oldude
bamboo lover
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Heading into this season, ESPN decided to create some "click bait" by reranking the HS class of 2017. At the time, I thought it was silly for any number of reasons, but it certainly created some lively discussion here on the BY and elsewhere. One of the reasons I felt that it was a silly exercise is that so much of a player's productivity when they get to college depends on the team and players they play with. But ESPN wasn't particularly concerned with such issues, so they decided to drop Megan Walker down to 4th and determined that Chennedy Carter was the top player in the HS class of 2017.
Carter is a tremendously talented player, so much so that Gary Blair basically gave her the ball and let her do her thing as soon as she showed up in College Station as a freshman. In that process, he had to overlook some obvious problems. Carter sometimes loafed on defense. She wasn't a particularly adept TEAM player. When she was cold, A&M was likely going down. Megan, like all UConn freshmen, had to learn how to play the way Geno wanted, and until she did, she wasn't going to get a lot of minutes. So her freshman year had a few brief flashes and a lot of time spent sitting on the bench. While she had a nice leap into the starting lineup as a sophomore, she was playing with two first team AA's along with a couple of very talented guards, on a team who's DNA requires that everyone shares the ball.
Fast forward to their junior years. While I acknowledge that comparing players over just 7 games is as silly as reranking the HS Class of 2017, let's take a look at Carter and Megan's performance this year, just for the hell of it. In their junior years both Carter and Megan are now the "go to" players on their respective teams, so a comparison between the two is more valid. Carter is a guard who has the ball in her hands significantly more than anyone else on A&M's team. Megan is playing out of position as a PF at UConn, and has to get her touches in the flow of the offense. With that said, let's look at the numbers. I've highlighted in Bold where each respective player has better numbers, which in some cases may be the lower number, i.e. TO's.
I will point out a couple of startling numbers. Megan is currently outscoring Carter by .5 ppg on 22 fewer shots from the field. How's that for efficiency? In addition, while Carter is a guard who dominates the ball in A&M's offense she has only 7 more assists than Megan, or 1 per game.
There's a whole season yet to play, and obviously these numbers will change. But they beg the question, "Would you rather have Chennedy Carter or Megan Walker on your team?" I don't know about everyone else, but I know who I would take on my team right now.
Carter is a tremendously talented player, so much so that Gary Blair basically gave her the ball and let her do her thing as soon as she showed up in College Station as a freshman. In that process, he had to overlook some obvious problems. Carter sometimes loafed on defense. She wasn't a particularly adept TEAM player. When she was cold, A&M was likely going down. Megan, like all UConn freshmen, had to learn how to play the way Geno wanted, and until she did, she wasn't going to get a lot of minutes. So her freshman year had a few brief flashes and a lot of time spent sitting on the bench. While she had a nice leap into the starting lineup as a sophomore, she was playing with two first team AA's along with a couple of very talented guards, on a team who's DNA requires that everyone shares the ball.
Fast forward to their junior years. While I acknowledge that comparing players over just 7 games is as silly as reranking the HS Class of 2017, let's take a look at Carter and Megan's performance this year, just for the hell of it. In their junior years both Carter and Megan are now the "go to" players on their respective teams, so a comparison between the two is more valid. Carter is a guard who has the ball in her hands significantly more than anyone else on A&M's team. Megan is playing out of position as a PF at UConn, and has to get her touches in the flow of the offense. With that said, let's look at the numbers. I've highlighted in Bold where each respective player has better numbers, which in some cases may be the lower number, i.e. TO's.
- Chennedy Carter - 32 mpg, 140 shots taken, .429 fg%, .242 3pt fg%, ,741 ft%, 4.1 rbpg, 26 A, 24 TO, A/TO aprox 1.0, 1 BL, 14 ST, 21.1 ppg
- Megan Walker - 37.1 mpg, 118 shots taken, .475 fg%, 472 3pt fg%, .786 fg%, 8.3 rbpg, 18 A, 19 TO, A/TO aprox 1,0, 4 BL, 7 ST, 21.6 ppg
I will point out a couple of startling numbers. Megan is currently outscoring Carter by .5 ppg on 22 fewer shots from the field. How's that for efficiency? In addition, while Carter is a guard who dominates the ball in A&M's offense she has only 7 more assists than Megan, or 1 per game.
There's a whole season yet to play, and obviously these numbers will change. But they beg the question, "Would you rather have Chennedy Carter or Megan Walker on your team?" I don't know about everyone else, but I know who I would take on my team right now.
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