Kelsey Mitchell is not an All American...

[BIGMAC]

Let me repeat, Kelsey Mitchell is a very, very talented player. She is a tremendous scorer who has already scored 2,057 points, just 13 games into her Junior season. My opinion is that the rest of her game is below All American level and the UConn game, both this season and last, illustrates that. I'm giving an opinion, not denigrating Kelsey Mitchell. Consider:

1. Mitchell has taken 1,530 shots in her 82 game career. MoJeff took 1,106 in four years. At her current pace, Mitchell will take more shots in three years than Stewie took in four. I get it, her job is to score and she shoots 43.5% from the field for her career.
2. For her career, Mitchell has 305 assists and 288 turnovers. That is a pedestrian 1.05 assist to turnover ratio. She is almost as likely to turn the ball over as get it to a shooter who then makes the shot. Yes, some brilliant passes do not turn into assists because the shooter misses.
3. Mitchell is currently 8th on her team in rebounding. She has 1 blocked shot in 13 games. So, rebounding and shot blocking are not her specialty. That makes sense as she is reported to be 5'8".
4. Mitchell has led her team in personal fouls every season. Her 238 fouls average out to 2.9 fouls per game. Sometimes, her tendency to foul keeps her on the bench in foul trouble.
5. Kelsey has 22 steals in 13 games this season. That leads her team. Napheesa has 21 in 10 games for UConn and Gabby has 27.
6. Her 39 turnovers this season would rank #1 on UConn. In fairness, Gabby has 30 in 10 games, which is the same 3 per game as Mitchell.

Mitchell is a great shooter and scores tons of points. In my opinion, her totals in assists, turnovers, steals, rebounds and fouls keeps her off my All American team. My opinion and 50 cents will get you a hot coffee at McDonald's.

Coffee at McDonald's is $1.00 , I do not believe they will accept your opinion as currency.

 

[DefenseBB]

So we've started basing who is and who's not an All-American on one game?

The answer is both "yes" and "no". As Coco said, when the AA player goes against a strong team, we, as viewers assess who are the best players on the court- i.e. Who best controls the game. I not only do this when watching the Huskies, but when I watch any team against quality opponents, I avoid the padding stats games (before conference schedule). So the aforementioned Mitchell, Turner, Allen and Davis did not look good against UConn and were at best the 4th best player on the floor. How will they do against their stronger league opponents. For my take, Michell is best a second team AA (still an AA). Turner, for all her potential and McGraw hype, has yet to show me an emergence to dominate against a quality top 5 team which is what a 1st team AA should do. Beating up on Wake, Va, GT or NC St is irrelevant to me. For my take, Coates shows more as #4 forward than Turner, Plum shows more as a 2 guard than Mitchell, KLS slots as #3 forward, and probably Allen as the point guard. Center is too open for me with a cluster of them waiting for one to emerge. Wilson has the most potential but in watching 3 of her games this year, she has not been stellar.

 

[CocoHusky]

In The kid from Florida State whose name I can't recall definitely did, however.

Brittany Brown.

 

[wallman]

The comparison is not relevant. From my vantage point, you were trying to stop Mitchell and they were focusing on KLS, who can burry teams in a hurry i.e. tOSU and KSU just recently. You cannot compare a player who gets open lay ups due to who she is playing with, to a player like Mitchell who is tOSUs main player. You have 2 vital players on your team KLS who gets a lot of the defensive attention and opens up the floor for your offense and Williams who provides passes to get those open lay ups as she is the better decision maker of your 2 paint players.

 

[CocoHusky]

. For my take, Coates shows more as #4 forward than Turner, Plum shows more as a 2 guard than Mitchell, KLS slots as #3 forward, and probably Allen as the point guard. Center is too open for me with a cluster of them waiting for one to emerge. Wilson has the most potential but in watching 3 of her games this year, she has not been stellar.

Way to early to lock in AA, however, at G position Rebecca Greenwell at Duke and Alexis Jones of Baylor should be at the top of everyone list right now.

 

[CajunHusky]

Jordin Canada, Kelsey Plum, Leticia Romero, Sydney Wiese

 

[housekeys]

Geno doesn't make his players do anything. He presents a vision (almost cerainly before they even arrive in Storrs) of what can be achieved if they perform as he directs. They, then, choose to commit (or not -- not offered) to that vision and work (or not -- don't play/transfer) toward that performance. The program is the evidence of those visions, directions, commitments, and effort.

Fine. My point is that some people confuse the sacrifice UConn players choose to make, as lack of talent.

I think we can all agree, that what we are seeing, is the huge increase in WCBB talent in recent years. There are a lot of great young players out there, making it very hard to choose the best. It will get even harder in the future.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

Let me repeat, Kelsey Mitchell is a very, very talented player. She is a tremendous scorer who has already scored 2,057 points, just 13 games into her Junior season. My opinion is that the rest of her game is below All American level and the UConn game, both this season and last, illustrates that. I'm giving an opinion, not denigrating Kelsey Mitchell. Consider:

1. Mitchell has taken 1,530 shots in her 82 game career. MoJeff took 1,106 in four years. At her current pace, Mitchell will take more shots in three years than Stewie took in four. I get it, her job is to score and she shoots 43.5% from the field for her career.

Mitchell is a great shooter and scores tons of points. In my opinion, her totals in assists, turnovers, steals, rebounds and fouls keeps her off my All American team.

In her first two seasons, did Mitchell have anyone in the same category of Breanna Stewart or Morgan Tuck playing next to her? What about Kia Nurse? She had Ameryst Alston, who was ranked 45th as a recruit but made the All Big Ten team three times (and who was a good player, but not good enough to be a first round WNBA pick or even make a WNBA roster).

That was it...literally. Mitchell averaged over 37 minutes per game as a freshman because Ohio State only had six available players for every game. She averaged 36.6 minutes as a sophomore because Ohio State only had seven available players for over 30 games that year (the team played 24).When examining things like fouls, for example, you note that she led her team in fouls...but she was also playing a ton of minutes per game her first two years and without a lot of talent around her. And while she fouled out three times her freshman year, she never fouled out of a game last year.

Listen, she is a scorer, first and foremost. And I agree with you that she needs to tighten up that handle.

But to merely use statistics without context is, in my opinion, very misleading and does a disservice to her. Mitchell did not have MoJeff/Stewart/Tuck as teammates, much less having multiple such talented players. Not only did her teams (as a freshman and sophomore) not have anywhere near the talent of UConn, she did not have very deep teams, meaning she had to do everything - and without the luxury of rest. And she led her team to the Sweet 16 last year.

Now, is she an All-American this year? It remains to be seen. There a lot of guards playing at high level. But she is putting up very big scoring numbers (over 22 ppg, 45.5 percent from the floor, 36.5 percent from three, 81 percent from the line) against a schedule that included several highly ranked teams.

Personally, I do not have her on my First Team AA at this point. Right now, I would have her on my Third Team.

 

[Charliebball]

In judging All-America worthiness, performance against the best teams should count more than gaudy numbers posted against the cupcakes on the schedule. In this vein, neither Davis, Turner nor Mitchell showed me AA chops. The kid from Florida State whose name I can't recall definitely did, however.

That's how they do it in determining the winner of the Heisman Trophy in football...........what separates the really good from the great player is how they perform against the best competition.............that's against all of the tough competition during the season, not just in one game...............

 

[DefenseBB]

People who put down K. Mitchell and K.Plum talents are confused between talent and the system they are in. Put Pheesa on tOSU team and K.Mitchell on UConn team and the picture may look very different for those 2 players.

The great aspect of the Boneyard is the depth of knowledge of those who post, so I am optimistic to hear others recollections on this: my memory of the Kelsey Mitchell recruiting was her father was hired as an assistant coach for McGruff and was the rather large gentlemen sitting next to McGruff on the bench. The articles I had read indicated to me she was always a scorer so the pass first mentality was never ingrained. So whether she was recruited by UConn is doubtful to me. That said, Geno did make positive comments about Kelsey at halftime so he respects her abilities. From a "system" perspective, you can't convince me anyone has a system, not even UConn, they might have a process, that allows for utilizing strengths better, which is what Geno does do better than anyone.

 

[Papa33]

View attachment 17822

Despite being know for friendly fluff pieces, I'm taking a stand against calling players who do little else than score tons of points, All Americans. Ohio State's Kelsey Mitchell is one of those talented players who dominates the headlines by scoring, and scoring and scoring. Yes, she single handedly kept Ohio State close against UConn by pouring in 19 first half points. Three of those points came on a near half court bomb as time ran out in the half. She has talent, no doubt. But, how about the 3rd and 4th periods?

Mitchell ended up scoring 4 points the rest of the game, bringing her total to 23. She took 24 shots and made 9. That is 37.5%. Here is a list of UConn players that shot better than that last night.

1. Gabby went 3-5 or 60%
2. Napheesa went 9-19 or 47.4%
3. Katie Lou went 8-21 or 38.1%
4. Crystal went 3-5 or 60%
5. Kia went 4-11 or 36.4% which was almost equal to Michell.

Consider the issue about the value of a player's time on the court, even just the narrow matter of points put on the scoreboard, from the point of view of synergy:

Mitchell played 38 minutes, some of them with dazzling showmanship. She puts up 24 shots for 23 points. Add to that, 1 assist for another 2 or 3 points: total of 25 or 26 points for her production.

From the UConn side, Gabby Williams, while playing 34 minutes, launches 5 shots resulting in a modest 7 points for her team. Ah, but she also adds 7 assists, playing a crucial role in 14 to 21 points. Ignoring her other contributions (steals, rebounds) how much does she contribute to her team's production per possession when the ball is in her hands?

Individual effort is often just that-- solitary and isolated from a team's synergy, which UConn creates and cultivates in quantity. Our women set screens, roll, cut, post-up, dribble less, look for each other more, expect to receive passes when open. That's synergy, the power of many. Someone on the Boneyard said that every team can re-create what our team does on offense. Perhaps, but it ain't easy-- takes basketball intelligence and court vision, energy, timing, coordination of many parts-- but it's exactly what the coaching staff insists on.

Of course, little from that list seems to weigh heavily in All-American voting. It's much easier to do the simple math of computing points per game. But for the hoops Uconnoisseur, it's beautiful to watch.

 

[j66kicker]

Geno did make positive comments about Kelsey at halftime so he respects her abilities. From a "system" perspective, you can't convince me anyone has a system, not even UConn, they might have a process, that allows for utilizing strengths better, which is what Geno does do better than anyone.

Yeah, he said, "There's no shot she won't take." Heh heh

 

[UcMiami]

Let me repeat, Kelsey Mitchell is a very, very talented player. She is a tremendous scorer who has already scored 2,057 points, just 13 games into her Junior season. My opinion is that the rest of her game is below All American level and the UConn game, both this season and last, illustrates that. I'm giving an opinion, not denigrating Kelsey Mitchell. Consider:

1. Mitchell has taken 1,530 shots in her 82 game career. MoJeff took 1,106 in four years. At her current pace, Mitchell will take more shots in three years than Stewie took in four. I get it, her job is to score and she shoots 43.5% from the field for her career.
2. For her career, Mitchell has 305 assists and 288 turnovers. That is a pedestrian 1.05 assist to turnover ratio. She is almost as likely to turn the ball over as get it to a shooter who then makes the shot. Yes, some brilliant passes do not turn into assists because the shooter misses.
3. Mitchell is currently 8th on her team in rebounding. She has 1 blocked shot in 13 games. So, rebounding and shot blocking are not her specialty. That makes sense as she is reported to be 5'8".
4. Mitchell has led her team in personal fouls every season. Her 238 fouls average out to 2.9 fouls per game. Sometimes, her tendency to foul keeps her on the bench in foul trouble.
5. Kelsey has 22 steals in 13 games this season. That leads her team. Napheesa has 21 in 10 games for UConn and Gabby has 27.
6. Her 39 turnovers this season would rank #1 on UConn. In fairness, Gabby has 30 in 10 games, which is the same 3 per game as Mitchell.

Mitchell is a great shooter and scores tons of points. In my opinion, her totals in assists, turnovers, steals, rebounds and fouls keeps her off my All American team. My opinion and 50 cents will get you a hot coffee at McDonald's.

I posted in another thread, but will repeat here - the number of shots is not really a valid point - it is the efficiency of scoring. Uconn is generally a very efficient scoring team, and MoJet was one of the most efficient scorers from the back court that uconn or any other team has seen - last year she scored 1.40 points per shot, and combine that with an A/TO ratio of 2.83 she blows away DT, Sue, and any other guard in Uconn history.
Mitchell is no slouch from the wing/guard position - she scored 1.42 points per shot last year which is very good - her A/TO was 1.07, not that great but not below the mendoza line. And her points per shot compares to a team that scores 1.29 points per shot, so OSU is better off when she shoots than when most of the rest of the team shoots (Subtract Kelsey out of the team number and it drops to 1.25)

 

[CajunHusky]

The great aspect of the Boneyard is the depth of knowledge of those who post, so I am optimistic to hear others recollections on this: my memory of the Kelsey Mitchell recruiting was her father was hired as an assistant coach for McGruff and was the rather large gentlemen sitting next to McGruff on the bench.

Mark Mitchell joined OSU the year before Kelsey was a freshman.

His Bio states: Mitchell, who has more than 20 years of coaching experience at the top high school and AAU levels, came to Ohio State after spending the previous 11 years as the boys varsity head coach at Taft High School in Cincinnati, where he amassed a record of 221-50 (.815). Mitchell resurrected the Senator program instantly in his first year, going 22-3 and winning the city championship after inheriting a program coming off 10 consecutive losing seasons. During his tenure at Taft, the Senators won eight Cincinnati Metro Athletic Conference titles, nine sectional and four district titles and a Division III state championship in 2011. For his efforts, he was voted CMAC coach of the year eight times and the Cincinnati Enquirer coach of the year five times.

Prior to his appointment at Taft, Mitchell served as an assistant coach at Winton Woods High School from 2001-03 where he helped the Warriors to a Division I state runner-up finish in 2002. He also was an assistant coach on the All-Ohio Girls basketball team from 2011-13.

Some people may remember Pete Maravich's father, Press Maravich was hired as LSU head coach about the time Pete was looking for a college.
[Wikipedia] Maravich was head coach of the Tigers of Clemson University from 1956 to 1962. He then went to North Carolina State University to be an assistant coach under Everett Case. Maravich took over the head coaching duties when health problems, primarily cancer, forced Case to retire early in the 1964–1965 season. Maravich led the Wolfpack to the Atlantic Coast Conference title that season. Maravich left for Louisiana State University in April 1966 where he coached his son, Pete Maravich. Upon offering the LSU scholarship to "Pistol", "Press" told his boy that "If you don't sign this ... don't ever come into my house again."{Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich}. Pete, originally wanted to go to the West Virginia University but finally agreed to go to LSU if his dad bought him a car. (Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich.) In spite of coaching his prolific son for half of his coaching career at LSU, Maravich had an overall losing record at the school. Maravich was replaced at LSU by Dale Brown in 1972.

 

[trb123]

View attachment 17822

Despite being know for friendly fluff pieces, I'm taking a stand against calling players who do little else than score tons of points, All Americans. Ohio State's Kelsey Mitchell is one of those talented players who dominates the headlines by scoring, and scoring and scoring. Yes, she single handedly kept Ohio State close against UConn by pouring in 19 first half points. Three of those points came on a near half court bomb as time ran out in the half. She has talent, no doubt. But, how about the 3rd and 4th periods?

Mitchell ended up scoring 4 points the rest of the game, bringing her total to 23. She took 24 shots and made 9. That is 37.5%. Here is a list of UConn players that shot better than that last night.

1. Gabby went 3-5 or 60%
2. Napheesa went 9-19 or 47.4%
3. Katie Lou went 8-21 or 38.1%
4. Crystal went 3-5 or 60%
5. Kia went 4-11 or 36.4% which was almost equal to Michell.

So basically, the WHOLE starting Huskies' line up shot the ball the same or better than Mitchell, in OSU's biggest game of the year.

What else did Kelsey do to beat UConn? Well, she had 1 assist. That's right, 1 and only 1 assist. She also had 2 rebounds and 3 steals vs 3 turnovers and 3 fouls. I'm sorry, not All American statistics.

What to see a real All American..?? Check out the picture above... Collier had 27 points (on fewer shots), 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 8-9 or 88% from the free throw line, 1 block, 1 steal and only 1 turnover.

Go Pheesa..!!

David's arguments do not convince me that Kelsey Mitchell is not an All American. I will not argue against her not being an All Neapolitan.

 

[BigBird]

And yet McGuff kept her in the game for 38 minutes, which means she's doing what her coach wants of her.

Not exactly. What it means is that he didn't think he had a better option. Big difference.

 

[HopJim]

David's arguments do not convince me that Kelsey Mitchell is not an All American. I will not argue against her not being an All Neapolitan.

Not sure we are giving the respect we would ask for in return. Few on this board, myself included, have seen enough of Mitchell to make an intelligent call on her perspective All Star status. Basing judgements on one game, and in some cases, one half, may not be an informed call. She and Lou carried the scoring for their teams in the first half. Both appeared to run low on energy the second half. I rate Lou's overall performance highly. Make your own call on Mitchell.

 

[Kibitzer]

One tribute to Kelsey was that Geno (HoF coach w/#1 ranked team) respected her offensive skills (first half) so much that he redeployed his team defense (second half) to focus almost solely on slowing her down.

In the first half, Kia drew the assignment of guarding Kelsey one-on-one. It didn't work as Mitchell dropped 19 points.

Second half, Dangerfield harassed Mitchell up close ("Don't let her shoot treys!") and she had four teammates ready to provide rapid "help defense" should Kelsey have a notion to dribble-drive to the hoop. Team effort. It worked. Four points.

My point? She commanded Geno's attention and the focus of the UConn "D." So she must be really good. Really.

 

[PacoSwede]

Everyone can decide for themselves whether Kelsey or any player deserves to be AA.

What the OP complained about is the decision of (at least some) people to favor scorers, and DISCOUNT players who excel in other aspects of the game. I'd bet the vast majority of former AA were known for their scoring. Even though many also had other AA talents -- often cited as reasons for their AA status -- if they didn't also put up the points, they wouldn't even be considered for the honor.

I also dislike the weight of reputation. Once an AA, always an AA, it seems -- even when their current performance may be lacking. Meanwhile, players that post outstanding years have little chance of being AA if they don't get a reputation (sometimes based largely on hype).

 

[jsloanjr]

Mitchell, DD are very selfish players IMHO.. They don't make their teammates better....Plus, they go silent when their team needs them most.. Brianna Turner is in the same boat.......

 

[HuskyNan]

Not exactly. What it means is that he didn't think he had a better option. Big difference.

He didn't tell her to play any differently. In fact this is what McGuff said in the post game presser:

On his star player Kelsey Mitchell:

“She was terrific tonight, really attacking with great balance and creating shots for herself. She stayed within the offense and got other people involved. I thought she was outstanding tonight.”

UCONNHUSKIES.COM :: UConn/Ohio State Quotes :: University of Connecticut Huskies Official Athletic Site :: Women's Basketball

 

[BigBird]

He didn't tell her to play any differently. In fact this is what McGuff said in the post game presser:

On his star player Kelsey Mitchell:

“She was terrific tonight, really attacking with great balance and creating shots for herself. She stayed within the offense and got other people involved. I thought she was outstanding tonight.”

UCONNHUSKIES.COM :: UConn/Ohio State Quotes :: University of Connecticut Huskies Official Athletic Site :: Women's Basketball

All I can say is that McGuff's version differs greatly from what many of us thought we witnessed on the court. But that's OK. Besides, I (sort of) picked OSU to get the W, so what do I know?

 

[BigBird]

Everyone can decide for themselves whether Kelsey or any player deserves to be AA.

What the OP complained about is the decision of (at least some) people to favor scorers, and DISCOUNT players who excel in other aspects of the game. I'd bet the vast majority of former AA were known for their scoring. Even though many also had other AA talents -- often cited as reasons for their AA status -- if they didn't also put up the points, they wouldn't even be considered for the honor.

I also dislike the weight of reputation. Once an AA, always an AA, it seems -- even when their current performance may be lacking. Meanwhile, players that post outstanding years have little chance of being AA if they don't get a reputation (sometimes based largely on hype).

Spot on. Much of what you detail is a function of mass media "partnerships" with sport sanctioning bodies. There is a strong gravitational pull for media (especially TV) to market or advance those teams and players that sell best with the mass audience.

 

[UcMiami]

Everyone can decide for themselves whether Kelsey or any player deserves to be AA.

What the OP complained about is the decision of (at least some) people to favor scorers, and DISCOUNT players who excel in other aspects of the game. I'd bet the vast majority of former AA were known for their scoring. Even though many also had other AA talents -- often cited as reasons for their AA status -- if they didn't also put up the points, they wouldn't even be considered for the honor.

I also dislike the weight of reputation. Once an AA, always an AA, it seems -- even when their current performance may be lacking. Meanwhile, players that post outstanding years have little chance of being AA if they don't get a reputation (sometimes based largely on hype).

Listen - we have a very Uconn centric point of view, but even given that uconn centric point of view, the list of AAs from Uconn teams that came miles from being in the top 25 of WCBB scoring ranks is long and varied - Last year Moriah Jefferson and Morgan Tuck were neither anywhere on anyone's list of top scores, KML, Bria, Stef, etc. etc. so I don't think we have a lot to complain about.

Ohio State, Baylor, Washington State, and many other schools run a very different offensive system that rides a single player or a occasionally two players to score a large portion of their points - Uconn has done that some years - Stewart and Maya being the prime examples recently, but their best teams have more balanced scoring.

Just because Kelsey is depended on to score 30% of her teams points doesn't mean that she is a bad player or a selfish one. Same with Kelsey Plum, or Odyssey Sims or _____ - they are doing what their coach and their team needs them to do and they are doing it very well.

 

[HoopsFan21]

They just mentioned on the half time of our Nebraska game that Kelsey is the fastest player to 2,000 points in the history of men's or women's college basketball.