August 2021

Offensive Qualities

• Interchangeable between the point and off-guard positions

  • Main role when playing both is a distributor

  • Her focus is to get others involved and run the team from the lead guard position

• Consummate team player who understands her role and stays within it

• Strong fundamentals

• Very unselfish

• Exhibits proper footwork

• Plays a solid floor game

• Understands how to move to the open areas against zone defenses and maintain proper spacing

  • Will benefit from cutting with purpose more consistently against man-to-man defense

• Playmaking – shows flashes of capable playmaking

  • Penetrates with a plan

  • Sets her teammates up nicely for quality looks

• Will occasionally push the pace to draw and kick to shooters

• Pick-and-roll play

  • Uses good angles off the ball screen

  • Patiently awaits the screener to get set

  • Pass-first off the pick

  • Conservative decision-maker

  • Could consider being more aggressive by looking to turn the corner more often

• Provides flashes of getting to the rim off the bounce, such as this nice hesitation crossover for the finish

• Finishing

  • Exhibits the ability to finish with her left hand

    • Will improve by continuing to strengthen this ability

• Owns strength to finish through some contact

• Can improve on:

  • Finishing with two hands in traffic/against the contest to add strength and ball protection

  • Maintaining focus on the goal in traffic

• Will benefit from developing a runner/floater around the paint

• Displays a knack for drawing shooting fouls around the rim

• Effective positional offensive rebounder

  • Uses her anticipatory skills to track the ball and judge where it’s coming off the rim

• A note on getting open against the deny: she can walk the defender down, reverse pivot into them, making contact/impact with her shoulder and hip/behind as she moves into them.  As she’s pivoting, she should use her non-pivot leg to seal them and then explode out to call for the ball.

• As a screener, she does a good job of seeking out the defender to screen, as opposed to moving to a specified area

• Showed the incorporation of a one-dribble pull-up that was nicely executed

Shooting

• Still working toward becoming a more consistent shooter overall

• Shoots it with confidence and provides glimpses of her potential from 3-point distance

• Maintains good concentration on the rim

• Choosy shot selection

  • Majority of attempts in the games covered were from 3 or around the rim

  • Would like to see her to be more aggressive in looking for her own shot

• Form/Mechanics

  • When shooting on the catch, the right foot is a half-step too far out in front of the left foot

    • Bring that right foot back ½ a step

    • This doesn’t appear to take place when shooting off the dribble

  • Both feet are slightly angled to the left, away from the rim.  This leaves the lower body slightly rotated to the left.

  • Mostly on the catch, the initial shot motion involves a “loading” up of sorts, where she moves the ball slightly away from her body before bringing it back in to continue up into the shot motion

    • Eliminating this extra motion will increase the quickness of the shot and cut down on the overall movement, which should help contribute to more consistency (the less movement, the better)

  • Appears to use the guide hand’s thumb, flicking it upon the release

    • Keeping the guide hand flat (or simply removing the thumb action) will improve consistency

  • Release is from under the chin

  • Shoots up to create a favorable shot trajectory

  • Consistent follow through

• Shoots a set shot

  • Needs time to get the shot off on the catch

• Comfortable shooting off the bounce

  • Shoots off a jump stop

  • Quicker release

  • Less overall motion in the shot

Passing

• Very willing passer; makes the right pass with a nice delivery

  • Makes the extra pass without hesitancy

• Displays good vision

  • Shows awareness of where her teammates are and where they are going to be

• Advances the ball well with the pass

• Effective as a passer upon penetration into the lane

  • Drive and kicks to shooters

  • Dump-offs to the block/paint

• Good post-feeder

  • Uses the correct technique on her bounce passes and overhead passes

  • Correctly uses an extra dribble to create the proper passing angle and places the pass away from the defender

• Tends to put too much air on the pass in situations where more zip is warranted

  • Has a greater tendency to pass with predominantly one hand instead of two

  • Will benefit from cleaning up her technique by using two hands and flicking her wrists

• Comfortable throwing passes with her right or left hand on the perimeter

  • Uses the left-handed pass appropriately

• Displays a nice touch on her passes overall

• Capable of making accurate passes off the live dribble

• Sound decision-maker

Dribbling

• Makes efficient use of her dribbles

• Has a good, controlled speed dribble

  • Fluid change of direction on the run

• Nice posture – can be a bit too upright

  • Will benefit from getting her body lower to the ground

    • Will help to maximize explosiveness and increase ball protection, control, and quickness

• Has a tendency to change directions before crossing over.  As a result, the ball is traveling slightly behind her.

• Crossover tends to be “over the top” against ball pressure rather than v-shaped.  The v-shaped crossover keeps the ball lower and decreases the likelihood of the defender getting a hand on it.

  • Uses the “over the top” crossover effectively when putting pressure on the defense moving downhill

• Will improve by working on dribbling around bodies with a focus on keeping the ball low and eyes up

  • Work on change of hands and directions with the crossover, while incorporating other dribble moves such as between the legs and behind the back to add ball protection

• Will also benefit from keeping her body between the ball and the defender more consistently

  • For instance, when entering the ball into the offense by dribbling to the wing, step into the body of the defender using the shoulder/body and push/explode back off the planted foot to create the space to crossover

    • Be careful not to push off of the defender

Defense

• Reliable; pays close attention to detail.  A few examples include:

  • Rarely allows cutters to cut in front of her face

• When pressing full-court off of scores, she immediately locates and guards

• Maintains a good balance of attention between ball and man off the ball

• Excellent at getting back on defense to stop ball and defend the basket to prevent easy attempts

• Strikes on backside steal opportunities without putting her team at a disadvantage

• On-ball defense

  • Impressive overall – makes the ball handler work, stays in front, and knows how to lead the ball handler into help

  • Solid defensive stance

  • Plays defense with her feet and generally does so without fouling

    • Usually preserves good balance

    • Crosses her feet when moving laterally to stay in front, which will be troublesome against quicker ballhandlers who are capable of effective misdirection/change of direction dribbles

      • Avoid bringing the feet together/crossing feet

  • Does not quit on the ball and often cuts the opponent off as a result

• Will benefit from more active hands

• In the half-court, she meets the ball at half-court to apply pressure

• Applies effective full-court pressure, turning the ball handler multiple times and successfully leads them into traps

• Good communicator

• Shows sound technique on closeouts

  • Completes the closeout by turning and blocking out without fouling

• Consistently blocks out

  • Superb technique

  • Makes a concerted effort to find a body when the shot goes up

  • Has a tendency to focus too much on the block out and not enough on the ball itself

• Possesses good hands that are capable of plucking the ball from defenders on-ball and from the help side position

• Plays with anticipation

• Does an excellent job of staying in her defensive stance off the ball

Basketball IQ

• Excellent court awareness

• Exhibits a sound understanding of moving without the ball

  • i.e. Displays the knowledge/feel of when to use the back door

• Knows how to draw the defense and understands when to make the pass as a result

• Displays the ability to read the defense for fast break opportunities

Here’s a nice look without putting the ball on the floor to take advantage of the 2-on-1

• Values possessions

• Shows a feel for the game

• Sound decision-maker overall

• Has a firm grasp on offensive and defensive game plans

• Understands time and score

Disposition/Presence

• Brings stability to the floor for her team

• Good motor on both ends; plays hard

• Disciplined on both ends, too

• Plays to win the game

  • Competitive

• Takes the game seriously

• Celebrates her teammates’ successes

• Gets on the floor without hesitation and is seemingly always in the mix

• It sounds cliché, but she does a lot of things that do not show up in the box score

Physical/Athleticism

• Good hand-eye coordination

• Possesses nice timing and anticipation

Here she is anticipating where the ball is coming off the rim, and finishing nicely with tough left-handed 7-foot shot

• Fair positional strength

• Exhibits an overall toughness you like to see in the backcourt

• Not afraid of contact

• Restricted quickness and foot speed

  • Can improve through various quickness drills, plyometrics, and speed drills

• Room to improve conditioning