Trying to separate Andrea Aquino's involvement/being part of the Paterson Eastside situation, I went to her regular-season game against Arts. The competition was not good and she barely played in the last quarter. That said, I did get to all of her warm-ups (game started late) and the first three quarters. The good news: she's improved remarkably since I last saw her.
- She’s pretty agile, more so than I remembered/saw last time. In warm-up drills, she cuts, jumps, pivots, slides sideways well, particularly when you take into account her height (and she is 6'8") and factor in that she’s only been participating in sports for a few years.
- Hand-eye coordination is fine most of the time, particularly when the ball is up high. She grabs initial rebounds well and also helped her team break a full-court press easily by taking inbound and/or outlet passes, turning and firing two-handed outlet passes (Kevin Love-style) to wings up-court. From time to time, she would bring ball down to her waist and opposition would swat at it.
- On the minus side, from time to time, she would bring ball down to her waist and opposition would swat at it. She also let a few entry passes slip through her hands, but on at least one of those, the pass was much too fast.
- The best part of her shooting skill set is, surprisingly, her jump shot. Relatively compact stroke, good touch from the foul line in. She even stroked a three. And she was perfect from the line on free throws. She posted into the lane twice and deposited two baby hooks into the hoop – one lefty, one righty. She did not have that good a touch on traditional turn-around jump shots, which she attempted to bank. However, she had an excellent fake right- spin back to her left and finish with a left-handed finger roll.
- You can still tell the game is coming to her. Not everything is instinctive; there seems to be a slight hitch, then go to her movements. And she’s not consistently aggressive in many instances, particularly on defense or on multiple jumps at rebounds. However, once she makes her mind up offensively, she makes her move and goes. She also dove on the floor on two occasions, resulting in jump balls.
- Needs to get stronger and coached on elements like not bringing the ball down low or where to throw passes in tight spots or pressured situations. Both can be remedied easily with training and/or coaching.
After I wrote this report up, I watched the ND-BC game last night which -- because it was one-sided -- allowed ND's and BC's back-up centers to enter the game for long periods of time. Aquino moves just as well as they do and could benefit from that degree of coaching. Still don't think it is at that kind of level, but I could see a P5 school taking a chance on her or very much a mid-major.
