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Message: [QUOTE="Orangutan, post: 4032297, member: 4946"] Two statements about Azzi in this tournament: She played well and was a key part of Team USA's winning effort. If you didn't know beforehand, you would not have picked her out as the most touted recruit from Team USA. Those facts lead to this awkward scenario where folks seem to feel compelled to make excuses for that which doesn't need to be excused. She played well! She just wasn't dominant when dominance was expected. That said, allow me to be one of those folks. The elite skill I saw from Azzi in this tournament was shooting. She has beautiful form and great balance when shooting. Her pull-up is silky smooth. This was not necessarily the ideal set up for someone with those talents. Of the three guards that had the point guard duties (Paopao, Clark, Johnson), two of them are score-first guards, which means fewer opportunities for the off-ball players. And since you're not going to have sophisticated plays on a slapped-together all-star team, you can't rely on the offense scheme to create openings for a shooter. Thus, the stars of Team USA ended up being Clark, who played big minutes and called her own number frequently, and Citron, who made her own opportunities by hitting the glass hard and by aggressively attacking and drawing fouls. It's pretty hard for a jump-shooting specialist to be a superstar unless their teammates are constantly feeding them, which wasn't going to happen here. It may happen at the next level. A shooter that good is a unique weapon and UConn's offense will create her opportunities. To me the question is: Is she really a jump-shooting specialist? Or was this just her slowly feeling her way back into high-level competition? Either way, she'll be an excellent college player. It's just a question of what her ceiling is. [/QUOTE]

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