Doggy's Doghouse 3/18/2021

Ayanna is a real Husky type: super quick and aggressive and her name begins with "A"

She is from Forth Wayne, IN.

Schools UConn, Indiana, Notre Dame, Louisville, and UCLA

She is and I believe this is an older video. I've seen some recent ones and she's much smoother, stronger, and just more refined in them. She already dunks as a JR. and is a nice 15-18 foot shooter.

I agree.

I think Boston is the only real competition on this list. Frankly, if I were narrowing the list down to four, both Boston and Bueckers would be on the list, but my next two would include NaLyssa Smith and maybe somebody else like Cunane before Howard or Evans. Don't get me wrong, both of them are enormous talents, and virtually every coach in the country would give their eye teeth to have either one of them. But if the voters value consistency, both have had stretches where they didn't show up. I remember one game where Howard was an absolute beast late in the game, taking it over, but that was in contrast to the first half in which she was a nonfactor. Kentucky lost 8 games, formal games than a team with the national player of the year should lose. They loss to Mississippi! Yes, I would had 21 points in that game, but she went six for 25. That's 24%. She did pick up fouls from the foul line, but missing 19 shots means those shots taken by a teammate might've been made. If they can't hit better than 24% then something is wrong. (The rest of the team hit 39% in that game not stellar but substantially better than Howard.)

My recollection of Evans is a little less specific, but I'm fairly certain she had games which won't make it into the video vault of great performances.

As for Paige - she failed to record double-digit points in exactly one game. In that game she "only" had nine, but she also hit the dagger that clinched the game. That's not a bad "worst" game.

I haven't fully studied Boston's consistency but my impression is she has had an enormous season and worthy of postseason awards. Voters for the awards they struggle to find ways to distinguish between the two. I hope one thing they look at is the one game they played against each other.

In the matchup between South Carolina and UConn, Boston definitely showed up, scoring eight team-high 17 points, playing 43 minutes. That's the game Bueckers played all 45 minutes, scored 31 points, including the last consecutive 13 points of the game. That's one of the more spectacular performances this year, and ought to serve as a tiebreaker if you see these two players as largely tied over the rest of the season.

A friend asked me to pick the national player of the year other than Paige. Boston is on my list but at the moment I'd pick NaLyssa Smith. I haven't seen as much of her so I don't know how consistent she was, but she was a beast in the game against West Virginia including an alley-oop play that was one of the best plays of the year.

Great post, Phil! You make the most important point we've often overlooked: in an actual head-to-head, Paige was clearly the better player (not to take anything away from Boston).

This shouldn't factor into the question, but I wonder whether Boston is going to have a problem at the next level in playing long minutes at a faster tempo. Right now, the tempo is built around her.