Maya was just so dominant in college and was always the best player on the court. Taurasi wasn’t a dominating player besides the great run in 2003. She was very good in 2002 and 2004, but deferred to teammates and wasn’t visibly the best player game in game out.
Maya was the one who catapulted UCONN into the dominant era. She was the best player all four seasons and went 150-4 in her career. She was a 3x POY, and would’ve been a 4x winner if she didn’t play with a more experienced Candace Parker for one of them. She got UCONN out of a Final Four “drought”, and since Moore came on, UCONN has been ridiculously dominant (4 undefeated seasons, 2 one loss seasons and 2 two loss seasons).
There were a lot more heroics and excitement with DT because there were close games as her teams were not as good. There was regularly a viable chance of losing, where during the Moore era, this was incredibly rare. Moore’s impact led UCONN to monopolize the sport like no one has done prior. Combine that with her insane numbers, all around skills, eye test, and the fact that she was the centerpiece on every team, and that’s why I’d pick her at 1. If you put her in Stewart’s spot, she wins 4 titles too, and you can make an argument that she wins 4 titles if she was in DT’s spot too.
