Sarah Strong Maya Moore stat comparison through 56 games | The Boneyard

Sarah Strong Maya Moore stat comparison through 56 games

They are generational players and people along with "D" and Stewie ! We are so lucky to get
to witness their greatness up close and personal for 4 wonderful years. Then we get to enjoy following
them to the pros and representing the USA in international competition.
 
Sarah had more competition freshman year for scoring opportunities than Maya. Paige and Azzi (when healthy) vs Tina C, who averaged 14.2 pts Maya’s freshman year. I love, love Maya but so far Sarah gets the nod.
 
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Suebird10fan said:
Sarah had more competition freshman year for scoring opportunities than Maya. Paige and Azzi (when healthy) vs Tina C, who averaged 14.2 pts Maya’s freshman year. I love, love Maya but so far Sarah gets the nod.
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I edited. Initially I left out the phrase “for scoring opportunities” … freshman Sarah had more competition for scoring opportunities with Paige and Azzi (usually) on the court
 
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jazz said:
I would guess that SS's shooting percentage is better as well.
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IMG_6023.jpeg
 
Maya took 20% of the team's FGAs (506/2435).
Sarah took 18% of the team's FGAs (464/2513).

Maya took 26% of the team's 3FGAs (170/670) (made 42%)
Sarah took 17% of the teams 3FGAs (152/899) (made 39%)

Maya's FTM/FTA = 55/74
Sarah's FTM/FTA = 54/73
 
Wonder if Paige had been healthy her whole career at UConn if she would have been points leader? Maya had 30 more games than her? Something like that.
 
While this comparison is interesting, it doesn’t really account for changes in the game itself. When Maya played, there was less scoring in general and the Big East was a brutally tough conference. One stat that I would like to see is the percentage of total scoring accounted for by Maya & Sarah respectively. That doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. They are/were both great players and generational talents.
 
Not a stat, yet, but my eye-memory is that Maya relied more on a midrange dribble-stop jumper (rather like Paige) while Sarah tends to finish at the rim more. This may be because Sarah is a bit bigger and stronger while Maya seemed rather quicker and a great leaper. A shot selection chart might reveal this difference, if my memory is accurate.
 
Suebird10fan said:
Sarah had more competition freshman year for scoring opportunities than Maya. Paige and Azzi (when healthy) vs Tina C, who averaged 14.2 pts Maya’s freshman year. I love, love Maya but so far Sarah gets the nod.
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I think you’re misremembering her freshman season. Maya’s first game in a UConn jersey was an exhibition against the U.S. National Team. She had a near double double (14 & 9)

uconnhuskies.com

No. 2 Women's Basketball Drops Exhibition Opener to USA National Team 90-74 - University of Connecticut Athletics

STORRS , Conn. (November 2, 2007) - Three Huskies scored in double-figures, but it was not enough as the No. 2 University of Connecticut women’s ba...
uconnhuskies.com uconnhuskies.com

 
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Bone Dog said:
. . . my eye-memory is that Maya relied more on a midrange dribble-stop jumper (rather like Paige) while Sarah tends to finish at the rim more. This may be because Sarah is a bit bigger and stronger while Maya seemed rather quicker and a great leaper.
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My sense is that Sarah played and shot closer to the rim as a freshman because she was the center in Geno's favored "small lineup", whereas Maya had sophomore star Tina Charles (AP-AA3) starting at center in every game. Maya also had Charde Houston and Brittany Hunter on her team, who played close to the basket when they were in the game.
 
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HuskyNan said:
I think you’re misremembering her freshman season. Maya’s first game in a UConn jersey was an exhibition against the U.S. National Team. She had a near double double (14 & 9)

uconnhuskies.com

No. 2 Women's Basketball Drops Exhibition Opener to USA National Team 90-74 - University of Connecticut Athletics

STORRS , Conn. (November 2, 2007) - Three Huskies scored in double-figures, but it was not enough as the No. 2 University of Connecticut women’s ba...
uconnhuskies.com uconnhuskies.com

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I didn’t explain myself well. I wasn’t talking about the other teams. I meant that Maya didn’t play with a scorer like Paige or Azzi. That was an advantage for Maya in terms of her scoring average. The fact that Sarah scored as many points per game as she did playing with Paige and Azzi is amazing.
 
Suebird10fan said:
I meant that Maya didn’t play with a scorer like Paige or Azzi. That was an advantage for Maya in terms of her scoring average.
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This question interested me, so I did a bit of research. I don't think Maya had much of an advantage.

If you just focus on the two other top scorers on their teams, Maya was accompanied by AAs Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery, who combined for 28.3 ppg, while Sarah was accompanied by Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, who combined for 33.5 ppg — a 5.2 ppg difference.

If you add the two teams' 4th scorers into the mix, Mel Thomas (10.4 ppg) and Ashlynn Shade (7.7 ppg), Maya was accompanied by 38.7 ppg and Sarah by 41.2 ppg — a 2.5 ppg difference.

If you expand the scope to look at the entire teams, Maya's team averaged 81.2 ppg and Sarah's averaged 81.7 ppg — a 0.5 ppg difference. So, the total scoring of each team was essentially the same.
 
oldude said:
While this comparison is interesting, it doesn’t really account for changes in the game itself. When Maya played, there was less scoring in general and the Big East was a brutally tough conference. One stat that I would like to see is the percentage of total scoring accounted for by Maya & Sarah respectively. That doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. They are/were both great players and generational talents.
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Was the Big east really brutally tough?
 
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jazz said:
Was the Big east really brutally tough?
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That’s a good question that forced me to go back and review which of the 16 or so different universities that, at various times, constituted the OBE & NBE were affiliated with the conference when Maya played from 2007-2011.

During those years ND, Louisville, Rutgers, Syracuse, Cincinnati & WV were all basketball playing members of the BE in addition to UConn & the Catholic 7. Through Maya’s years, UConn made it to 4 FF’s. ND made it twice & Rutgers once. Just 2 years after Maya graduated, the BE had 3/4 of the FF: UConn, ND & Louisville.

Games against teams like Rutgers, Villanova & WV were typically low scoring, physical battles that often came down to the wire. Going back to that 2013 season, UConn lost 3 times to ND by a couple of points before finally beating them in the national semifinal game.
 
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It's so easy to forget that one player who just graduated. We're kinda blessed with "generational" players. Around here, they occur a bit more frequently. Paige:
Screenshot 2026-01-11 at 7.13.47 AM.png
 
Dogdude said:
It's so easy to forget that one player who just graduated. We're kinda blessed with "generational" players. Around here, they occur a bit more frequently.
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I was thinking about that while watching the video of the 1999-2000 team. We mention Sue, Maya, Diana, Paige, and Stewie a lot but what about Tamika, Kaleena, Tina, Nykesha, Ann, and Katie Lou? And there’s Megan, Brittany, Christyn…good grief
 
HuskyNan said:
I was thinking about that while watching the video of the 1999-2000 team. We mention Sue, Maya, Diana, Paige, and Stewie a lot but what about Tamika, Kalana, and Tina? And there’s Megan, Brittany, Christyn, Nykesha…good grief
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It's scary how spoiled we are. What would this forum be like if we never had Geno and CD? Would we be a perpetual 12-18 team with 100 people in the stands? Instead, we have, with a bunch of obvious exceptions, the most talented players in the past 30 years.
 
Bald Husky said:
Actually, the BE was the best WBB conference in the country. It died when the football people took over and the defections began.
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It died because ESPN decided to consolidate higher value BE teams in ACC. Those teams were football schools. Too much football didn't killed the BE, too little football did.

(Well that and corporate greed by a Connecticut company that gutted the greatest basketball conference of all time so that its carrying costs for broadcasts were marginally reduced. But let's get the thread back on t track.)
 
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Gael said:
This question interested me, so I did a bit of research. I don't think Maya had much of an advantage.

If you just focus on the two other top scorers on their teams, Maya was accompanied by AAs Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery, who combined for 28.3 ppg, while Sarah was accompanied by Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, who combined for 33.5 ppg — a 5.2 ppg difference.

If you add the two teams' 4th scorers into the mix, Mel Thomas (10.4 ppg) and Ashlynn Shade (7.7 ppg), Maya was accompanied by 38.7 ppg and Sarah by 41.2 ppg — a 2.5 ppg difference.

If you expand the scope to look at the entire teams, Maya's team averaged 81.2 ppg and Sarah's averaged 81.7 ppg — a 0.5 ppg difference. So, the total scoring of each team was essentially the same.
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There is no way to compare players from different eras. Different teammates, different roles, different competition, different everything. I don't know why people even try.
 
I love how the people drilled down on the data in the original post. Well done everyone.

FWIW, I think it's tough to compare players across eras. My intention in the original post wasn't to create a ranking between Sarah and Maya. Instead, I wanted to point out that Sarah is playing basketball at a level of one of the greatest players ever to play the game. Sometimes it's hard to appreciate that when it's happening, but that's what we're watching right now.
 
Dogdude said:
It's scary how spoiled we are. What would this forum be like if we never had Geno and CD? Would we be a perpetual 12-18 team with 100 people in the stands? Instead, we have, with a bunch of obvious exceptions, the most talented players in the past 30 years.
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HuskyNan would have a much easier job keeping the 3 or 4 people who would bother posting in line.
 
oldude said:
That’s a good question that forced me to go back and review which of the 16 or so different universities that, at various times, constituted the OBE & NBE were affiliated with the conference when Maya played from 2007-2011.

During those years ND, Louisville, Rutgers, Syracuse, Cincinnati & WV were all basketball playing members of the BE in addition to UConn & the Catholic 7. Through Maya’s years, UConn made it to 4 FF’s. ND made it twice & Rutgers once. Just 2 years after Maya graduated, the BE had 3/4 of the FF: UConn, ND & Louisville.

Games against teams like Rutgers, Villanova & WV were typically low scoring, physical battles that often came down to the wire. Going back to that 2013 season, UConn lost 3 times to ND by a couple of points before finally beating them in the national semifinal game.
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there were two really good teams so im not sure it was brutally tough. but it had better overall teams but I think we still beat the living hell out of most of them.
 
jazz said:
there were two really good teams so im not sure it was brutally tough. but it had better overall teams but I think we still beat the living hell out of most of them.
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Again, during those years UConn, ND, Rutgers & Louisville, to name a few, were all nationally ranked as well as making it to the FF. You are correct that UConn “beat most of them”, but many of the games were single-digit wins. The Rutgers games, particularly in NJ, were absolute wars, and Harry Peretta’s Villanova teams were almost always competitive.

The BE had finally become what Dave Gavitt had envisioned: a dominant men’s & women’s basketball conference covering all the major Eastern media markets. Unfortunately, within a few years, the football schools left the conference for greener pastures.
 
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