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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5007808, member: 12088"] I don't disagree. The stats don't entirely support my reading. However, [B]I absolutely presume that everyone will play to, not beyond, expectations[/B]. I'm assuming a sophomore leap for everyone including Ash. What else can one do in the summer? I refuse to assume the worst. For example, as I said, Caroline carried the team in January of 2022. After that stretch, she faded due to injuries, mainly an aggravated hip injury that kept her out of many games and limited her minutes in others. [B]This is the Caroline I'm forecasting will return[/B]. There's plenty of room to disagree with my assessment of Caroline, and especially my focusing on this brief stretch -- one month essentially -- in her freshman year that she hasn't been healthy enough to reproduce since. [B]However, when it comes to Aubrey,[/B] [B]"the actual statistics" do support the presumption that she can bring more to the team than Ash did last season[/B]... if we confine ourselves to the 22-23 season. This is in addition to the notorious eyeball test in that Aubrey was one of the primary triggers for the transition game. What about the following season? Why not focus on that one, too? Aubrey's numbers dropped even before the injury. But I'm inclined to attribute that to Geno's already focusing on getting the freshman into the mix early in the season. The cascade of bad injury news had already claimed Azzi Ayanna and Caroline. But I assume that if Aubrey had not suffered an injury, she would have loomed much larger January-March. But should we restrict our statistical sample to that one season for Aubrey, or to that one month of her freshman year for Caroline? This is a totally fair question. All I can say is that if neither of them lives up to the standards they set for their play in the past, I'll be thrilled to see Ash get a lot more minutes... assuming she can beat out Morgan and Allie for playing time. To speak in the absolutes we're so fond of in the BY, [B]in theory[/B] a healthy Caroline could be an AA candidate and Aubrey could be the Sixth Woman of the Year. Sadly, [B]in reality[/B] Caroline has never been able to put together an entire season playing at that clip, and Aubrey may not be able to recover her magic or find the superhero cape she seemed to wear so often in that season. If she can't, I hope Ash finds her own cape. [/QUOTE]

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