Forgotten PG

[Mdoggie]

View attachment 52383
I was on YouTube. She looked really good playing for UConn. Why haven’t I heard of her here in the Boneyard? View attachment 52383

 

[HuskyNan]

View attachment 52383
I was on YouTube. She looked really good playing for UConn. Why haven’t I heard of her here in the Boneyard? View attachment 52383

Bad link. Got a name?

 

[Mdoggie]

Bad link. Got a name?

Sorry. Rita Williams

 

[Mdoggie]

 

[HuskyNan]

Longtime Boneyarders remember Rita here. We’ve had any number of threads in praise of her. Great pg and great person.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=2ahUKEwjA09u9g7zoAhUuTt8KHYEDBhwQFjAHegQIBxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ctpost.com%2Fuconn%2Farticle%2FTrue-Connecticut-Huskies-Conlon-Rizzoti-12750733.php&usg=AOvVaw1hsgPKXMeHh2xzLTHp2mJf

 

[Old Jim]

Junior college transfer from Norwalk had a couple of really good years.

 

[EricLA]

I may get some of this wrong (going mostly from memory) but here goes... Rita wanted to come to UCONN all along but I believe there were some issues with her grades, so she went the JUCO route (or some alternative). As soon as she was eligible, she came to UCONN.

She played 3 years at UCONN and was drafted early in the 2nd round of the WNBA draft. She played 8 years. Her best 2 year stretch was her 3rd and 4th years in the WNBA where she averaged about 11.5 PPG and about 3.4 APG. Great player, better person.

 

[UcMiami]

She gets less attention because she fell into the period between the first and second NC. Great player, great teams, lots of disappointment in the NCAAs. Her teams went 101-8, lost in the elite eight, FF in OT, and elite eight. She is one of only three players to top 100 steals in a season more than once (Sales 3x, Jefferson and Williams 2x.)

If she had come to Uconn for her freshman year she would have been on the 1995 championship team. Her Junior year team was one of the teams that entered the NCAAs undefeated and ended the year losing to TN in the elite eight with a final record of 33-1. Ralph was a freshman phenom but was injured in the first round with the first of her ACLs and they lost in the elite eight.

 

[Golden Husky]

I may get some of this wrong (going mostly from memory) but here goes... Rita wanted to come to UCONN all along but I believe there were some issues with her grades, so she went the JUCO route (or some alternative). As soon as she was eligible, she came to UCONN.

She played 3 years at UCONN and was drafted early in the 2nd round of the WNBA draft. She played 8 years. Her best 2 year stretch was her 3rd and 4th years in the WNBA where she averaged about 11.5 PPG and about 3.4 APG. Great player, better person.

You're a nice guy, Eric but I wish you knew more about UConn women's basketball.

 

[RogueDave]

Rita played very hard, was extremely good at finishing at the hoop in the face of strong defense. Took her a bit to figure out the offense, aggressive on ball defender, She did travel a bit. Secretly I think she was Geno’s favorite because she proved herself so well as a person and player.

side note was at Gampel when Shea got hurt and she cried out the Father’s with Daughters reflexively stood up it was instinctual we all sat back down a bit unnerved and embarrassed... I would estimate ~2,000 of us that reacted, it was eerie, my wife was like were you think you’re going?

 

[PacoSwede]

i recall rita stepping up BIG TIME when nykesha went down with the achilles. i'm always disappointed when she's overlooked in the recitation of great huskies pg's

 

[meyers7]

i recall rita stepping up BIG TIME when nykesha went down with the achilles. i'm always disappointed when she's overlooked in the recitation of great huskies pg's

It's probably not so much overlooked, but how far does one go with recitation? PG's are 4 deep with AA's. Bird, Jefferson, Rizzotti, Montgomery. Add in DT and Hartley who played some PG. And haven't even mentioned Dangerfield.

 

[Sargassoc]

She was a tough kid, but played a little out of control when she was first at UConn.

(Funny, RogueDave thinks she was one of Geno's favorite and I always thought he wanted her more disciplined. Just goes to show you that, while we all see the same stuff, we bring different points of view to what we see.)

 

[UcMiami]

Part of the 'overlooking' is also because her career stats are limited by her being limited to 3 years. If you add another year of stats at the end of her career she would be second or third in steals.

Also, her assist ratio and total assists numbers aren't great - for her career she had a 1.09 A/TO, and as a junior and senior she totaled only 113 and 149 assists, and her senior year was her best with a 1.57 A/TO - as a comparison Hartley had a career 1.52 A/TO and as a junior and senior it was 1.58 and 2.08.

Career A/TO for the others:
Bird: 2.11
Jefferson: 2.64
Montgomery: 1.8
Rizzotti: 1.56
DT: 1.84
Dangerfield: 2.59

Bird played 118 games and had 585 assists, Williams played 109 games and had 286. Hartley with 559 assists in 153 games, and Dangerfield with 599 in 134 games are the only ones listed above with fewer than 600 assists. For her career Williams average 2.6 assists per game, Hartley averaged 3.7 and the others averaged more.

I am not disparaging Williams, but Uconn has had seven exceptional PGs all but Dangerfield also won NCs - it is easy to get overlooked when surrounded by such greatness. She had tough luck when teammates went down with injuries as well (Sales and Ralph might have made a difference in how her last two years ended.)