Yes.Is Stewie at the top? Will she be if she wins Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four all four years? Pretty hard to top that acheivment. Thoughts?
Yes, but in terms of accomplishments that would still put her side by side with Taurasi and 1 notch above Maya.If we somehow get beaten in the tournament will Stewie's supporters drop her a knotch?
Watching Stewie the last 3 years and seeing just how much she has mastered the game has been a delight. I complained to myself for 2 and a half years about her not being tough and not rebounding the way I thought she should. She has surpassed my expectation and then some. Personally I would take her no. 1, she just does everything. To take a quote from 79 about Bird and Magic. Bird can score but Magic can do more. There are a lot scorers out there some people might take but Stewie can do more. UConn is lucky to have her.
Is Stewie at the top? Will she be if she wins Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four all four years? Pretty hard to top that acheivment. Thoughts?
Championships have a lot to do with your supporting class. Stewie was fortunate to have Dolson KML,Bria,Tuck,Moriah and this year's cast.Taurasi was part of two tremendous teams.I wonder if Maya would have won Four if she had been as fortunate. Catchings name always come up in the GOAT conversation,but she won how many Championships at Tenn.Holslaw(excuse the spelling)won three and no one mentioned her name. Delle Donne won how many ?There are a few considered among the GOAT with no Championship rings,such as,Ted Williams,Butkus,Marino,Barry Sanders,Earl Cambell,Banks,and Elgin Baylor.Stewie belong in the Best ever at UConn but I consider Maya Moore the GOAT because she was the complete player.
Stewie was fortunate with her teammates .
the perfect analysis.I'd be careful judging a player's place in history by the number of awards she receives. There are too many tangential factors to identify exactly why players are chosen AA, MOP, NPOY.
Court presense is the best consideration I think. What does a player mean to her team when she's on the court? How does she affect the game? For how many years was she the most influential player in the country.
Catchings and Parker were that player for Tennessee for their careers. Griner at Baylor, and we've had three that truly fit that mold. Taurasi, Maya and now Stewie.
There are other potential nominees but the total number of players that have dominated the game in this way while they played is not great.
Taurasi was the greatest single force the game has seen. Skill, leadership, pure bravado. Maya was the best athlete I've seen play the game. The fluid nature of her game, her instincts and her determination. But Stewie brings with her size the abilty to hurt an opponent from anywhere on the court.
All three are great athletes. All could score, pass and defend, and all are champions. D and Maya have continued to prove that in their pro and international careers. I don't see a need to rate them against each other.
Ask yourself if Stewie would being going for four if Steff were not on the court with her those first two years, or if Maya would have finished her career here with 150 wins and only four loses if Tina was not her teammate for three of those years, and of course Taurasi played with four first round WNBA draftpicks her fist two years.
A tweak here or there and anyone of them might have four NC's or, managed only one. I'm not a statistics guy. How many wins a player accumulates is a function of team. What they do, and what they mean when they are on the court is the best way to judge a players value; their legacy.
If we somehow get beaten in the tournament will Stewie's supporters drop her a knotch? We've been lucky enough to watch a long string of AA's play for Geno and we've had more NPOY than any other program. And at the top of that impressive congregation of talent we hoist three of the best who ever played the game.
I have no problem letting them stand side-by-side.
No matter what Stewie does to finish off her career, whenever Geno is asked about the greatest UConn player he's ever coached, he always vacillates with the usual platitudes about how hard it is to pick one but the very first name out of his mouth is always the same, DT3. She is the most referenced player in any of his interviews, so we know how he feels. GOAT is a very tough conversation, except in pro Football, but if Stewie wins her 4th Natty and 4th MOP it'll be hard not to put her at the top of the heap.
If Stewie can finish off her dream of 4 NCAA titles she will be on the top of the WBB mountain as the greatest WBB player of all time! At this moment she ranks in the top 5 with DT, Swoopes, Maya Moore, & Tamika Catchings IMO!
So ... personal stats belong to Maya, but ....
To me championships do matter and while the difference between 2 and 3 and 4 isn't as important, I would tend to rank the big three in descending order of championships which is likely the reverse of the statistical rankings.