I know that these lists are clickbait and engaging with them is giving ESPN exactly what they want, but a couple of funny observations:
Charlie Creme and Michael Voepel were the authors of both this list and last week's ESPN women's college basketball awards. In this list, Creme writes about Sarah Strong, "By most of the advanced metric ratings, she is the best defensive player in the country," yet last week they gave their Defensive Player of the Year Award to Hannah Hidalgo. (This is not meant as a slight on Hannah, who is a phenomenal defender.)
In today's list, Madison Booker was named the 5th best player in women's March Madness, and Lauren Betts the 6th. Last week, Lauren was one of their First-Team All-Americans, and Madison was on the Second Team. Creme wrote, "Leaving Booker off the first team was the most difficult decision with our All-America teams, especially coming off her MVP performance in the SEC tournament. But if not Booker, which player would come off the first team instead? Strong, Blakes, and Betts were easy picks. … Booker and her 18.9 points per game were certainly deserving. We just ran out of room." I guess Lauren became less of an easy pick in the past week, when no one was playing games?
Do they not read their own writing? (It seems like their editors don't.) Was today's list a do-over? A way of placating multiple fan bases? Either way, it cracked me up. 😀
