UConn guard Bria Hartley set career-highs with 30 points and 6 made threes in a 94-64 rout of Rutgers on Sunday, which highlighted one of the recurring themes of her career: her streakiness.
Jim Fuller of the New Haven Register put her career day in the context of her struggles past and present shooting the ball in an article focused on the 5-foot-8 guard yesterday
Hartley admits she is a little streakier as a shooter than she would like to be, but when she has it going like she did on Sunday afternoon, her initial inclination when she gets the ball is to shoot. "I think when I get going, I have a different vibe,’ said Hartley, who earned her second American Athletic Conference Player of the Week honor thanks to her big game....Hartley was 31 of 95 from the field in her last eight games but knew a big game was coming.
A potential knock against Hartley as a WNBA prospect is her consistency in impacting games - it's easy to remember times throughout her career (and perhaps her entire junior season, as described in Carl Adamec's article in the Journal Inquirer) when she looked like a non-factor or a negative factor. But sample size still matters in sports statistics - even with the unevenness of competition inherent in college schedules - and she's still having a solid season as a prospect against a top-15 strength of schedule.
Hartley's 54.3% 2-point percentage is outstanding for a scoring prospect and her 3.11 pure point rating is great as a potential ball handler, especially in light of her usage rate of 24.5% - she's a player who's involved as a playmaker and doing so efficiently over the course of 19 games.
Like Fuller reported about coach Geno Auriemma's reaction, a 30-point game probably shouldn't be all that shocking from a player of Hartley's caliber and even if her stock would probably be higher if she could do that more consistently she is doing enough this season to keep herself on the first round radar.
For more on potential draft prospects, check out our 2014 WNBA Draft prospect watch storystream.