Qadence Samuels commits!

[sweetspot]

Qadence reminds me of a young Angel Reese.

Maybe defensively, but other than that ... not really a good comp.

 

[The CDR-Ret]

I interviewed the Tennessee Flight AAU coach after Stefanie committed and even HE felt Stef would be “a nice role player” for UConn. I should have asked him after Stef graduated what he thought of her development

How about after Stef won gold in 3x3 in the Olympics and the 2021 WNBA Championship?!?

Now with the Liberty, apparently the Sky was NOT the limit....

 

[The CDR-Ret]

Nah. Further South.

Miami?!?

 

[Longtime fan]

Wouldn’t surprise me if you guys got Thomas. I know Maryland (and possibly ND) are also looking into her. Don’t know who else though.

I plead ignorance in not knowing anything about Thomas. Its she class of 2023? I am thinking Geno was a bit surprised that Qadence committed to UCONN. Somehow, the UCONN rhetoric seemed to be that the two incoming guards were enough, and that Geno wasn't planning on having to deal with three recruits. Now you are suggesting there could be a fourth in that class? By the way, I am personally pretty psyched about Qadence, given what I have seen and read. She seems like a potential great one. Even if somewhat over-looked.

 

[Longtime fan]

Love the family picture. Love the poofballs for her hair. Love that her sister has the same hair. Hope she keeps that all thru college.

LOVED Christyn's poofy hair. Not a fan when she changed it to the braids. Also a huge fan of Liya's purple and yellow braids. Love when players do something unique and fun (Side note - not a fan of the new Dangerfield hair...).

Anyway, if QS's personality is as fun as her hair, we are going to be in for 4 years of entertainment with her - and not just from a "great hoops" perspective!

Are you familiar with Hostess Snowballs? She could dye her poof balls pink and win a promotional contract.

 

[CocoHusky]

I plead ignorance in not knowing anything about Thomas. Its she class of 2023? I am thinking Geno was a bit surprised that Qadence committed to UCONN. Somehow, the UCONN rhetoric seemed to be that the two incoming guards were enough, and that Geno wasn't planning on having to deal with three recruits. Now you are suggesting there could be a fourth in that class? By the way, I am personally pretty psyched about Qadence, given what I have seen and read. She seems like a potential great one. Even if somewhat over-looked.

Delaney Thomas is an AAU & HS teamamte of Azzi Fudd who was good enough to make USA basketball U16 team last summer. She is very solid all around player without possessing anything that would be considered at the elite level. She would do very well at UCONN IMO. While I view Quandace as a big guard/wing/SF I do not see the wing type player in Delaney. I think Delaney would be more of a traditional F versus being a wing type player. Whether viewed from a skill mix, position, offered players or quantity perspective only two recruits in the class of 2023 was never going to be enough for UCONN so I'm not sure where that "rhetoric" would have been coming from.

 

[Bone Dog]

Delaney Thomas is an AAU & HS teamamte of Azzi Fudd who was good enough to make USA basketball U16 team last summer. She is very solid all around player without possessing anything that would be considered at the elite level. She would do very well at UCONN IMO. While I view Quandace as a big guard/wing/SF I do not see the wing type player in Delaney. I think Delaney would be more of a traditional F versus being a wing type player. Whether viewed from a skill mix, position, offered players or quantity perspective only two recruits in the class of 2023 was never going to be enough for UCONN so I'm not sure where that "rhetoric" would have been coming from.

There was ‘rhetoric’ about not needing more ‘23 recruits? I must have missed it. I remember a lot of fussing about needing more ‘22 transfers. But it seems pretty clear that ‘23 needed someone else or two, and ‘24 has to be a priority for at least one post.

 

[MilfordHusky]

We got 2 excellent players in 2022, but I think we need to average 3 per class for a roster of 12. That suggests that we need 4. Recall that Paige’s class had 5 and Azzi’s class had 4. I think we might try to get 1-2 more.

 

[TeamFirst!]

You want to leave scholarship slots open unless the recruit is actually good enough to contribute. We all know more players would love to go to Uconn right? It is a delicate balance to offer only to the players you want. The ones you really want and are not just settling for. that's how you stay on top all these years.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Azzi Fudd played for St Johns, which is in the same league in the Washington, D.C. area with Bishop McNamara. Wonder if, and how many times, Fudd played against Qadence Samuels? Would be interesting to hear Fudd's take on Samuels' talents.

McNamara and Paul VI were the major challengers to St. John’s during Azzi’s career. Especially when Azzi was healthy, her team usually won, often in close games. McNamara seems to have 1-2 top-50 players in each class.

In Qadence’s junior year, Azzi was at UConn. In Qadence’s sophomore year, St. John’s played only 2 games, I believe, because of Covid. In Qadence’s freshman year, she was probably only the 4th best player on the team and Azzi was coming back from injury. I bet they know some of the same people, even if they don’t know each other well.

 

[hoophuskee]

From what I can tell, I probably do have more doubts about Aaliyah than most on the Boneyard. She did improve over the last half of the season, but IMO was still not to the level of her freshmen season even near the end. I have no doubt that if she takes things seriously, she will return to form. I believe she will, and that is one of our biggest hopes for improvement this year.

But while I expect that to happen, last year she was a major disappointment. She has had one season where she looked like a future All American, and one where I could see her being beaten out by a freshmen like Ice or Ayanna. Since both extremes have happened I think you have to consider the possibility that either could happen again.

Geno implied last year that the Olympic team did not get to practice much and Aaliyah rarely played in the games, as if that contributed to her not being in the best condition. This year with an under 23 team she should get much more work, but the main point is the conditioning is in her hands, the burden of proof is on her.

As for using a very good natural PF at C instead of a true C type, of course many teams do that with good results. "Good" Aaliyah can do that, and Ice probably could too. A rotation with no big over 6-3 could work, no question, but would I still prefer a 6-5 or better player who could earn their minutes there, over a good PF playing a little out of position? Yes, but getting that type of big in the 2023 class is probably not very likely at this point.

She played well over the last half season. It's nice/great/terrific that you want more as does every fan for their teams. So much so that you expect All-American. But you can't just say "You aren't good" if "You are not an All_American," can you?

So isn't it true if a player who is not the main weapon or even the 2nd, shoots 53.3% from the field, averaging 9.2 ppg, with 6.2 rebounds; those are productive numbers, aren't they?

SO because she isn't living up to your All-American standards, you don't have confidence that she can be productive even though she has shown you 1.5 years out of 2 that she has been?

As far as height, sure play the 6'5 player as long as they are better than the 6'2/ 6'3 players. But we know skill and athleticism can overcome size. SO Edwards has shown us that she has been productive defending. So there shouldn't be any trepidation just because we "prefer" taller. Heck I prefer Stewart and Maya Moore. But players like Edwards can still be good/productive even if they aren't an A/A.

 

[Purchase1]

I see a lot of talk Delaney Thomas but I haven’t seen any signs pointing to UConn staff actually recruiting her. Neither coach valley or CD follow her on social media indicating to me at least that we aren’t going after her. Does anyone have any proof other than a picture where she moved Azzi in to her dorm room?

 

[Mdoggie]

I see a lot of talk Delaney Thomas but I haven’t seen any signs pointing to UConn staff actually recruiting her. Neither coach valley or CD follow her on social media indicating to me at least that we aren’t going after her. Does anyone have any proof other than a picture where she moved Azzi in to her dorm room?

Proof? What’s that? Proof of what? Proof that we fans “hope” she is recruited? Proof that we believe she wants to be a husky? We have the same amount of proof as we had about (Q) Qadence. Proof is overrated.

 

[HuskyNan]

McNamara and Paul VI were the major challengers to St. John’s during Azzi’s career. Especially when Azzi was healthy, her team usually won, often in close games. McNamara seems to have 1-2 top-50 players in each class.

In Qadence’s junior year, Azzi was at UConn. In Qadence’s sophomore year, St. John’s played only 2 games, I believe, because of Covid. In Qadence’s freshman year, she was probably only the 4th best player on the team and Azzi was coming back from injury. I bet they know some of the same people, even if they don’t know each other well.

Top players know one another from AAU competition, high school competition, all-star games, awards banquets, etc. Paige is from Minnesota and Azzi is from DC but they’ve been best buds for a while. I’d be surprised if Azzi and Qadence weren’t on friendly terms

 

[Purchase1]

Proof? What’s that? Proof of what? Proof that we fans “hope” she is recruited? Proof that we believe she wants to be a husky? We have the same amount of proof as we had about (Q) Qadence. Proof is overrated.

Not necessarily there was proof of the recruitment of Qadence because Morgan Valley followed her on social media well before her commitment thus giving us PROOF that she was being recruited by us. The hopes of us getting a player to commit that we have no PROOF of us actually recruiting is a valid question because it seems we are wasting our time with hypothetical situations from someone we aren’t even looking at.

 

[hjoerring]

From what I can tell, I probably do have more doubts about Aaliyah than most on the Boneyard. She did improve over the last half of the season, but IMO was still not to the level of her freshmen season even near the end. I have no doubt that if she takes things seriously, she will return to form. I believe she will, and that is one of our biggest hopes for improvement this year.

But while I expect that to happen, last year she was a major disappointment. She has had one season where she looked like a future All American, and one where I could see her being beaten out by a freshmen like Ice or Ayanna. Since both extremes have happened I think you have to consider the possibility that either could happen again.

Geno implied last year that the Olympic team did not get to practice much and Aaliyah rarely played in the games, as if that contributed to her not being in the best condition. This year with an under 23 team she should get much more work, but the main point is the conditioning is in her hands, the burden of proof is on her.

As for using a very good natural PF at C instead of a true C type, of course many teams do that with good results. "Good" Aaliyah can do that, and Ice probably could too. A rotation with no big over 6-3 could work, no question, but would I still prefer a 6-5 or better player who could earn their minutes there, over a good PF playing a little out of position? Yes, but getting that type of big in the 2023 class is probably not very likely at this point.

Well, the only thing left for me to do, in protecting one of my favorite players, is to hide the matches from you, seeing that you have already poured the gasoline.

 

[oldude]

Let me interject one thought. We fans often hypothesize that because HS players know each other when they are from the same area and/or played together on the same AAU, HS or national team, the likelihood of them wanting to play together in college is high. With few exceptions, that’s usually not the case. Each HS recruit’s decision is influenced by a multitude of factors that often send players who are also friends to different schools.

I can recall how fans thought Boston, Jones, Paige and Azzi were all going to follow Brunelle to ND. In addition, there were high hopes that Boston, Horston and Jones would end up at UConn once Paige announced her intention to become a Husky, and all those players showed up together at a UConn game.

Of course there have been a few wonderful exceptions. Lou and Pheesa, who played together on a 3x3 team, both found their way to UConn. More recently, Azzi followed Paige to Storrs, cementing a friendship of two opposite personalities who started their friendship traveling and playing together for a U.S. national team.

As I have commented before, trying to predict the actions of 17-18 year old teenagers is a recipe for failure.