Non-Lady Vol Basketball News 2023-24

#32,776
#32,776
Ju Ju Watkins was thought to have freshmen of the year locked up. But her shooting percentage has been under a great deal of pressure with opponents gameplanning and double covering her. Of course, the Trojans don't have a great deal of offense and Watkins is still shooting at a respectable 43.2 FG%, 34.4 3P%, and scoring 26.3 points per game.

With all that said, in my estimation, Hannah Hidalgo should earn serious consideration for being the best freshman this season. Not only does she play arguably a more important position than Watkins but she is also a better shooter. While Watkins is bigger and able to guard several positions. Hidalgo's penchant for steals actually makes the 5'6" guard incredibly valuable as a defender.

One can't go too far wrong picking either one of these two players as the best in their class. For my money though, I think that Hidalgo is now shading the race for top freshman in the 2023-24 season.
 
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#32,780
#32,780
Max Roguespierre said:
Ju Ju Watkins was thought to have freshmen of the year locked up. But her shooting percentage has been under a great deal of pressure with opponents gameplanning and double covering her. Of course, the Trojans don't have a great deal of offense and Watkins is still shooting at a respectable 43.2 FG%, 34.4 3P%, and scoring 26.3 points per game.

With all that said, in my estimation, Hannah Hidalgo should earn serious consideration for being the best freshman this season. Not only does she play arguably a more important position than Watkins but she is also a better shooter. While Watkins is bigger and able to guard several positions. Hidalgo's penchant for steals actually makes the 5'6" guard incredibly valuable as a defender.

One can't go too far wrong picking either one of these two players as the best in their class. For my money though, I think that Hidalgo is now shading the race for top freshman in the 2023-24 season.
Click to expand...
Booker will get consideration too

She didn’t play for Texas tn but has great numbers
 
#32,784
#32,784
Max Roguespierre said:
Ju Ju Watkins was thought to have freshmen of the year locked up. But her shooting percentage has been under a great deal of pressure with opponents gameplanning and double covering her. Of course, the Trojans don't have a great deal of offense and Watkins is still shooting at a respectable 43.2 FG%, 34.4 3P%, and scoring 26.3 points per game.

With all that said, in my estimation, Hannah Hidalgo should earn serious consideration for being the best freshman this season. Not only does she play arguably a more important position than Watkins but she is also a better shooter. While Watkins is bigger and able to guard several positions. Hidalgo's penchant for steals actually makes the 5'6" guard incredibly valuable as a defender.

One can't go too far wrong picking either one of these two players as the best in their class. For my money though, I think that Hidalgo is now shading the race for top freshman in the 2023-24 season.
Click to expand...
Recent games have def seen HH on the rise. It will depend on what happens the rest of the way. There's other frosh like Fulwiley who are probably just as talented as those two, just not needed by their teams to take that feature role. I wish all the awards waited til after the tourney when the pressure is really on.
 
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#32,787
#32,787
Can we all agree now that Creighton and Marquette just aren’t that good? There are NOT 3 top 25 teams in the Big East. I know Marquette dropped out but they never belonged there to begin with. Neither of those teams is top 50.

UConn beating Big East opponents by about 40 on average but has lost to almost every good team they have played this season.

Really tired of seeing teams get votes that just simply don’t deserve it. I mentioned it the other day, but we saw the same thing when UCONN was in the AAC. Now we never see those other teams in the top 25. Just because your game is on tv because you’re playing UConn doesn’t mean your team is actually good.
 
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#32,788
#32,788
Also, the fact that Edwards had no foul calls last night is insane. She hooks players on every single possession. Also does a lot of sneaky pushing in the back when she’s out of position. She’s a huge whiner and a pretty dirty player really.

She was protesting with the official after an out of bounds call when she very clearly had the ND player hooked and was holding almost at mid court. The audacity.
 
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#32,789
#32,789
VolBall09 said:
Also, the fact that Edwards had no foul calls last night is insane. She hooks players on every single possession. Also does a lot of sneaky pushing in the back when she’s out of position. She’s a huge whiner and a pretty dirty player really.

She was protesting with the official after an out of bounds call when she very clearly had the ND player hooked and was holding almost at mid court. The audacity.
Click to expand...
You mean like last year at TBA when she hooked RJ, flipped her over (the moment RJ knew she had to get stronger), caught her in a scissor lock then kicked her in the head when RJ shoved her leg away? A play btw that C Peck declared RJ's fault and they got a double tech. And a play I'm clearly not over lol.

Last night there was a play where Edwards was shoving a ND player out of bounds then all the way through the UConn bench. No foul. Fortunately HH was on the other end getting yet another uncontested layup.

Karma rules as always though, and Geno forgot Edwards existed in the 4th qtr and completely abandoned what had worked for him previously, costing them any chance to come back.

Last thing about the ND win, great as HH was, wouldn't have happened wo Citron and Westfeld stepping up huge in the second half.
 
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#32,790
#32,790
VolBall09 said:
Can we all agree now that Creighton and Marquette just aren’t that good? There are NOT 3 top 25 teams in the Big East. I know Marquette dropped out but they never belonged there to begin with. Neither of those teams is top 50.

UConn beating Big East opponents by about 40 on average but has lost to almost every good team they have played this season.

Really tired of seeing teams get votes that just simply don’t deserve it. I mentioned it the other day, but we saw the same thing when UCONN was in the AAC. Now we never see those other teams in the top 25. Just because your game is on tv because you’re playing UConn doesn’t mean your team is actually good.
Click to expand...

I've had the exact same thoughts.
 
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#32,792
#32,792
Max Roguespierre said:
Ju Ju Watkins was thought to have freshmen of the year locked up. But her shooting percentage has been under a great deal of pressure with opponents gameplanning and double covering her. Of course, the Trojans don't have a great deal of offense and Watkins is still shooting at a respectable 43.2 FG%, 34.4 3P%, and scoring 26.3 points per game.

With all that said, in my estimation, Hannah Hidalgo should earn serious consideration for being the best freshman this season. Not only does she play arguably a more important position than Watkins but she is also a better shooter. While Watkins is bigger and able to guard several positions. Hidalgo's penchant for steals actually makes the 5'6" guard incredibly valuable as a defender.

One can't go too far wrong picking either one of these two players as the best in their class. For my money though, I think that Hidalgo is now shading the race for top freshman in the 2023-24 season.
Click to expand...
Great post, agree.
 
#32,793
#32,793
VolBall09 said:
Can we all agree now that Creighton and Marquette just aren’t that good? There are NOT 3 top 25 teams in the Big East. I know Marquette dropped out but they never belonged there to begin with. Neither of those teams is top 50.

UConn beating Big East opponents by about 40 on average but has lost to almost every good team they have played this season.

Really tired of seeing teams get votes that just simply don’t deserve it. I mentioned it the other day, but we saw the same thing when UCONN was in the AAC. Now we never see those other teams in the top 25. Just because your game is on tv because you’re playing UConn doesn’t mean your team is actually good.
Click to expand...
Just the facts.
Both Creighton and Marquette were higher ranked BEFORE conference play began.
Both teams started losing more (significantly more) when the conference part of their schedules kicked in. The quality (Or lack of quality) of their conference had nothing to do with their high rankings in the first 2 months of the season.
More cognitive bias.
 
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#32,794
#32,794
volnationnj said:
Just the facts.
Both Creighton and Marquette were higher ranked BEFORE conference play began.
Both teams started losing more (significantly more) when the conference part of their schedules kicked in. The quality (Or lack of quality) of their conference had nothing to do with their high rankings in the first 2 months of the season.
More cognitive bias.
Click to expand...

Had everything to do with UConn being in their conference. That was the only reason they were ranked. Even before conference play. The fact that they are losing MORE since the start of Big East play is further proof they should never have been ranked. Whole conference is trash aside from one team.
 
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#32,795
#32,795
VolBall09 said:
Had everything to do with UConn being in their conference. That was the only reason they were ranked. Even before conference play. The fact that they are losing MORE since the start of Big East play is further proof they should never have been ranked. Whole conference is trash aside from one team.
Click to expand...
Are analytical ratings like Massey affected by UConn being in their conference also ? The idea doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Marquette, now #31 in Massey, beat Arkansas by 15 on a neutral court, earlier this year.
The Big East is ranked as the #6 conference. The SEC is a much stronger conference and ranked #2 by Massey.
But that doesn't mean that 2 or 3 of the Bid East teams can't be decent.
I don't understand why posters here can't allow for that possibility.
 
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#32,798
#32,798
Virginia Tech - Syracuse is one of my games to watch today.

Could be teams the LVs play later in the year.. I’m confident the LVs are about to go on a row and comfortably make the NCAA tourney with a statement today. This is a repeat of last season but this group is ahead of schedule.

As for Virginia Tech, they haven’t impressed me much over the years. I believe they have overachieved and the coach has stayed with his philosophy for building the program. Credit to them. I still remember that game where as a freshman Sara Puckett dropped 15 pts on Virginia Tech on their homecourt.

Been hoping Sara can find her scoring touch like that and get to the level of play she is capable of as a pure P5 scorer.

VT is dealing with some injuries which isn’t something LVs haven’t had to deal with for three straight seasons. Not how you start but how you finish.

It’s time for the contenders to separate from the pretenders!
 
#32,799
#32,799
South Carolina vs Vandy could be game of the day. The LSU game was PHYSICAL, even more so than I expected. Vandy has had a week off and has fresh legs.

SC plays great at home as most excellent programs do. I give them the edge by 10, but I do think Vandy could do something crazy today. Sorta of the perfect trap game. #1 overall comes off a brutal game with reigning national champ against an up and coming Vandy program with a week of rest and preparation. Couldn’t set that up any better for Vandy, just have to see whether they can take advantage.

SC has size on size and can really wear Vandy out in there. If the officials bite on Washington’s flops it could get interesting. Expect to see Vandy try to control tempo and get good scores. Might see them try to push a bit in transition hoping SC is tired, but that’s not really their game.
 
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#32,800
#32,800
Stunned isn't the only word I can think of when looking back at this game. One player that is getting a lot of heat over at the Boneyard is Nika Muhl. She is actually my favorite player, but I admit I am a little pissed off on the way she played that game. This game just shows how valuable she is although some on the Yard cannot appreciate her game. When ND made the second quarter run Nika was on the bench because of her fouls. When she fouled out with 9 minutes still in the fourth, we were tied 60-60, and after that, we know what happened. She was actually plus 13 while the rest of the team was in the minus. In the 4-guard offence, Nika plays the 1, and Paige plays the 4. As it was last year, she still sets things up in the half court, so now the offense is screwed up, with Paige moving back to guard and Ice Brady (who proved again that she is not ready for prime time) moving to the 4. This team is so limited with the lack of capable bodies that there is no way that they will get far in the tournament no matter what they are ranked and where they play. When four of your first seven players are freshmen, you can go only so far until experience knocks you on your ass.
 
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