Paige #2???? [merged thread]

[Skeets]

Good. Thank you, ESPN. Put a huge chip on Paige Buecker's shoulder at your own peril. This gives her one more huge incentive to hang another banner in Gampel.

I agree with PacoSwede. I'm sure Paige cares about hanging a banner, but probably doesn't give a rats behind over who is preseason ranked #1 by ESPN (of all people).

 

[Jumper33]

Fans seem to care a lot about ranking individual players. It’s not just ESPN, YouTube and social media are full of people trying to rank these players.

I would hope players care less about these rankings than fans do. It’s too subjective to take seriously and basketball is still a team sport, no matter how obsessed with individual performance people have become. Just win - that’s all that matters.

 

[TheFarmFan]

All I'll say, having seen both play live, is that Paige may be the best gamer I've ever seen in the college game (I wasn't around to see DT in college), but Juju is truly otherworldly, physically. I hate, hate, hate these kinds of comparisons, but she moves more like a top men's basketball player than any woman I've ever seen, at any level of the sport. It's otherworldly. I don't know how that shakes out in terms of who should be number one, but honestly, it's remarkable we'll get to watch both play in the same season, because they are both the quintessential definition of "generational" players.

 

[Bone Dog]

 

[hoophuskee]

Fans seem to care a lot about ranking individual players. It’s not just ESPN, YouTube and social media are full of people trying to rank these players.

I would hope players care less about these rankings than fans do. It’s too subjective to take seriously and basketball is still a team sport, no matter how obsessed with individual performance people have become. Just win - that’s all that matters.

To a degree imo they do care. Why wouldn't they? They want to be recognized. They're human and very competitive to get where they have gotten. I can recall Geno once saying how Paige would come up to him and tell him, "You owe me minutes," in her frosh year. Her soph yea when she came back so quickly she had a reply, "I'm different." These are ego things. I can't imagine how with all the time Paige puts in the work to achieve the success she has had that she is okay with settling that she is not the best. And looking at it from a UCONN perspective, that 11th player might not get on The Wall. While the degree they care matters more for team, but individually who wouldn't want to be recognized in that manner? They've achieved their individual success by being very competitive. If they didn't have this competitive fire to be at a certain level then they probably wouldn't get recruited by schools such as UCONN an SoCar etc. I can't imagine Geno and Paige not accepting that Paige shouldn't be "the best."

 

[itsasport]

I would like to see a poll of college women's basketball coaches as to who they would rather have on their team this year.

Also, if you want to project for potential, I would rather have Sarah than Juju by the end year.

 

[GoChips20]

As a team and Final Four threat/title contender they should be taken seriously even if their OOC schedule is garbage. If Smith comes back healthy they match up well with anyone in the country and have one of the most athletic teams.

IMO LSU is likely to be even better without Van Lith and Reese. Hailey Van Lith brought nothing their three transfer guards don’t and while Reese was a force inside, she was paint-bound and now the lane should be more open for Flau’jae/Williams/Morrow to operate. I thought LSU should have played through that trio more often than they did last year.

I don’t like Kim’s philosophy of only scheduling cupcakes so her team can build chemistry, but it’s worked to the tune of four titles so I agree no one should be counting them out.

 

[Stagnant]

Sarah over Juju by the end of the year? Stop.

 

[Alydar]

Sarah over Juju by the end of the year? Stop.

Wasn't JuJu in Strong's position this time last year? It's not often a coach gets a powerful rebounder who is also an outstanding 3pt shooter, a level JuJu hasn't achieved yet. Strong has some elite-level skills.
That's not saying Strong will do all that but it's not as outlandish a prediction as you seem to think.

 

[Bone Dog]

Wasn't JuJu in Strong's position this time last year? It's not often a coach gets a powerful rebounder who is also an outstanding 3pt shooter, a level JuJu hasn't achieved yet. Strong has some elite-level skills.
That's not saying Strong will do all that but it's not as outlandish a prediction as you seem to think.

I think it’s not outlandish at all. Maybe she won’t outshine Juju, maybe she will. Time will tell. And given the nature of Geno’s offense and the number of scorers, Sarah’s not likely to score as much as Juju who plays in a scheme designed to feature her as much as possible. But she might well outclass her within the limits Geno makes possible.

Sarah looked as dominant a player in high school as Juju did. We’ll have to see how well that translates to D1 competition.

 

[Stagnant]

There is no outclassing Juju. Paige, Caitlin, and Juju are pretty special and are in a league of their own. You just can't forecast people at their level when you haven't seen them play a single collegiate game.

 

[Cuango]

ESPN! What a biased joke they are!
It is truly inconceivable to me that they actually think/believe Paige is not the best player going into this season! She imo, is clearly number one! She is a senior who has led her grossly undermanned team to the Final Four every season she’s been healthy, she is among, (if not the most), efficient player/s in the game, she does everything well both on and off the basketball court! She is an experienced, demonstrated leader who has repeatedly shown, not just an ability, but a liking for the big moments and, she, in their only head to head meeting, clearly outplayed ESPN’s choice at #1; JuJu Watkins! Now, I have great respect for JuJu’s game and I readily concede she is arguably #2. I suppose it’s even possible that she (JuJu) could conceivably pass Paige over the course of the season and become the number one player in the country! Not likely, but possible! Right now, however, there is simply no way one could rank Paige behind any current player in the women’s collegiate game! ESPN however, found a way!

 

[NycUcWbbFan]

This ranking strikes me as an unserious (hate-trolling?, click-bait?) one with its headline result.

Clearly, Paige and Juju are the top two returning players from last season. However, in my opinion, Paige is still better than Juju based decisively #1 on their pivotal only head-to-head matchup:

• Paige is more efficient (Table 1a: EFFiciency) than Juju; PIE, a cousin of EFFiciency, shows Paige is the best player on the more efficient winning team (Table 1a: PIE);
• Paige has better cohort composite statistics than Juju (Table 1b);
• Juju’s 29 points came mostly from isolation (11 points), dribbling to a spot and taking a shot (including drives) (15 points); Juju does not have a catch-and-shoot FGA; on other structured plays (pick-and-roll, multiple screens, pass-and-cut, etc.), Juju only had 3 points; (Table 4G);
• [Unstructured dribbling-to-a-spot / basic offense shots are typical of USC players, particularly Forbes and Marshall];
• Paige’s 28 points were distributed apropos of a player with a mature versatile and efficient game: catch-and-shoot (6 points), structured plays (9 points), drives (7 points), isolation (2 points), dribbling to a spot (4 points); (Table 4G);
• With a 1-point lead in the fourth with 4:17 minutes left, Paige scored 7 points (which Juju couldn’t match) in the decisive 11-3 late run;
• One of Juju’s go-to moves is the drive-to-a-defender and flail shot — whether or not it was a make-able shot; Juju has above-average free throws (9 in made free throws in this game) in this major part of her offense;
• Paige’s offense does not include Juju’s go-to move because she consistently looks for the best open shot for herself and her team — Geno wants Paige to relax her exacting offensive standards;
• At bottom, the ranking compares incoming fifth-year, former NPOY and exceptional Paige vs a less-seasoned exceptional player Juju. Paige is the better exceptional player at this point in time, imo.

#1 Pre-head-to-head, Juju’s gravitas (freshman reviving a USC program reaching the Elite Eight) matched Paige’s gravitas (post-injury out-of-position play in an injury-depleted 7-player roster with 4 effective freshmen making the Final Four). Head-to-head end-of-season performance is the most reachable tangible way of comparing the two players.

 

[visitingcock]

ESPN! What a biased joke they are!
It is truly inconceivable to me that they actually think/believe Paige is not the best player going into this season! She imo, is clearly number one! She is a senior who has led her grossly undermanned team to the Final Four every season she’s been healthy, she is among, (if not the most), efficient player/s in the game, she does everything well both on and off the basketball court! She is an experienced, demonstrated leader who has repeatedly shown, not just an ability, but a liking for the big moments and, she, in their only head to head meeting, clearly outplayed ESPN’s choice at #1; JuJu Watkins! Now, I have great respect for JuJu’s game and I readily concede she is arguably #2. I suppose it’s even possible that she (JuJu) could conceivably pass Paige over the course of the season and become the number one player in the country! Not likely, but possible! Right now, however, there is simply no way one could rank Paige behind any current player in the women’s collegiate game! ESPN however, found a way!

So, how much have you helped espn increase their click count?

 

[Bone Dog]

This ranking strikes me as an unserious (hate-trolling?, click-bait?) one with its headline result.

Clearly, Paige and Juju are the top two returning players from last season. However, in my opinion, Paige is still better than Juju based decisively #1 on their pivotal only head-to-head matchup:

• Paige is more efficient (Table 1a: EFFiciency) than Juju; PIE, a cousin of EFFiciency, shows Paige is the best player on the more efficient winning team (Table 1a: PIE);
• Paige has better cohort composite statistics than Juju (Table 1b);
• Juju’s 29 points came mostly from isolation (11 points), dribbling to a spot and taking a shot (including drives) (15 points); Juju does not have a catch-and-shoot FGA; on other structured plays (pick-and-roll, multiple screens, pass-and-cut, etc.), Juju only had 3 points; (Table 4G);
• [Unstructured dribbling-to-a-spot / basic offense shots are typical of USC players, particularly Forbes and Marshall];
• Paige’s 28 points were distributed apropos of a player with a mature versatile and efficient game: catch-and-shoot (6 points), structured plays (9 points), drives (7 points), isolation (2 points), dribbling to a spot (4 points); (Table 4G);
• With a 1-point lead in the fourth with 4:17 minutes left, Paige scored 7 points (which Juju couldn’t match) in the decisive 11-3 late run;
• One of Juju’s go-to moves is the drive-to-a-defender and flail shot — whether or not it was a make-able shot; Juju has above-average free throws (9 in made free throws in this game) in this major part of her offense;
• Paige’s offense does not include Juju’s go-to move because she consistently looks for the best open shot for herself and her team — Geno wants Paige to relax her exacting offensive standards;
• At bottom, the ranking compares incoming fifth-year, former NPOY and exceptional Paige vs a less-seasoned exceptional player Juju. Paige is the better exceptional player at this point in time, imo.

#1 Pre-head-to-head, Juju’s gravitas (freshman reviving a USC program reaching the Elite Eight) matched Paige’s gravitas (post-injury out-of-position play in an injury-depleted 7-player roster with 4 effective freshmen making the Final Four). Head-to-head end-of-season performance is the most reachable tangible way of comparing the two players.

View attachment 104544 View attachment 104545

That’s a heckuva lot of stats. My head’s still spinning.

I wonder how much of the difference you’ve highlighted comes from Coach Gottlieb’s inexperience or her choices. She took over a floundering program and seems to have successfully rebuilt it through effective recruitment. USC is now considered a title contender. But she did it by building a game plan around her major recruit. This makes sense in the abstract. But it seems to have entailed relying more on what Juju brought to the program than on developing the areas where her 18 year old self was weak.

I don’t blame Coach Gottlieb for this. She may not have had a lot of better choices. But it is also easier to recruit kids if you can assure them they are already stars rather than telling them they have a lot to learn. Geno talks about this often, how it’s easy to find kids who already know how to score, but a lot harder to find ones who are willing to learn what they aren’t already great at. This typically involves learning to play team defense. In interviews after she announced her commitment, Sarah remarked that Geno and CD told her what she still needed to learn. This is apparently what sold her on UConn. I have a feeling Coach Gottlieb did not approach Juju in the same way.

In Coach Gottlieb’s defense, I saw a report that Juju had a procedure to address an injury to her right hand and has spent the summer working on using her left hand and going to her left. This was part of the scout on her, that she mainly likes to go to her right. We may see a new and improved Juju this season. And perhaps this indicates a new phase in Gottlieb’s efforts to build USC into a perennial contender. It also leaves me wondering if her pitch to new recruits has evolved in the meantime.

Paige was a significant talent in high school and, like so many before her, she chose the harder path, to come to Storrs and develop herself. She chose to be part of something bigger than herself and, as a result, she became the bulwark of a great program, not just a star on an uneven team. Sarah made a similar choice, as did Azzi. They focused on what they could become and how they could contribute rather than on what they already were.

I don’t really know what Gottlieb offered or what Juju wanted. The pitch may have been something like “help me build a program.” Or it may have been “Let me build a team around you.” I suspect it was more the latter than what Geno seems to say: “You have so much to learn.”

Is Paige a better player than Juju? In the abstract, maybe not. But in context she definitely is. She’s a better defender and passer, and a more versatile scorer, and even appears to be better in the clutch. She’s all those things on a team that demands more things from her. Could Sarah become the better player, too, even better than Juju? The same answer might well apply. She is already a great talent. On the other hand, Juju is also a great talent and it’s wise not to underestimate such people.

 

[yhun89]

That’s a heckuva lot of stats. My head’s still spinning.

I wonder how much of the difference you’ve highlighted comes from Coach Gottlieb’s inexperience or her choices. She took over a floundering program and seems to have successfully rebuilt it through effective recruitment. USC is now considered a title contender. But she did it by building a game plan around her major recruit. This makes sense in the abstract. But it seems to have entailed relying more on what Juju brought to the program than on developing the areas where her 18 year old self was weak.

I don’t blame Coach Gottlieb for this. She may not have had a lot of better choices. But it is also easier to recruit kids if you can assure them they are already stars rather than telling them they have a lot to learn. Geno talks about this often, how it’s easy to find kids who already know how to score, but a lot harder to find ones who are willing to learn what they aren’t already great at. This typically involves learning to play team defense. In interviews after she announced her commitment, Sarah remarked that Geno and CD told her what she still needed to learn. This is apparently what sold her on UConn. I have a feeling Coach Gottlieb did not approach Juju in the same way.

Gottlieb has a loaded roster this year, and Juju's stats are bound to drop with the additions of Iriafen and TVO, and the freshman notably Smith and Heckel.

My concern for her is she'll go down the Cori route: have too much talent, not know what to do with it due to inexperience, and crumble come March.

As per your post, the game plan was 'give the ball to Juju", yes. Now that there's more talent, we could see a non-Juju centric team have a lot of trouble finding its footing. USC was one of the lowest T25 teams in terms of AST, I don't think more than a single player averaged above 2 a game. This is a team that will be learning team ball, not "give it to Juju and hope things happen" especially because the other main scoring threats, Forbes and Padilla, are gone.

 

[Urshurak]

Does it really matter? Not to me. ESPN articles aren’t worth much more than the space written on. Means nothing.

 

[Next 12]

I am a die hard HUSKIE fan and don't have the vast BB knowledge and statistics that so many posters have. My posts are what I feel about the team and the players. My thoughts on who is No.1 is what they had to go through in last years season to be considered the No.1 question. Their was NO team that had to go 90% of the season with only 7 active players and almost make it to the big dance. Paige was the steel backbone of Uconn the whole season. She won more games than JUJU and JUJU lost more games than Paige.( Just speaking W and L) Paige played with 4 Freshman and guided them to a 35-6 record. Paige is and will always be No. in my opinion. All the statistics posted above proved that and more. She will make 24-25 her greatest seacon at Uconn and I finally get my NO.12. GO PAIGE!!!! GO SOPHOMORES!!!!! GO FRESHMEN!!!!

 

[NycUcWbbFan]

That’s a heckuva lot of stats. My head’s still spinning.

I wonder how much of the difference you’ve highlighted comes from Coach Gottlieb’s inexperience or her choices. She took over a floundering program and seems to have successfully rebuilt it through effective recruitment. USC is now considered a title contender. But she did it by building a game plan around her major recruit. This makes sense in the abstract. But it seems to have entailed relying more on what Juju brought to the program than on developing the areas where her 18 year old self was weak.

I don’t blame Coach Gottlieb for this. She may not have had a lot of better choices. But it is also easier to recruit kids if you can assure them they are already stars rather than telling them they have a lot to learn. Geno talks about this often, how it’s easy to find kids who already know how to score, but a lot harder to find ones who are willing to learn what they aren’t already great at. This typically involves learning to play team defense. In interviews after she announced her commitment, Sarah remarked that Geno and CD told her what she still needed to learn. This is apparently what sold her on UConn. I have a feeling Coach Gottlieb did not approach Juju in the same way.

In Coach Gottlieb’s defense, I saw a report that Juju had a procedure to address an injury to her right hand and has spent the summer working on using her left hand and going to her left. This was part of the scout on her, that she mainly likes to go to her right. We may see a new and improved Juju this season. And perhaps this indicates a new phase in Gottlieb’s efforts to build USC into a perennial contender. It also leaves me wondering if her pitch to new recruits has evolved in the meantime.

Paige was a significant talent in high school and, like so many before her, she chose the harder path, to come to Storrs and develop herself. She chose to be part of something bigger than herself and, as a result, she became the bulwark of a great program, not just a star on an uneven team. Sarah made a similar choice, as did Azzi. They focused on what they could become and how they could contribute rather than on what they already were.

I don’t really know what Gottlieb offered or what Juju wanted. The pitch may have been something like “help me build a program.” Or it may have been “Let me build a team around you.” I suspect it was more the latter than what Geno seems to say: “You have so much to learn.”

Is Paige a better player than Juju? In the abstract, maybe not. But in context she definitely is. She’s a better defender and passer, and a more versatile scorer, and even appears to be better in the clutch. She’s all those things on a team that demands more things from her. Could Sarah become the better player, too, even better than Juju? The same answer might well apply. She is already a great talent. On the other hand, Juju is also a great talent and it’s wise not to underestimate such people.

NCAA competition has strict competition rules for the November-March sprint to the NCAA Tournament.

Coloring Juju’s underperformance (relative to Paige) in their head-to-head end-of-season matchup as more due to the coach’s perceived deficiencies in her first year as USC coach — in an exercise to determine who is the better player at that point — is not germane to the exercise.

Having the need to thus color Juju’s underperformance is further proof that Paige is the better exceptional player at that point.

2023-24 USC Roster included 3 transfers: Forbes (Harvard, Senior), Padilla (Penn, Senior) and Davis (Columbia, Senior) who were starters along with Juju (freshman) and Marshall (junior).

So, 3 of the starters are presumably well-versed in structured plays: catch-and-shoot (including dribble-handoff, drive-and-dish), backdoor-cut, pick-and-roll/ pick-and-pop, high-low, multiple screens, OOB play, set play, etc. no matter if the team employs the read-and-react weave to get the defense to move for the opening to the structured play.

Juju only has one successful structured play: on a set-play backdoor cut when UConn first went zone. Most times, Juju and the other players had silo offenses. UConn’s defense may have something to do with that as well as Gottlieb’s inexperience.

Germane to the “best player” comparison: crunch time heroics (when Paige scored 7 points in an 11-3 late run). Juju underperformed in this stretch, and it had nothing to do with Gottlieb.

As to the other stats I used:

• EFFiciency: WBB standard;
• PIE: NBA standard, comparable to PER (which I couldn’t recreate because of proprietary “league” factors);
• Cohort composite statistics: cohort stats while player is on the floor; these are straightforward meaningful stats used in professional basketball; in Table 1b, I recreated these stats directly on play-by-play info (and not by approximations as normally done from Boxscores).

Your last paragraph is spot-on, except, I don’t agree with your “in the abstract” qualifier. Paige can play Juju’s game. She is very crafty that anything Juju can do, she can.

This includes the driving-to-a-defender-personal-foul-fishing that Juju does. But Paige prefers not to. Paige has a repertoire of moves to get open, including step-back-2x, step-sideways-2x, DT-baseline-fadeaway jumper, etc. besides being proficient at structured plays. Juju, in that game, has not shown that she can do what Paige does.

 

[RedStickHusky]

One thing I've learned (edit for accuracy: "an opinion I've reached") over the years is that the vast majority of opinions that are not mine are bad ones. I try not to let them bother me.

 

[yhun89]

2023-24 USC Roster included 3 transfers: Forbes (Harvard, Senior), Padilla (Penn, Senior) and Davis (Columbia, Senior) who were starters along with Juju (freshman) and Marshall (junior).

Unrelated but the Ivy League being so stacked with individual talent like this and all three ended up at USC is kind of ridiculous.

 

[oldude]

Unrelated but the Ivy League being so stacked with individual talent like this and all three ended up at USC is kind of ridiculous.

Back in the spring of 2023, Gottlieb was casting around for players to fill out her lineup which, outside of star freshman Watkins, was not projected to be particularly talented. The Ivy League did not offer a fifth year of eligibility (Covid year). So Gottlieb went hard after 3 smart, experienced graduates, who all earned All-Ivy recognition.

How she got all 3 to come to USC is probably a story in itself. Certainly, Southern California and USC’s campus is a very attractive location to spend a year or so. Looking at her roster, I am certain Gottlieb promised the Ivy 3 lots of PT and probably starting spots. Finally, I have no doubt that Gottlieb had some NIL $$$ to spread around to transfers, both last season as well as the upcoming season.

By the way, one side note. None of the 3 Ivy League players who transferred to USC in 2023 were as good as the Ivy League POY in 2023, Kaitlyn Chen, who was just a junior. Now what ever happened to Chen?

 

[Bone Dog]

NCAA competition has strict competition rules for the November-March sprint to the NCAA Tournament.

Coloring Juju’s underperformance (relative to Paige) in their head-to-head end-of-season matchup as more due to the coach’s perceived deficiencies in her first year as USC coach — in an exercise to determine who is the better player at that point — is not germane to the exercise.

Having the need to thus color Juju’s underperformance is further proof that Paige is the better exceptional player at that point.

2023-24 USC Roster included 3 transfers: Forbes (Harvard, Senior), Padilla (Penn, Senior) and Davis (Columbia, Senior) who were starters along with Juju (freshman) and Marshall (junior).

So, 3 of the starters are presumably well-versed in structured plays: catch-and-shoot (including dribble-handoff, drive-and-dish), backdoor-cut, pick-and-roll/ pick-and-pop, high-low, multiple screens, OOB play, set play, etc. no matter if the team employs the read-and-react weave to get the defense to move for the opening to the structured play.

Juju only has one successful structured play: on a set-play backdoor cut when UConn first went zone. Most times, Juju and the other players had silo offenses. UConn’s defense may have something to do with that as well as Gottlieb’s inexperience.

Germane to the “best player” comparison: crunch time heroics (when Paige scored 7 points in an 11-3 late run). Juju underperformed in this stretch, and it had nothing to do with Gottlieb.

As to the other stats I used:

• EFFiciency: WBB standard;
• PIE: NBA standard, comparable to PER (which I couldn’t recreate because of proprietary “league” factors);
• Cohort composite statistics: cohort stats while player is on the floor; these are straightforward meaningful stats used in professional basketball; in Table 1b, I recreated these stats directly on play-by-play info (and not by approximations as normally done from Boxscores).

Your last paragraph is spot-on, except, I don’t agree with your “in the abstract” qualifier. Paige can play Juju’s game. She is very crafty that anything Juju can do, she can.

This includes the driving-to-a-defender-personal-foul-fishing that Juju does. But Paige prefers not to. Paige has a repertoire of moves to get open, including step-back-2x, step-sideways-2x, DT-baseline-fadeaway jumper, etc. besides being proficient at structured plays. Juju, in that game, has not shown that she can do what Paige does.

Don't worry. I wasn't making excuses for Juju. I was more thinking of the fateful choices kids are faced with and how coaches influence those choices. If my speculation is right -- and it really may not be -- Lindsay recruited Juju with heroic visions of stardom as the go-to player on a team built around her. By contrast, Geno gets kids like Paige and Azzi and Sarah and Stewie and Rebeccah and Sue and Maya by telling them how hard they'll have to work (especially on defense) even to get to make a real contribution. It's just an interesting distinction kids have to draw, and they often get it wrong.

 

[PAHuskeyFan]

I read another article on line in the last few days (can't find it now) that ESPN allegedly says that Reese should have won the ROTY in the WNBA this year...and NOT Caitlin Clark... Other than Reese herself, I have not seen anyone else of this opinion... so there's that.