking, even if it was appropriate.

 

[CocoHusky]

Appropriately????? Yeah, but not correctly unless not seeing them play more than a few minutes is apprropriate methodology. No one can make an accurate judgement based on 15 minutes of one or two AAU games, which is what most AAU players get. It would be more helpful for fans if the rankers would list the events in which they actually saw the players they are ranking. Seems to me that there are about 30 AAU teams that get 90% of the coverage. The rest are left to themselves to get the word out. Sure, if you are an elite player on an elite AAU team you get an "appropriate" ranking, but if you are Kia Nurse, out of the loop, you are definitely not going to get an accurate ranking, even if it was appropriate.

Uhm....... ESPN and Prospectsnation both list the events which they have seen the players play. Above and beyond AAU tournaments BlueStar, ProspectsNation and a few other also sponsor events where the players can come work out get feedback and actually talk to the people rating & ranking them. Hopefully you realize the irony of this phrase you used "accurate judgement". That's one of them there oxymorons. The rating and rankings are judgements. Judgement by definition is prone to error. Kia Nurse did play AAU, Canadian teams actually show up and compete pretty well at many of these high level AAU tournaments. Mike Flynn for over 10 years has had BlueStar ranking the players in Europe. He was the first to predict stardom for Nika Muhl and that was well before UCONN got involved. Every year at every school you will have players exceed their ranking and some that will not.

 

[Mdoggie]

Nika Muhl is a ringer! I crack myself up sometimes!

 

[Alydar]

I believe that you get what you pay for. HG is a wonderful resource for fans but I doubt any D1 coach uses them for anything but basic factual information. There are private evaluation services available that can run into thousands of dollars but most of us never see those.

 

[CocoHusky]

I believe that you get what you pay for. HG is a wonderful resource for fans but I doubt any D1 coach uses them for anything but basic factual information. There are private evaluation services available that can run into thousands of dollars but most of us never see those.

I doubt very much if ANY D1 coaches use HG for any reason at all. The paid version of HG is called:

Dan Olson Collegiate Girls Basketball Report