Not sure I agree with some of your criticisms. But you’re right that it wasn’t Paige’s best game. To me, she looked tired, probably from having to carry the team as far as she did. Aaliyah looked tired too. And it looked like Ash KK and Ice faded a bit too. This was about as far as they could go, and that was damn close to an NC game. The only one who didn’t seem tired was Nika.
We’ve seen this story before. Her sophomore year Paige came back from a devastating knee injury and carried the team to an NC game while held together with duct tape and baling wire. She did everything she could to will that team to a championship. But again the rest of the team was not able to follow where she would lead them, and the loss of Dorka was a hard emotional hit for all of them.
But I think we’d all agree they’d have gone nowhere in either tournament without Paige. It was a similar story her freshman year. Arizona was able to key on her because no one else made them change their defense. I loved all those players too, Liv Aaliyah Christyn Evina and Nika, but they lost that game not Paige. I think something similar happened this year too.
This time around Gabby and Kate Martin played excellent defense on Paige. But the clear fact is that Hannah Stuelke had an excellent game against Aaliyah, largely because of assists from Caitlin, and KK had a good game, but Ash and Ice faded. I don’t blame them. It’s tough to deal with the pressure in your first go-round. That KK could speaks volumes about her.
So no, I don’t blame Paige for any of these losses, even though she most certainly does. Does she have areas to improve in? Sure but I’ll be damned if I have a diagnosis. She looks awesome to me.
