12 April 2013
Kelly Faris
The WNBA draft is Monday. Iris is probably right, and Kelly Faris probably won't get drafted by the Storm. I just hope she ends up on a team I like, so I can root for her team (when they're not playing the Storm). Indiana would be perfect! (And she's from Indiana!!)
But let's back up a few days, to Tuesday and the championship. ESPN has a great article about Kelly Faris, Maya Moore, and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis:
Kelly Faris was the first UConn player to find her former teammate [Maya Moore], which seemed appropriate given the respect the two players have for one another. Faris was tipped off by her older sister, who said, "Maya's down there!" and gestured toward the seats at the far corner of New Orleans Arena. Faris walked gingerly across the cushioned folding chairs, careful not to slip through, then climbed over the railing and into Moore's open arms. Faris and Moore played together for two seasons at Connecticut, winning an NCAA title during Faris' freshman season, then losing to Notre Dame -- a shocking result, considering Moore's collegiate dominance -- in the national semifinals a year later.
"I'm just so proud of you," Moore said to Faris, one of the hardest-working players in UConn history. "And so happy for you."
Moore later told espnW.com: "I was just so happy for her, to see her be able to go out on top. After the loss to Notre Dame my senior season, it was just her and me at the press conference afterward, and it was so tough. I didn't want that for her."
[...]
In a way, Moore turned over the team to Faris two years ago. And on Tuesday night, Faris did the same with [Kaleena] Mosqueda-Lewis.
[...]
The two teammates were exchanging thoughts with one another as the clock drained on both an NCAA title and Faris' career at UConn. They looked as though they were waiting for the starting gun in a sprint, except it was the opposite: They were waiting for the finish line, the final buzzer, so they could race onto the court with their teammates.
"Kelly was just saying to me, 'I'm proud of you, thank you so much,'" Mosqueda-Lewis said of the moment. "And I just said, 'You know what, Kelly? Thank you. Thank you for getting us here.'"
Ok, moving on to draft stuff:
The WNBA coaches had a conference call with reporters and said nice things about Faris.
The Storm's draft page.
Swish Appeal uses fancy statistics to sort the players into "tiers". Then they acknowledge that just looking at the numbers doesn't work for every player: "Faris [who was sorted into the bottom tier] has a number of major strengths - including her defensive ability, which isn't accounted for in the numbers - but if she makes a roster she'll have the lowest usage rate of any player to do so in the last five years (in plain terms, a low usage player is typically a player who either isn't very involved or passive in a team's offense). Guards with low usage rates just don't tend to make WNBA rosters. However, Faris was in a unique situation at UConn where she played a vital role without having to be an aggressive scorer and the fact that her numbers improved across the board when her usage did go up in her senior year is actually encouraging. So going strictly by the numbers is actually just unfair to her."
But let's back up a few days, to Tuesday and the championship. ESPN has a great article about Kelly Faris, Maya Moore, and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis:
Kelly Faris was the first UConn player to find her former teammate [Maya Moore], which seemed appropriate given the respect the two players have for one another. Faris was tipped off by her older sister, who said, "Maya's down there!" and gestured toward the seats at the far corner of New Orleans Arena. Faris walked gingerly across the cushioned folding chairs, careful not to slip through, then climbed over the railing and into Moore's open arms. Faris and Moore played together for two seasons at Connecticut, winning an NCAA title during Faris' freshman season, then losing to Notre Dame -- a shocking result, considering Moore's collegiate dominance -- in the national semifinals a year later.
"I'm just so proud of you," Moore said to Faris, one of the hardest-working players in UConn history. "And so happy for you."
Moore later told espnW.com: "I was just so happy for her, to see her be able to go out on top. After the loss to Notre Dame my senior season, it was just her and me at the press conference afterward, and it was so tough. I didn't want that for her."
[...]
In a way, Moore turned over the team to Faris two years ago. And on Tuesday night, Faris did the same with [Kaleena] Mosqueda-Lewis.
[...]
The two teammates were exchanging thoughts with one another as the clock drained on both an NCAA title and Faris' career at UConn. They looked as though they were waiting for the starting gun in a sprint, except it was the opposite: They were waiting for the finish line, the final buzzer, so they could race onto the court with their teammates.
"Kelly was just saying to me, 'I'm proud of you, thank you so much,'" Mosqueda-Lewis said of the moment. "And I just said, 'You know what, Kelly? Thank you. Thank you for getting us here.'"
Ok, moving on to draft stuff:
The WNBA coaches had a conference call with reporters and said nice things about Faris.
The Storm's draft page.
Swish Appeal uses fancy statistics to sort the players into "tiers". Then they acknowledge that just looking at the numbers doesn't work for every player: "Faris [who was sorted into the bottom tier] has a number of major strengths - including her defensive ability, which isn't accounted for in the numbers - but if she makes a roster she'll have the lowest usage rate of any player to do so in the last five years (in plain terms, a low usage player is typically a player who either isn't very involved or passive in a team's offense). Guards with low usage rates just don't tend to make WNBA rosters. However, Faris was in a unique situation at UConn where she played a vital role without having to be an aggressive scorer and the fact that her numbers improved across the board when her usage did go up in her senior year is actually encouraging. So going strictly by the numbers is actually just unfair to her."
Labels: UConn basketball, WNBA
# posted by mamurd @ 10:32 PM 
