Stewie ?

[reno tony]

". That is about the same as saying that Johnny Weissmuller was the greatest swimmer of ever.

He was certainly the best Tarzan ever.

54 TO GO​

 

[Tenspro2002]

In that sense her career is more like Taurasi's in that she gets to be something of a free spirit during her first two year seasons without much responsibility. It's different than Maya who as a freshman had the responsibility of pushing a veteran team that had never been past the Elite 8 over the hump and back to the Final Four. and by halfway through her freshman season truly had to carry the team. People have said in this thread Maya never won a championship without Tina Charles, but Tina has been pretty clear that the Tina Charles that won championships wouldn't have emerged without Maya pushing her and setting the standard. That's carrying a team.

That's a fascinating point. Most people argue that Diana's accomplishments are more impressive than Maya's, because she had 2 years late in her career (2003 and 2004) as the sole leader with a weak supporting cast -- and we won championships both years, vs. Maya's 1 year (2011) -- where we didn't win. [I would also assert that D's supporting cast in 2003-2004 was stronger than Maya's in 2011, but that's a separate debate.]

Instead of looking at the end of their careers, you're looking at the beginning, and making the claim that Diana had it easier, that she had less to do with the 2001 FF and 2002 39-0 than Maya had to do with our turnaround in 2008 and eventual 90-game winning streak. That while it was Sue Bird's team in 2001-2002 (not Diana's), Maya was the driving force of the team in 2008-2009-2010 (rather than Renee or Tina) and deserves the lion's share of the credit. That's not an element of the debate we hear too much of, and is an interesting basis for discussion.

 

[UcMiami]

I disagree with your 1st two parpgraphs. Not saying BS was the only driving force. But no way in the manner you speak. We can agree to disagree.

I love Maria Conlon and Jess. I do. But I believe that Tina Charles alone is a much, much greater talent alone than those two. No comparison

I agree, except you need 5 starters and at least one (probably a couple) bench players to win in basketball. I chose Jessica and Maria because they also were there for 2002 and Maria was absolutely brilliant her last two years with limited physical tools, but the last two years Willnett performed a few miracles, Annie and Barb were essential as well. We point to key injuries for 'the reason' we didn't win some NCs, but most of those players would have been identified as 'support members' if they hadn't been injured.
As for not 'carrying the team' for Breanna last year - we lost three times to ND when Stewart didn't play particularly well, and we blew them out in the FF with Stef on two bad wheels because Breanna shot .625 from the field and .800 from three and 1.000 from the FT line scoring 29 points (35% of Uconn's total) and had 4 blocks and 5 rebounds. The whole team played very well, but that performance stood out to everyone who watched as did her performances in the other 4 games she played in the NCAAs - she had a final four and an NCAA tournament for the ages and to say that Uconn didn't ride her hot shooting and overall game to an NC is to diminish what she accomplished. That doesn't take away from a very good team and the other players performances, but ...

 

[rvwsleep]

Well what other swimmers played Tarzan? I don't remember Spitz or Biondi or Phelps playing him. hmmmm?

I agree with you and Reno T., Johnny was the best Tarzan. No doubt. However, I was critiquing only his swimming. How's this for a stat.
When Weissmuller won the Olympic gold medal in the 100m during the 1928 Olympics, his winning time of 58.6 sec would have placed him 39th in the qualifying rounds of the 2012 Olympics. In the women's division.

 

[DobbsRover2]

I know there was probably an inadvertent double negative thrown into the sum up of the 2013 tourney for Stewie shooting "without shouldering very little responsibility" last year, but assuming that the comment really meant that she just got to pop in her shots while her teammates did most of the heavy lifting, please, let's not go all wacko here.

When we look back to how players performed as freshman, we do need to strip away our glossy remembrances of their later years and look at just what they did in that initial year, or in this case the NCAA tournament since that is the question that was posed above. And in doing the evaluation, you also have to consider the player's role on the team as a freshman. If she never played a PG role, she is unlikely to get that many assists. If she was a PG or SG, getting rebounds was not one of her main responsibilities.

Also in order to strip away the glossy fluff to view how much a player "carried her team" in the tourney, you have to consider the team she played with. For DT, it is true that Sveta and Shea were gone for the NCAAs, but her team was still ranked #1 and included Bird, Jones, Cash, and Schumacher in the starting 5, a pretty outstanding group. Maya was already the go-to scorer on her team, but with Charles, Montgomery, Houston, and Swanier with her she also was not working with chopped liver. Despite piling up more losses pre-tourney, Stewie's group last year of Dolson, KML, Faris, and Doty\Hartley also was pretty decent. All three players were in 5 tourney games, as Stewie missed the opener.

DT, MM, and BS all had to help carry their freshman team in different ways, but Stewie unquestionably put up the best stats all-around and DT definitely had the weaker results because of two games that were just bad when she combined to shoot 3-29 on FGs and 0-18 on 3s. Her team survived the first bad game, but not the second. Her NCAA results for 2001 were:

FG%: 34.9%, 3-FG%: 28.2%, FT% 88.9% (8-9), RPG: 5.6, APG: 4.6, BPG: 1.6, SPG: 0.8, TOPG: 2.0, PPG: 12.6. BRATS was at. 9.7

So DT did very respectably in the grunt work and was almost a co-PG with Sue, but the overall poor shooting gave her a tourney that she had to be disappointed about.

Maya's freshman tourney was superb, and she racked up the second best BRATS score among the three players at a dazzling 13.3. She elevated her game at every level in the tourney except in shooting, where she dropped 5% on FGs and 8% on 3s. Her stats were:

FG%: 49.4%, 3-FG%: 34.3%, FT% 62.5% (5-8), RPG: 9.0, APG: 2.4, BPG: 2.0, SPG: 2.2, TOPG: 2.2, PPG: 18.6

Maya scored and ruled the boards and was great overall.

And Stewie? Well obviously she had the best tourney of any freshman of all time. Maybe she gets a bit of a black eye for not playing the first round game and helping UConn win by 80 instead of just 68, but maybe someday we'll all forgive her. She did not just shrug off team responsibilities while plunking down her shots, as she amassed a terrific 13.8 BRATS rating. Even her tops all-time scoring mark was accomplished on 6 fewer shots than Maya took in 2008. She did average 1 less apg than Maya and 2.8 less rpg than Maya, but she also had far more blocks and less turnovers, and unlike DT and MM, she got to the FT line. And I've yet to run across a Husky fan yet who had any complaints about her FG%, 3-FG% and FT%. Stewie's numbers:

FG%: 56.3%, 3-FG%: 60.0%, FT% 75.0% (15-20), RPG: 6.2, APG: 1.4, BPG: 3.2, SPG: 2.2, TOPG: 1.2, PPG: 20.8

60% on threes and 6.2 rebounds and 3.2 blocks? I'll take it. Just seems to me there's a clue missing with any statement that Stewie did not carry her team last year in big and little ways, though I'm not sure how popular that sentiment is. Just seems her total numbers are way too good be saying she wasn't being a responsible young freshman player.

Edit note: I computed the BRATS wrong before and later saw that Stewie's BRATS were actually a little better than Maya's. Now updated.

 

[psconn]

To echo what was said at least once above. The question is moot. She IS in the conversation based on the above 3 pages of conversation and the frequent mentions the topic gets on TV game broadcasts. An enormous complement to her... those are some truly GREAT players.

"She's a 6'4" Diana Taurasi !! [cringe].