slufanskip Posted December 6, 2020 Share Posted December 6, 2020 1 minute ago, thetorch said: Stewart on paper is the most talented player on the team. On paper? You mean rankings etc? Not being a smart ass. I'm wondering if she's hurt though as she hasn't played at all today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmbilliken Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 2 hours ago, thetorch said: Stewart on paper is the most talented player on the team. She hasn’t showed it yet, last year or this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUBillsFan Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 1 hour ago, kmbilliken said: She hasn’t showed it yet, last year or this year. To be fair Stewart didn't play a full season last year because she transferred from Houston at semester and wasn't eligible until mid-December. She was inconsistent last season and struggled to break into Stone's notoriously small rotation and get minutes. She only averaged 12.4 minutes per game last season. She dropped 14 points in the fourth quarter against the A10's best, Dayton, on Senior Night last season. She definitely looked like 2nd best guard on the team during that stretch and at other times as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 Stone is a pretty stringent coach. Why you see certain players who should be playing who don't because they aren't following the program. Stone has stepped up recruiting. She took flyers on high level talent "headcases" that haven't panned out but she seemingly has recruited over them now. Impressive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 9 hours ago, thetorch said: Stone is a pretty stringent coach. Why you see certain players who should be playing who don't because they aren't following the program. Stone has stepped up recruiting. She took flyers on high level talent "headcases" that haven't panned out but she seemingly has recruited over them now. Impressive. I've semi followed them for a few years. Specifically which players do you feel should have played but didn't? I honestly can't put my finger on anyone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willie Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 16 minutes ago, slufanskip said: I've semi followed them for a few years. Specifically which players do you feel should have played but didn't? I honestly can't put my finger on anyone Flowers seems to me to be underused. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUBillsFan Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 27 minutes ago, slufanskip said: I've semi followed them for a few years. Specifically which players do you feel should have played but didn't? I honestly can't put my finger on anyone I've probably less than semi-followed them and I assume there are injury issues / other things that do not get reported. Women's team is not really covered at all by media, so we don't know that kind of stuff very well. However, I have felt for years like Stone has too small of a rotation / leans to heavily on a few key players for huge loads of minutes and it leads to them wearing down late in the season. She often doesn't give younger players a lot of run and when they finally get some playing time later in their careers they are pretty useful players (Wilken, Gits, Rakers) and the flip side sometimes players look promising early, but later get buried (Nelson, Covington, Flowers, Stewart). Stone is by far the best coach in WBB history. I'm just an MBM, so she probably knows what she's doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 fan Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 2 hours ago, willie said: Flowers seems to me to be underused. I’ve watched them consistently dating back to pre-Shimmy. Flowers is a serious underachiever. She plays very soft. Every so often, she does something impressive, and makes you think that she’s getting it. Unfortunately, her consistency hasn’t been there. By far, her freshman year was her most successful. I hope she can figures it out, because we are very small without her contributing. It doesn’t appear her issue is effort. I’ll tell you, she misses a boatload of layups. I think, to have a chance to win the A-10, we need Brooke to be a contributor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 I didn't mean to infer that Stone is benching players who actually deserve playing time. That is not the case. Take Wilken for example. Primarily a bench player, hurt a lot. Had kind of a Conklin lite career arc. It comes out though that she has all this success because she finally started doing the offseason workouts, when she didn't her first 3 years. Never lifted a weight if it wasn't required of her. She's threatened to be taken off scholarship, starts working out instead and becomes an all conference performer. The difference in high major womens programs is the work put in by the players. Stone recruits a ton of talent but at this level that talent is probably here because they have other issues, ie no commitment to work and the sport. Stone is like Grawer in this respect, most coaches will run out the talented players regardless, Stone won't. As a coach you open yourself up to a lot of criticism benching your most talented players because they don't workout or practice hard. billiken_roy and Zink like this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 10 hours ago, thetorch said: I didn't mean to infer that Stone is benching players who actually deserve playing time. That is not the case. Take Wilken for example. Primarily a bench player, hurt a lot. Had kind of a Conklin lite career arc. It comes out though that she has all this success because she finally started doing the offseason workouts, when she didn't her first 3 years. Never lifted a weight if it wasn't required of her. She's threatened to be taken off scholarship, starts working out instead and becomes an all conference performer. The difference in high major womens programs is the work put in by the players. Stone recruits a ton of talent but at this level that talent is probably here because they have other issues, ie no commitment to work and the sport. Stone is like Grawer in this respect, most coaches will run out the talented players regardless, Stone won't. As a coach you open yourself up to a lot of criticism benching your most talented players because they don't workout or practice hard. I get what you are saying, however in Wilkens case I don't think she was good enough to play more minutes until she started working harder which led to her getting in better condition. So I'd say Stone didn't limit her minutes, she limited her own minutes as until she started working harder, she wasn't good enough Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUBillsFan Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 3 hours ago, slufanskip said: I get what you are saying, however in Wilkens case I don't think she was good enough to play more minutes until she started working harder which led to her getting in better condition. So I'd say Stone didn't limit her minutes, she limited her own minutes as until she started working harder, she wasn't good enough I know this is the narrative and I have nothing to counter it except stats. Stats from Wilken's junior year are actually very similar on a rate basis to her senior year when she supposedly made such a huge improvement. I know it is difficult to maintain numbers as your minutes increase, but also defenses were keyed on stopping Wilken inside her Sr year. FG% 3Pt% FT% Reb Assists turnovers blocks steals points Jr per 40 46.9% 50.0% 63.6% 11.1 0.9 2.7 0.5 1.0 17.2 Sr per 40 47.0% 43.8% 65.9% 10.3 1.5 3.2 1.0 0.6 15.6 Bottom line - I'm not sure the gap between Jr & Sr year Wilken is as big as advertised. The biggest difference is that she just got more minutes 11.9 per game junior year and 28.7 senior year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 27 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said: I know this is the narrative and I have nothing to counter it except stats. Stats from Wilken's junior year are actually very similar on a rate basis to her senior year when she supposedly made such a huge improvement. I know it is difficult to maintain numbers as your minutes increase, but also defenses were keyed on stopping Wilken inside her Sr year. FG% 3Pt% FT% Reb Assists turnovers blocks steals points Jr per 40 46.9% 50.0% 63.6% 11.1 0.9 2.7 0.5 1.0 17.2 Sr per 40 47.0% 43.8% 65.9% 10.3 1.5 3.2 1.0 0.6 15.6 Bottom line - I'm not sure the gap between Jr & Sr year Wilken is as big as advertised. The biggest difference is that she just got more minutes 11.9 per game junior year and 28.7 senior year. Well when Wilken herself said she became a much better player due to her getting in better shape. I wouldn't make much of a connection between 12 mpg and 29 mpg stats. Her Jr year was Brooke's frosh year and Brooke was really good that year but besides Brooke there wasn't many inside minutes played beyond Frosh Evan Zars and Wilken BTW ... what happened to Evan Zars. It looks like she must have transferred after her Frosh year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speyburn Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 Evan Zars transferred to Western Illinois. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 3 minutes ago, Speyburn said: Evan Zars transferred to Western Illinois. Thanks. I looked it up. She seems to be doing well for them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrjoelabs Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 Zars was a treat to watch for a bit there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bills71 Posted December 9, 2020 Author Share Posted December 9, 2020 18 hours ago, mrjoelabs said: Zars was a treat to watch for a bit there Labs boy, no one is interested in your opinion! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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