JoePgh
Cranky pants and wise acre
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2011
- Messages
- 3,730
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- 21,823
The best line in tonight's box score (before I have even seen it) will be Olivia's 8-for-10 shooting performance. Most of those were jump shots from 18 feet or more. This is a big deal!
The conventional BY wisdom about Liv is that she is, by UConn standards, a mediocre post player: not strong enough to bang in the paint, not a good enough shooter to play away from the basket, and foul-prone. There is (or more likely was) enough truth in some of these criticisms to make them superficially plausible. But really, she has not been physically weaker than her top level competition since her freshman year. She has been foul prone, but that seems to be less of a problem this year. But her jump shot has been a genuine problem -- until the last few games.
In all the postgame commentary on the Creighton game, no one (to my observation) noted that Liv made her only two jump shots from distance in that game. Tonight, I think she only missed one jump shot, and she was shooting them from 18 feet all the way to the 3-point line. Two games don't make a trend, but if she continues to make those shots (even if it's only at a 45 to 50 percent rate), I will look forward to seeing other teams play off her and dare her to take the midrange shot -- and then abandon that strategy when they find it is suicidal.
She has definitely improved her passing skills and her command of the offense during her time in Storrs, and now she is a really good passer from the high post -- as she showed again tonight. If she had played at this level since her sophomore year, we would be comparing her to Stef Dolson, and her stats might look similar. But better late than never.
Her defense, rebounding, and shot blocking have all been exemplary since the 2020-21 season, and that continues to be the case this year.
If she plays the rest of the year at the level that she has shown in calendar year 2022, including against good competition, then I think her WNBA draft status will improve a lot. If that actually happens, I can imagine her being drafted in the middle of the first round.
The conventional BY wisdom about Liv is that she is, by UConn standards, a mediocre post player: not strong enough to bang in the paint, not a good enough shooter to play away from the basket, and foul-prone. There is (or more likely was) enough truth in some of these criticisms to make them superficially plausible. But really, she has not been physically weaker than her top level competition since her freshman year. She has been foul prone, but that seems to be less of a problem this year. But her jump shot has been a genuine problem -- until the last few games.
In all the postgame commentary on the Creighton game, no one (to my observation) noted that Liv made her only two jump shots from distance in that game. Tonight, I think she only missed one jump shot, and she was shooting them from 18 feet all the way to the 3-point line. Two games don't make a trend, but if she continues to make those shots (even if it's only at a 45 to 50 percent rate), I will look forward to seeing other teams play off her and dare her to take the midrange shot -- and then abandon that strategy when they find it is suicidal.
She has definitely improved her passing skills and her command of the offense during her time in Storrs, and now she is a really good passer from the high post -- as she showed again tonight. If she had played at this level since her sophomore year, we would be comparing her to Stef Dolson, and her stats might look similar. But better late than never.
Her defense, rebounding, and shot blocking have all been exemplary since the 2020-21 season, and that continues to be the case this year.
If she plays the rest of the year at the level that she has shown in calendar year 2022, including against good competition, then I think her WNBA draft status will improve a lot. If that actually happens, I can imagine her being drafted in the middle of the first round.
