How does Paige's season compare to the best freshman seasons in WCBB?

[Childhood]

Iowa is a losing team. I dont think CC can compete and her efficiency is also not as gd as PB. The only competitor should be Hailey but she is struggle so far.

 

[DEpup]

I agree that you just can't decide on stats alone. Remember that this year will probably be Paige's gaudiest stats. The stats will go down hill from here and will have nothing to do with her play or abilities. The team around her will get better and better with each passing year so her stat burden and minutes will reduce. It won't change her ability or value to the team or worthiness of the national awards. Please keep that in mind for those who want to make decisions purely on stats.

 

[my2cents]

I know we get fixated on points, but we should be more fixated on winning. If Paige stays at the level she is contributing for a Final Four, or Championship team, there will be no shortage of hardware heading her way.
She will have no room ,as her house is filled with her awards already ,plus 60-70 pairs of sneakers.

 

[bballnut90]

Clark's team isn't ranked or nationally relevant, both of which are essential to be in POY talks. FOY she's more of a candidate for, but I don't see any voters picking her over Paige, especially with Paige's recent string of games and heroics vs. SC.

 

[bballnut90]

I mean hundreds if not thousands of players meet those requirements lol. Doesn't make them viable POY candidates.

 

[bballnut90]

The first article is a month old and specifically about Caitlin Clark. This is before Paige played any decent teams yet.

The Naismith list you mentioned has 30 players on it. There aren't 30 viable POY threats.


I'm not shading Clark by any means but if anyone votes her as POY it'll be a major head scratcher considering how important team success has historically been a huge factor in POY voting the past 30 years. She's a fantastic player and a real threat to make and AA team and contend for Big Ten POY, but I don't see anyone picking her as NPOY.

 

[Gurleyman]

This is cherry picking numbers, but it's a real nice cherry

it’s actually a nicer cherry the more you analyze it! Most of those nine buckets were with UConn trailing when they really needed points - only the Tenn dagger up 2 and the SC dagger up 1 were with UConn ahead ... and those were big shots. ”Single digits last five minutes” could mean you hit a 3 up by eight with a minute to go where it isn’t that big a shot (or down eight in a futile comeback effort). Or you scored with 4 minutes left in a game you ended up winning by 15. All of Paige’s points were pressure points.

But a small sample size, of course. There’s no guarantee that the next close game won‘t see her miss a few, or see her guarded a little better. If theres a flaw in her offensive game it’s that she isn’t crafty about getting to the line, and doesn’t get to the rim on her own all that much (mostly gets layups on back cuts, with the occasional drive) for easy points, so if her jumper is off, she could have another 3-14 night at a bad time. I actually thought Dawn made a bit of a mistake not using Henderson on her more. She’s small so Paige could shoot over her if she got to her spots, but Henderson could stay right with her off the ball and crowd her space. The turnover when Muhl tried to throw to Westbrook with the game tied was after Henderson wouldn’t let Bueckers get the ball on the opposite wing. I kind of think if this team played 2016 UConn, MoJeff would give her a lot of problems.

 

[bballnut90]

All 38 Naismith POYs have had their ranked program in the top 10 during the season. Clark's team hasn't been ranked once in the top 25. So no, being ranked or nationally relevant isn't technically a prerequisite for NPOY, but if we take historical precedence into account, it 100% is a huge factor.

 

[Gurleyman]

To be honest, Naz Hillmon is the clear front runner for Big 10 Player of the Year right now (they’ve only lost once and she scored 50 in that one). Iowa and Michigan have a head to head game coming up, so maybe that could change, but there’s a big gap in the standings. Being in seventh place in your league doesn’t give you a great chance unless there’s some huge anomaly.

Evans, Hillmon and Bueckers are probably the top 3 for NPOY right now, but still time left for someone else to make a statement.

 

[Gurleyman]

She certainly has a strong case - they’ve had a bit of a games reduction due to covid so she probably needs to finish strong (ie - keep up what she’s doing) and not have her team stumble a couple times. If Hillmon or Evans won, I wouldn’t raise a stink. Awards favor veterans, and they’ve both played well enough to earn it.

Paige might also get hurt by the next five games against the bottom of the BE. She may see her scoring go down with less minutes in blowouts, and the SC game will drift further from peoples memories. Even if she scores a bunch in one of these games, it could shine attention on the fact that the bottom of the Big East is pretty bad. But that SC game was such a statement from her down the stretch and in OT in a 1 v 2 game that it may be what gets her enough votes.

 

[jonson]

Although this thread seems to be mostly about stats, such comparisons seem to me too often complicated by the different contexts in which each player does what she does. The most important criterion imo is how much a given player contributes to the success of her team. In that sense, Paige is certainly up there.

Kelly Graves (explaining that he had sent Te-hina Paopao videos of Sabrina Ionescu's worst freshman games in order to give her a better take on her own challenges): "All freshmen not named Paige Bueckers hit a freshman wall."