She didn't exactly have a year off. She played a lot of basketball much of it against boys. She only had the year off from her high school team and did so with consultation with Geno and another plan in place.
winlots said:
Let me just say that if anyone could ring up some of the posts immediately after Kelly's first games in her freshman year, I think there would be a lot of surprised people NOW! She wasn't overly well received in those games and I remember a lot of people were bummed that we only had a one person class and that it might come back and hurt us. That she was OK but not a dominant type player. In reading posts regarding Kia Nurse now, there is a LOT more enthusiasm as to who she is NOW and where she may be over the next four years. As a result I think you are basing your slight edge to Kelly on the much improved player (particularly offensively) that Kelly was in the latter part of her UConn career. She showed virtually no offense in her first two seasons and even well into her junior year though she was becoming a swiss army knife of other useful and impressive ways to contribute. Her rebounding, her lock down defense and her court instincts were impressing everyone but her unwillingness (or inability) to shoot was contributing to opponents not even working to defend her while UConn had the ball. She corrected that wonderfully in the latter part of her time in Storrs and became dangerous everywhere. I just think that you're comparing the junior or senior version of Kelly to the freshman version of Kia Nurse and thus slanting towards Kelly. Based on what little I've seen and the volume of stuff I've heard, Kia is ahead of Kelly at this point in her UConn career and it's not that close. Time will tell where Kia goes but she's obviously a very impressive young lady.
