On Friday, I revisited James' list of 2012 WNBA Draft prospects in the NCAA, adding Maryland's Lynetta Kizer in place of injured UCLA forward Jasmine Dixon.

With four of those 10 in action last night, a closer look at the statistical strengths and weaknesses of those top 10 based on their junior season performances and what they might need to improve upon before adding some players to the list.

Continue reading this post »

With the 2012 WNBA draft lottery order set Thursday and the NCAA regular season really getting going last night, this is as good a time as any to take a look at some of college basketball's top professional prospects.

James already put together a list of ten prospects to keep an eye on back in May, but with UCLA Bruins forward Jasmine Dixon falling to injury we're updating that list with an additional look at some key statistical indicators to keep an eye on throughout the season.

Continue reading this post »

There's an old adage that simply states, "There's two sides to everyone."

And two pre-draft interview questions revealed two sides of Courtney Vandersloot, one the best point guards to enter the WNBA in quite some time.

"What can the team that drafts you expect out of Courtney Vandersloot?" I asked, perhaps expecting a standard response to a simple question.

"They can expect that I'm going to compete," the admittedly shy Vandersloot replied with a standard answer. "I'm really competitive and I really just love to play basketball. I love to win and I will just put everything into it and I'm a great teammate. I just want to be a part of team."

Although generic, it was a response truly becoming of someone who is known to be very humble, shy and modest. But to be honest with you, I expected a somewhat similar type of modest response to my follow-up question.

"Can they still expect the no look passes?"

"Oh yeah!" she responded with a passionate confidence.

To my pleasant surprise, there was no pausing, no indecisiveness, and no coyness that might otherwise characterize Vandersloot; in that reply she truly exhibited what makes her so great, so unique, and such a special basketball player.

Continue reading this post »

In a week where Liz Cambage is hobnobbing with playoff-bound Kevin Durant, Kayla Pedersen isn't grabbing headlines yet.

But in another month, don't be surprised to see Pedersen's name sharing the Tulsa Shock headlines. Pedersen, the seventh pick in this season's WNBA draft, has the potential to be a household name - just like Larry Bird.

What, you ask? Well she's starting her professional career with some high praise and a lofty comparison from the man who will direct her on the floor.

"I love Pedersen," Tulsa Shock GM and head coach Nolan Richardson said. "You know one of my favorite players of all times was Larry Bird, and he did all the little things that people don't really see. And that's what I saw in Pedersen.

"She's 6-4, she can play out on the floor, she can play inside, she can run the floor, and I call those kind of players a fix-it player. She can fix things that break down. You just don't see the talent that this lady has."

Continue reading this post »

I try not to talk about drafts in terms of winners and losers - by the sensationalistic standards on which most people judge draft prospects, the Washington Wizards might have gotten an A+ for selecting a Kevin Garnett/Chris Webber hybrid superstar to lead their franchise into the future with the first overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft.

Nevertheless, as I looked over this year's WNBA Draft, I just couldn't help but acknowledge one clear winner: Angie Bjorklund.

There wasn't exactly complete agreement among Swish Appeal writers about how strong a prospect Bjorklund was entering the draft, but one thing nobody could dispute is that she had a chance to make it as a spot up shooter as a 6'0" wing with a 45.3% senior year 3-point percentage (not to mention a 41.3% career 3-point percentage playing for the Tennessee Lady Vos).

So that the Chicago Sky drafted her with the 17th pick (5th pick, second round) just seems to be a perfect match.

Continue reading this post »

Say whatever you want about the Pac-10, but nobody ever really figured out a way to stop Arizona forward Ify Ibekwe.

And Washington fans got their fill of her in her final trip as a collegian to Seattle in which she led the team with 24 points and six rebounds in a 74-66 win on February 19.

"I'm just glad we're not the only team she does that to," former Washington Huskies coach Tia Jackson said in the week after that loss. "That thing is just a monster. Last time we played them she was unhealthy, she was sick - getting over a flu. I think she was sick in the [Arizona State] game, was sick in the [January 22 Washington State] game, and then sick when we played her...Now she's healthy and she's getting 22 and 20 and 20 and 14. Now the true Ify is coming out. We know she's going to do her damage."

Jackson's assessment wasn't at all an exaggeration: after struggling a bit during the beginning of Pac-10 play due to illness, Ibekwe hit her stride getting 22 points and 22 rebounds against a good rebounding ASU team and followed that up with 23 points and 13 rebounds against Washington State before the Washington game. What Jackson didn't mention was that she also went 4-for-8 from the 3-point line in those games, 19-for-27 from the free throw line, and had 8 steals just for good measure as the Pac-10's Defensive Player of the Year.

Although those performances might have been signs of the "true Ify" coming out, the fact that she played part of her conference schedule through illness and all of it as a focal point for opposing defenses means that we might not have seen the best of what she can do.

That's why the Seattle Storm had to feel pretty good about the opportunity to select a player of her caliber at the end of the second round.

Continue reading this post »

  

Putting together a contending team in the 12 team, economically conservative WNBA is like completing a jigsaw puzzle.   You need just the right pieces in the right places; nothing extra or frivolous, and despite how much you want to use a hammer to make the thing fit, if the piece isn't right, it's going to make the whole thing incomplete.

As I looked at the 2011 WNBA draft, I really saw the results as attempts to fit those puzzle pieces in the right places.  There is a good amount of talent selected - as well as available for free agent tryouts - but with the league having only 132 roster spots available at this time, things are highly competitive, tough to get and hold onto, but more importantly to the incoming rookies, highly skilled. 

In other words, almost every player chosen in this draft, including Maya Moore, will not be necessarily called upon to be "the star" of their team.  They need to perform, but they will be puzzle pieces, trying to complete the puzzle.

Continue reading this post »

At the beginning of the NCAA season when we first looked at WNBA Draft prospects, James Madison guard Dawn Evans was a name that was hard not to consider as one of the top early prospects.

Although we had questions about her chances of being successful in the league as a 5'7" volume shooter, it would have been far fetched to suggest that she wouldn't be drafted at all.

But of course, nothing is a given on draft day and while it's hard to know what exactly led to Evans not being drafted at all, one thing for sure is that her inefficiency as a distributor and scorer probably didn't help her cause. Nevertheless, when looking at players drafted ahead of her it might be hard to think that she just doesn't belong among the ranks of the drafted as someone who most people considered one of the top guards in the nation coming into the season.

So she has to be among the most surprising undrafted players.

Continue reading this post »