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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 5059369, member: 12088"] You're right that Ashlyn Watkins defends the perimeter, too. All SC's bigs except Kamila did that last year. Same with Geno's bigs. It's the way they coach defense. Plus they both like their teams to switch 1 through 5 when possible, though again Kamila wasn't quite capable of this. But this doesn't make Ashlyn a great perimeter defender in isolation from the team. It's just what the team scheme requires of her. Just as Dorka and Aaliyah weren't great perimeter defenders in isolation. But used as part of a full-team scheme they could be effective out there. This isn't to say Ashlynn isn't good playing defense at the top of the key. I think she is. But I don't think she can keep Juju in front of her. One reason you use a big to defend at the top of the key is to make it hard to pass from one side to the other in the half court offense. That isn't quite the same as being a great on-ball perimeter defender. On Juju, she is not a great perimeter shooter, but she doesn't need to be. She just needs to make enough of them to force defenders to get close enough to guard against it. Then she blows past them and gets an easy midrange shot, and she's money on those. Unless the 4 or 5 makes a mistake and contests the midrange shot too closely. Then she goes all the way to the rim and gets fouled. Once Juju gets past the perimeter defender, she's pretty much unstoppable, and she's a great FT shooter. Watch the UCLA games to see how that works. UConn beat USC because Paige and Nika didn't give her many chances to blow past them, and Aaliyah made very few mistakes. And even with that, Juju still scored 30. And I share your thinking about how tall Juju really is. If Paige is 6'0", then Juju looks to be 6'1". But that's a really difficult size for a big guard. The ideal defender against Juju would be a healthy Aubrey, since she actually is quicker and faster and has the size to defend the perimeter without getting too close. This is why it's really too bad Aubrey won't be back in December for the rematch. Sigh. [/QUOTE]

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