Potential All-American Guard Position

[DefenseBB]

I get the OOC for many of the players was "cupcake city" and the meat of the conference play will start to separate the players. Yes, Azzi's OOC was much better than most but then her Conference schedule will be an absolute joke while the SEC schedule will be brutal. Miles will not have it as easy as Azzi but the Big12 is NOTHING like the SEC so I expect her numbers to still be pretty strong. The ACC is also not so great but Hidalgo is already a proven 1st AA and that sticks in the voters minds. How Azzi does vs. Hidalgo in the ND game could flip that narrative.

The Top 3 will be Hidalgo (WinShares 3.5), Miles (WS 3.9) and Fudd (WS 2.8). Blakes (WS 3.8) is a longshot depending how she leads Vanderbilt against the likes of SC, Texas, LSU and Oklahoma.

While I do appreciate all the "homerism" that my peer BYers are showing Azzi, analytics and metrics are also important tools to utilize.

You can't just ignore all the good play by other players and try to dismiss it by simply using a "straw man" argument of UConn's OOC schedule.

 

[bballnut90]

I can’t see Hidalgo staying on 1st team if Notre Dame is out of the top 25. Not sure they will, but the Georgia Tech loss is alarming.

 

[DefenseBB]

I can’t see Hidalgo staying on 1st team if Notre Dame is out of the top 25. Not sure they will, but the Georgia Tech loss is alarming.

And they play a resurgent Duke team on Sunday, but that said, she makes that team immeasurably better and the game does require 5 players to contribute to a teams' success. Granted the reason the team is so bereft of talent is partially due to Hannah but that does not diminish what she contributes on the court.

Like I said, I think Azzi controls her own destiny with continued improve play of the peripheral stats-steals, rebounds Assist to Turnover ratio to go along with her outstanding shooting stats. Add in beating Hannah and ND on 1/19 in front of a home crowd and in front of a national audience and "presto" she's on the AP 5 member team.

 

[bballnut90]

And they play a resurgent Duke team on Sunday, but that said, she makes that team immeasurably better and the game does require 5 players to contribute to a teams' success. Granted the reason the team is so bereft of talent is partially due to Hannah but that does not diminish what she contributes on the court.

Like I said, I think Azzi controls her own destiny with continued improve play of the peripheral stats-steals, rebounds Assist to Turnover ratio to go along with her outstanding shooting stats. Add in beating Hannah and ND on 1/19 in front of a home crowd and in front of a national audience and "presto" she's on the AP 5 member team.

Hidalgo is great but it's quite rare that a player will earn 1st Team AP honors if their team isn't in the top 25. The last time it happened was in 2015-16 when Rachel Banham made a team and 2014-15 when Amanda Zahui-B did, but both of those seasons lacked major individual standouts where this season (so far) the depth of talent looks much stronger. Hidalgo has the stats and name recognition to command a spot, 25.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 6.1 steals on 48.6% shooting and almost a 2/1 A/TO ratio is otherworldly. I've read she's been taking too many gambles going for steals which in turn leads to easy buckets for her opponents. Something like that doesn't show up in stats but is a detractor to team success, even if individual stats is great. I think she's a borderline 1st/2nd team player right now.

Fudd's body of work is 1st team caliber since she's played well in every big game and has been an efficient scorer. She doesn't do as much for her team as others guards (partially by design), so her non-scoring stats aren't great, but she's developed a reputation for being a high level defender and has name recognition. These awards are heavily based on stats, so I think Olivia Miles/Mikayla Blakes are ahead right now but whether they can maintain that edge in conference play is a huge unknown. By season's end I wouldn't be surprised if Fudd is ahead of both, especially with big showings against Notre Dame and Tennessee.

Jazzy Davidson is another player who is quietly moving up the ranks. I think she's a long shot for 1st Team honors but could be a good dark horse pick for 2nd or 3rd. Her efficiency isn't there yet but she's stuffing stat sheets like Sarah Strong did her freshman year.