Nice video. Very informative. One thing I found… perplexing … that’s the word…was the closing remarks about how Paige has to solve something and that winning an NC is like that. There’s something to this, and it may also be simply how a coach has to frame things for his star. But from a fan’s perspective this seems inaccurate. The NCs she didn’t win — she had three shots at it — It really seemed to me that the team she was tasked with carrying over the finish line let her down (either through injury or illness or just plain succumbing to pressure) rather than that she left something undone.
A couple examples: in her freshman year they lost to Arkansas early on, their only loss before the tournament, she really did take over too late, especially given the incredible shooting tear Chelsea Dungee was on. But the loss to Arizona was absolutely not her fault. The entire Arizona defense keyed on her and the rest of the offense sputtered.
Sophomore year, she comes back from a devastating injury to carry a team with 4 seniors around her, all of whom would be drafted into the W, and yet they’re still waiting on her to pull their coals out of the fire. Fair enough, she’s that great. She’s practically held together by duct tape and she’s still the only reason they even make it past the Elite Eight game. And when they get to the NC, Dorka is gone, Liv and Azzi have the flu, Caroline is gimpy from a hip problem that will require surgery shortly and it all comes down to Paige.
In justice, those were not problems for Paige to solve, and I doubt Christyn or Olivia or Evina think of them like that. She did everything she could under those conditions. But what about last season? She carried another thin patchwork team past USC and Juju — remember the free throw debacle? — only to not get a chance at a winning shot in the closing seconds against Iowa. That’s also not her problem to solve. But maybe she could be faulted for a poor shooting night, for letting a team of freshman feel too much of the pressure. That’s as close as I can come to seeing any of these as problems Paige didn’t solve.
But this is all from a fan’s perspective, and it may not be the best way for Geno to let Paige think about it. After all, Diana carried uneven teams to NCs, as did Maya. Maybe it’s just necessary for Paige to think of herself as the primary responsible player, to look at all the prior shortfalls as problems she didn’t solve, in order to join their company on Mt. Storrsmore. But this fan can’t help thinking it’s unfair.
