Espnw player of the year | The Boneyard

Espnw player of the year

Looking at the article details a little bit. Perhaps surprising.

Charlie Creme, Graham Hays, Mechelle Voepel, Rebecca Lobo and LaChina Robinson voted for espnW's end-of-season awards.

In a season in which the national championship seems up for grabs, the espnW national player of the year ended up being a unanimous pick.

This is probably a good indicator of how the big NPOY award will go?
 
Oops.

I posted this on the new forum because (spoiler alert) UConn is not represented.
 
I’m happy Megan Gustafson got this award. She deserves it. She’s done so much for her team both this year and last year. Her stats are impressive, but what’s even more impressive is her attitude. She’s humble and always praises her teammates. I wish her nothing but the best.
 
Megan has been a joy to watch all year. I have gone out of my way to watch Iowa's games because of her.

I ride for Napheesa and UConn all day, but for Gustafson to put up the kind of numbers she has -- leading the country in both ppg and fg%, which is virtually unheard of -- and for her to have led Iowa from an afterthought to a likely 2 seed in the NCAAs makes it really hard to vote against her.

My wish upon a star is that Megan gets NPOY and Napheesa gets Final Four MOP.
 
General posts are fine here. The other board is for threads specifically on other teams
 
This is great and congrats to Megan. I watched her play in the Iowa-MD game - she was a beast. Well deserved, and I hope she rocks in the WNBA. She's not that much smaller than Brown or McGowan. I hope teams take a hard look at her. Height doesn't always guarantee success (Margo Dydek - she was terrific, but NOT a dominating force).
 
Ralph said:
so how did Gustafson and Howard rank coming out of HS?
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Megan was #80 per ESPN.
Anriel Howard formerly of TA&M was >100 per ESPN.
Waiting for someone to use this to bash the recruiting services or point out how UCONN missed out!
 
Wrong! I do not agree. The real fighter, the real player, one who fights adversity in every game and gives her all, is Napheesa Collier. She is the real Player of the Year. She carries this UConn team and is the example by which the others follow and raise their game so that the team can win. ESPN is wrong. The choice is wrong.
 
veryolddog said:
Wrong! I do not agree. The real fighter, the real player, one who fights adversity in every game and gives her all, is Napheesa Collier. She is the real Player of the Year. She carries this UConn team and is the example by which the others follow and raise their game so that the team can win. ESPN is wrong. The choice is wrong.
Expand ...
Napheesa plays alongside three former no. 1 recruits and a no. 3. No one else in the country plays alongside four other starters ranked so highly. Megan Gustafson has elevated her team to a #2 seed despite having teammates ranked nowhere near as highly as Collier’s. Gustafson’s stats are superior in PPG, RPG, and FG%, despite playing a much stronger SOS, which are the most important stats for their position IMO.
 
DaBball said:
Napheesa plays alongside three former no. 1 recruits and a no. 3. No one else in the country plays alongside four other starters ranked so highly. Megan Gustafson has elevated her team to a #2 seed despite having teammates ranked nowhere near as highly as Collier’s. Gustafson’s stats are superior in PPG, RPG, and FG%, despite playing a much stronger SOS, which are the most important stats for their position IMO.
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While not commenting specifically on who was selected (because I don't mind that Gustafson was picked by ESPN) I will disagree with part of the rationale you used to explain why she is more deserving. This is a Player of the Year not a Most Valuable Player of the Year.

I have seen varying opinions on who is the best player for Notre Dame, so having better team mates makes it harder to distinguish yourself.
 
While we are on the topic of POY, I have no problem with Gustafson's selection. She has had a ridiculously successful year.

But moving on to the topic of next year's POY, the early front-runners might be Sabrina Ionescu and Jackie Young. Of course either one may declare for the upcoming WNBA draft. On that subject, Jackie had a quote from an article in the USA Today (LINK).

"It's really going to be sad to see them go," Young said. "Every time we're out there we're having fun."

That makes my Irish eyes smile a little brighter. If she comes back for her senior campaign, she will probably accrue the kind of stats required for POY awards. And perhaps make Notre Dame a contender next year as well (at least by the end of the season, as it will take a lot of time to adjust to 4 new starters considering how little time the bench player had this season).
 
veryolddog said:
Wrong! I do not agree. The real fighter, the real player, one who fights adversity in every game and gives her all, is Napheesa Collier. She is the real Player of the Year. She carries this UConn team and is the example by which the others follow and raise their game so that the team can win. ESPN is wrong. The choice is wrong.
Expand ...

And yet UConn played some of its best basketball of the year during the fourth quarter against Notre Dame, with Collier out of the line-up. Take Gustafson out of the line-up and I wonder how Iowa fares. Also, I would imagine teams are keying in on Gustafson more so than Collier, particularly when Samuelson is in the lineup, so there is more adversity for Gustafson to fight.

This points to MVP credentials, not POY. Collier may very well be the best POY candidate, I don't watch enough of the others to know better. Collier gets my vote! But your defense of Collier is an MVP type defense, not POY type defense. There is no doubt in most people's minds that subtracting Gustafson from Iowa would have much more disastrous consequences than subtracting Collier from UConn.

In fact, I'll bet the first few takers a large pizza (that we split and have a good time over) that next year UConn has no more than 3 losses, the same maximum total we could have this year.

(Um, barring unforeseen injuries and/or transfers)
 
So I was wondering why Gustafson is their NPOY this year but was only 3rd Team last year even though she lead the NCAA in scoring both years.

Is it primarily because of visibility as her team is better this year?

I present to you 3 sets of numbers:
  1. Overall
  2. Qualified - Tier 1 Revised (Home vs Top 30, Neutral vs Top 50 and Away vs Top 75).
  3. Non Qualified - All other games.

For each set the top are last year (2017-18) and the bottom are this year (2018-19).

Compare Gustafson 17-18 to 18-19.png


Screenshot also includes Career Stats.

No doubt her Overall numbers are better than last year, the Qualified numbers (good teams) are fairly similar but the Non Qualified numbers (average to bad teams) are much improved.

I am sure it has a lot to do with the "eye test".
 
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