I disagree. There are two truly dominant players in WCBB right now, and Loyd is one of them. 47% is a very good shooting percentage for a player that is taking about 20 shots per 40 minutes (for comparison, Jefferson is taking about 12). And let's be clear, Loyd shouldering the scoring load is not the same as her selfishly jacking up shots. She's doing what her team needs.
I think that I have a higher opinion of Jefferson than most; I think she's unequivocally one of the top ten players in the country and the top point guard in the the country; I argued heavily that she should be an AA last year, and I think she's the best point guard not named Sue Bird to play for UConn. But she's not a NPOY candidate yet, and Loyd (despite having, IMHO, a less compelling claim than Stewart) is.
I just don't get all the excuses that are made for non-UConn players. For Choke, sure, he needs to obscure all of the inconvenient stuff for Loyd to push her cause as any good stat-savvy Irish fan should do, but I just don't get why UConn fans buy into the cheap 5-and-dime-store logic.
Sure, we know that UConn players do well together and buy into a system that makes them pass the ball to each other and take good shots, but why should they be penalized in the player evaluation exercises for working hard to excel in this system? Couple of questions:
Why is 47% considered a "very good shooting percentage"??? Just because she takes "a lot of shots?" First, Loyd doesn't take a lot of shots. As Choke pointed out, 15 a game is not a lot when compared to many other players, many of whom are guards. Second, it is not a very good shooting percentage, simply okay, and for a player who is supposed to be one of the top 3 in the nation, okay is not okay. Even a guard like TMitchell shoots way, better. And if you are a good shooter, shooting the ball more shouldn't be a bad thing anyway. Yes, you can be like Choke and cobble together a lot of somewhat lame excuses and "relative factors" as to why 47% is a "very good shooting percentage," but it in the end a wise fan will look behind the smoke and mirrors used to push an awards campaign.
Would we have called it "great" or "very good" if one of UConn's superstars like Maya Moore, Shea Ralph, Svetlana Abrosimova or Nykesha Sales shot 47%? No, of course not. They all shot at least 50% and usually much higher even with 3s being a healthy proportion of their shots. One of if not the greatest basketball players ever -- named Diana Taurasi -- did shoot 47% for her career, but there's a giant difference from Loyd. More than half of DT's shots were from behind the arc (at a 39.2% average), and her shots from inside the arc went down at a 55% rate. Loyd is shooting less than 1/5 of her shots from the arc, so she's at 46.6% overall and 49.6% from inside the arc. That just doesn't speak to me of greatness. Okayness, maybe even goodness, but not greatness.
But isn't poor Jewell the focal point of her team, the one who has to constantly throw up shots as the clock expires, and the target of the other team's vise-like defensive grip? This is the most cracked up part of the crock. Suddenly Notre Dame has gone from being the #2 team in the nation with a well-balanced squad filled with AA-types like Turner-Allen-Reimer-Westbeld who just won the regular season and tournament titles in WCBB's toughest conference, to a one-player team that constantly stunbles around so badly on offense that poor valiant Jewell has to always be throwing up desperation heaves as time winds down.
Give me a frickin' break. Doesn't very top player on a team get a lot of attention? Stewie is getting tackled by middle linebackers and cornerbacks out there, and it's accepted that she will have to pass the ball to a teammate some times, or much of the time. I haven't heard such hogwash since the Duke fans came over here to claim Alana Beard should win the NPOY awards because of her perfection of the "dive into a defender and chuck" strategy allowed her to establish permanent residency on the FT line. And yes there is a guard on the Irish that scores more than a quarter of her points from the line, but of course you have to say she's taking what the refs give her.
I can't wait for the next pack of excuses to be delivered. Maybe"she was partying too hard on St. Patty's day" or "one of her teammates went into a funk and it made the team go all kablooey."
