what do the monarchs need to draft?
- Thread starter mdme
- Start date
Well, lets look at the projected roster:
PG - Ticha, Haynie
SG - Lawson, Dorrell
PF - Walker, Brunson
SF - Powell, K. Smith
C - Griffith, A. Williams
And in my view one spot up for grabs. If I had to say their was a glaring weakness it would be a defensive minded swingman, that is mobile enough to guard the 2 and big enough to post up a 3. That player would either start at the 2 if you still want Kara to come off the bench, or would share time with Dorrell and Smith. Ideally it would be "Showtime" Dorrell.
In other words we need someone to replace Maiga-Ba. But Maiga-Ba was not mobile enough to guard "2's". And we need somebody that can guard Nolan, Beard, Pondexter, Lennox and the like.
With that said here are some players that could be available according to WNBA.com.....(and somebody in the know of Women's College Basketball, help us out)
PG - Ticha, Haynie
SG - Lawson, Dorrell
PF - Walker, Brunson
SF - Powell, K. Smith
C - Griffith, A. Williams
And in my view one spot up for grabs. If I had to say their was a glaring weakness it would be a defensive minded swingman, that is mobile enough to guard the 2 and big enough to post up a 3. That player would either start at the 2 if you still want Kara to come off the bench, or would share time with Dorrell and Smith. Ideally it would be "Showtime" Dorrell.
In other words we need someone to replace Maiga-Ba. But Maiga-Ba was not mobile enough to guard "2's". And we need somebody that can guard Nolan, Beard, Pondexter, Lennox and the like.
With that said here are some players that could be available according to WNBA.com.....(and somebody in the know of Women's College Basketball, help us out)
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Shooting Guards
Armintie Price, Mississippi
She has a great, athletic body that is still raw; Offensively, there's nothing she can't do. Strong on defense, as well. She is the two-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year. A very focused player with tremendous athletic and mental abilities, extremely quick and rather crafty. Price needs to get stronger with the ball when creating for herself, but when she steals the ball, she is so quick to the other end. She doesn't have a jump shot yet, but makes up for it with her slashing ability.
Noelle Quinn, UCLA
She has the ability to flat-out score; a WNBA starter, the best out West who can play 1, 2 or 3. She spent most of this year playing point guard and handles ball extremely well, great passer, finished second in Pac-10 in assists. She did everything that was asked of her and more, leading the team with averages of 18 ppg, 8 rpg, 5.5 apg, and 0.5 spg. Has a sweet jumper and loves the dribble pull-up. She will need to work on her conditioning and defense.
Chrissy Givens, Middle Tennessee
Ms. Fundamental with an athletic body; very strong perimeter player that penetrates the defense extremely well. Consistently creates space to get that mid-range jumper off or drive to the basket. Has a great knack to draw defense to her so she can pass to open teammates. Makes people around her look good. Utilizes her strength, body control, ball hesitation and quick spin moves to make something happen on offense. Defensively sound and aggressive. A smart player as well as great in the classroom, she graduated with honors in three years and is now working on her Masters.
Cameo Hicks, Washington
Solid ball-handling skills and a nice shot, but tends to force things. Athletic and quick, but could work on conditioning to improve defense. Could be a good passer once she learns to let the game come to her and make better decisions with the ball. The ultimate pest on defense and definitely a scorer. Would like to see her use her quickness to create more offense from defense.
The Sleeper:
Ashley Dill, Coastal Carolina
She is an excellent athlete. She is quick, can shoot well and has great leaping ability. When you see her, you just know that she is an athlete. She may be at a small school, but she has a big game.
Small Forwards
Eshaya Murphy, USC
She has the ability to play 1, 2 & 3. She's quick, can shoot and defend and has the total, all-around game. Only downside is that she's in the Pac-10, and teams and fans on the East Coast and in the South don't get to see a lot of her game. She's a player, athletic, great body and skills waiting for the next level. Great movement without the ball, yet when she has the ball she has eminent court vision. Will punish if left open with the sweetest rotation of the ball.
Katie Gearlds, Purdue
Shooter alert!
Kamesha Hairston, Temple
A contender to go in the first round depending on who picks based on pure talent. Smooth with the perfect WNBA body: lean and athletic. She's a 3 player who can create her own shot and post up smaller guards inside. Tough, gritty and wants the ball in her hands. A triple threat: offensive power, great defensive skills, the heart of a champion, wants to compete and win. Her only weakness is her 3-point shot.
Jessica Dickson, South Florida
A mentally tough player who can do it all. Plays hard all the time on both ends; very good ball-handling skills that allow her to play 1, 2 or 3. Effectively changes speeds, making her very hard to guard; very unselfish; tremendous force on the offensive boards and rebounds her own misses. Just the complete package: nice handles with a variety of moves (in and out, hesitation between legs, nice passer, very unselfish, knows how to feed her personnel and can score). Add it up = WNBA.
Sidney Spencer, Tennessee
Great body, a 6-3 small forward who has NBA range. She's a bit streaky, but when she's on, she will punish you. She will be the difference for Tennessee during this NCAA Tournament. If her shot is on, it's a done deal. She has the height to shoot over most defenders, but can also post up. She reminds me of a European player.
The Sleeper:
Tyresa Smith, Delaware
A tremendous athlete who can impact the game on both ends of the floor. Her defensive ability is great. She has wonderful anticipation and tenacity to steal and deflect the ball. She is a great mid-range player who can get her shot off the dribble going primarily to the right, but can elevate. She is a scorer more than a shooter who can take it to the basket and finish in heavy traffic. Makes good decisions and can deliver the right pass under pressure. She could be a defensive stopper in WNBA due to her size and desire to stop people.
Armintie Price, Mississippi
She has a great, athletic body that is still raw; Offensively, there's nothing she can't do. Strong on defense, as well. She is the two-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year. A very focused player with tremendous athletic and mental abilities, extremely quick and rather crafty. Price needs to get stronger with the ball when creating for herself, but when she steals the ball, she is so quick to the other end. She doesn't have a jump shot yet, but makes up for it with her slashing ability.
Noelle Quinn, UCLA
She has the ability to flat-out score; a WNBA starter, the best out West who can play 1, 2 or 3. She spent most of this year playing point guard and handles ball extremely well, great passer, finished second in Pac-10 in assists. She did everything that was asked of her and more, leading the team with averages of 18 ppg, 8 rpg, 5.5 apg, and 0.5 spg. Has a sweet jumper and loves the dribble pull-up. She will need to work on her conditioning and defense.
Chrissy Givens, Middle Tennessee
Ms. Fundamental with an athletic body; very strong perimeter player that penetrates the defense extremely well. Consistently creates space to get that mid-range jumper off or drive to the basket. Has a great knack to draw defense to her so she can pass to open teammates. Makes people around her look good. Utilizes her strength, body control, ball hesitation and quick spin moves to make something happen on offense. Defensively sound and aggressive. A smart player as well as great in the classroom, she graduated with honors in three years and is now working on her Masters.
Cameo Hicks, Washington
Solid ball-handling skills and a nice shot, but tends to force things. Athletic and quick, but could work on conditioning to improve defense. Could be a good passer once she learns to let the game come to her and make better decisions with the ball. The ultimate pest on defense and definitely a scorer. Would like to see her use her quickness to create more offense from defense.
The Sleeper:
Ashley Dill, Coastal Carolina
She is an excellent athlete. She is quick, can shoot well and has great leaping ability. When you see her, you just know that she is an athlete. She may be at a small school, but she has a big game.
Small Forwards
Eshaya Murphy, USC
She has the ability to play 1, 2 & 3. She's quick, can shoot and defend and has the total, all-around game. Only downside is that she's in the Pac-10, and teams and fans on the East Coast and in the South don't get to see a lot of her game. She's a player, athletic, great body and skills waiting for the next level. Great movement without the ball, yet when she has the ball she has eminent court vision. Will punish if left open with the sweetest rotation of the ball.
Katie Gearlds, Purdue
Shooter alert!
Kamesha Hairston, Temple
A contender to go in the first round depending on who picks based on pure talent. Smooth with the perfect WNBA body: lean and athletic. She's a 3 player who can create her own shot and post up smaller guards inside. Tough, gritty and wants the ball in her hands. A triple threat: offensive power, great defensive skills, the heart of a champion, wants to compete and win. Her only weakness is her 3-point shot.
Jessica Dickson, South Florida
A mentally tough player who can do it all. Plays hard all the time on both ends; very good ball-handling skills that allow her to play 1, 2 or 3. Effectively changes speeds, making her very hard to guard; very unselfish; tremendous force on the offensive boards and rebounds her own misses. Just the complete package: nice handles with a variety of moves (in and out, hesitation between legs, nice passer, very unselfish, knows how to feed her personnel and can score). Add it up = WNBA.
Sidney Spencer, Tennessee
Great body, a 6-3 small forward who has NBA range. She's a bit streaky, but when she's on, she will punish you. She will be the difference for Tennessee during this NCAA Tournament. If her shot is on, it's a done deal. She has the height to shoot over most defenders, but can also post up. She reminds me of a European player.
The Sleeper:
Tyresa Smith, Delaware
A tremendous athlete who can impact the game on both ends of the floor. Her defensive ability is great. She has wonderful anticipation and tenacity to steal and deflect the ball. She is a great mid-range player who can get her shot off the dribble going primarily to the right, but can elevate. She is a scorer more than a shooter who can take it to the basket and finish in heavy traffic. Makes good decisions and can deliver the right pass under pressure. She could be a defensive stopper in WNBA due to her size and desire to stop people.
The primary defender here was Penicheiro. The linchpin to her effectiveness (or whoever comes off the bench to replace her so she doesn't play 40 minutes) is whoever is the other guard on the floor picking up the ball. If the PG for these opposing off guards can find them, that makes the defensive job more difficult. We NEED that Newton replacement more so than one for Maiga-Ba. What I think we lost with Maiga leaving is her length as a defender, that's going to be difficult to replace coupled with her athleticism. That strikes me as reason #1 (other than to be an amusing concept) why Abetamarco was talking about them playing Ticha and Haynie together more on the floor. Um...as much as I like being amused over the summer, I'd like my starting PG not to play 40 damn minutes defending someone else's 2/3.
I completely agree with 6th...we have two free agents who thus far have not signed on the dotted line with us, and both are starters. If one or neither signs, our needs may change dramatically. Our senior most player in our backcourt would be Kara and she'd be surrounded by Kristen a 3rd year, and two or three second year players who got limited or no minutes with us in the past. I ain't quite ready to load up with yet another rookie guard there.
As for the names on this list? For the ones I've either seen or know anything about:
Armintie Price, Mississippi - freaking playing herself into a lottery pick or at the VERY least a pick for a team willing to take her raw talent on and develop her at this level in the first round. *cough* secondcomingofmaiga*cough* She is playing out of her mind right now in the tournament, including last night's game in which she and Ole Miss dispatched the defending national champions and never took their collective defense-minded feet off their throats all damn game. We might have been able to snag her if not for the said playing out of her mind on a national stage part. Next up is Oklahoma in the Sweet 16. Check her out people! Or at least look up her game by game stats or her career numbers. That's an order!!
Noelle Quinn, UCLA - VERY nice size and VERY skilled at 1-3 positions since she's played them all in her career @ UCLA. Much more skilled as a 1 than I ever gave her credit for being. The knock on her, is that she appears underconditioned. And...she's not a very good defender. Offensively, I love her. I had her going by pick 5, she may be slipping as other players who are still playing right now, or who play well in draft camp leap over her. I would be surprised if she falls to us. But I also won't complain.
Chrissy Givens, Middle Tennessee - PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF NAISMITH YES!!! PLEASE BE THERE AT OUR PICK. Lacks a consistent outside game, but hell, she can freaking fly, and freaking put the ball on the floor and get to the basket....oh, and SHE IS A TREMENDOUS DEFENDER. She may have played herself out of our pick range too. But hell...a MBF can dream...
Cameo Hicks, Washington - I've seen nary a Huskies game this year. But if this is the W's rough scouting report on her...I'll pass on her.
Eshaya Murphy, USC- nope. I like her. But nope.She's not projected 1st round I don't think. We don't draft again until the 3rd, and our 3rd rounder isn't sticking.
Sidney Spencer, Tennessee - nope. if the W's scouting report is that she's streaky? Do we really need any more streaky shooters?
Kamesha Hairston, Temple - I've heard her name recently a lot more, I still haven't seen her. If she's a 3, she doesn't fit our need for someone who can guard down and take OGs defensively. But not having seen her, I dunno.
Jessica Dickson, South Florida-I'd have to look it up, but I believe she's 5'9-5'11 ish. She might be 6' I just can't remember. I just remember feeling she's kinda smallish for the position she was playing (which was SF). I saw a few minutes of her game in the Big East tournament a few weeks ago. I think I spent more time trying to figure out why people consider her a PG than actually watching her game. She probably is naturally a PG for all I know, she just wasn't the PG in the game I watched, and that was confusing me to no end. Her outside game is purportedly better than Givens' but I think Givens is rated as the better defender and the more athletic.
I completely agree with 6th...we have two free agents who thus far have not signed on the dotted line with us, and both are starters. If one or neither signs, our needs may change dramatically. Our senior most player in our backcourt would be Kara and she'd be surrounded by Kristen a 3rd year, and two or three second year players who got limited or no minutes with us in the past. I ain't quite ready to load up with yet another rookie guard there.
As for the names on this list? For the ones I've either seen or know anything about:
Armintie Price, Mississippi - freaking playing herself into a lottery pick or at the VERY least a pick for a team willing to take her raw talent on and develop her at this level in the first round. *cough* secondcomingofmaiga*cough* She is playing out of her mind right now in the tournament, including last night's game in which she and Ole Miss dispatched the defending national champions and never took their collective defense-minded feet off their throats all damn game. We might have been able to snag her if not for the said playing out of her mind on a national stage part. Next up is Oklahoma in the Sweet 16. Check her out people! Or at least look up her game by game stats or her career numbers. That's an order!!
Noelle Quinn, UCLA - VERY nice size and VERY skilled at 1-3 positions since she's played them all in her career @ UCLA. Much more skilled as a 1 than I ever gave her credit for being. The knock on her, is that she appears underconditioned. And...she's not a very good defender. Offensively, I love her. I had her going by pick 5, she may be slipping as other players who are still playing right now, or who play well in draft camp leap over her. I would be surprised if she falls to us. But I also won't complain.
Chrissy Givens, Middle Tennessee - PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF NAISMITH YES!!! PLEASE BE THERE AT OUR PICK. Lacks a consistent outside game, but hell, she can freaking fly, and freaking put the ball on the floor and get to the basket....oh, and SHE IS A TREMENDOUS DEFENDER. She may have played herself out of our pick range too. But hell...a MBF can dream...
Cameo Hicks, Washington - I've seen nary a Huskies game this year. But if this is the W's rough scouting report on her...I'll pass on her.
Eshaya Murphy, USC- nope. I like her. But nope.She's not projected 1st round I don't think. We don't draft again until the 3rd, and our 3rd rounder isn't sticking.
Sidney Spencer, Tennessee - nope. if the W's scouting report is that she's streaky? Do we really need any more streaky shooters?
Kamesha Hairston, Temple - I've heard her name recently a lot more, I still haven't seen her. If she's a 3, she doesn't fit our need for someone who can guard down and take OGs defensively. But not having seen her, I dunno.
Jessica Dickson, South Florida-I'd have to look it up, but I believe she's 5'9-5'11 ish. She might be 6' I just can't remember. I just remember feeling she's kinda smallish for the position she was playing (which was SF). I saw a few minutes of her game in the Big East tournament a few weeks ago. I think I spent more time trying to figure out why people consider her a PG than actually watching her game. She probably is naturally a PG for all I know, she just wasn't the PG in the game I watched, and that was confusing me to no end. Her outside game is purportedly better than Givens' but I think Givens is rated as the better defender and the more athletic.
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Wouldn't the team know internally by now if Yo was going to play or not? I would hope so. And if she was not going to play in Sacramento, I would think that leaks would be out by now. I don't think Whisnant would have let Buechser go if Yolanda was not coming back.
I would not think that she would play overseas throughout the Winter of 2007, then turn around and retire? I would hope that Yolanda Griffith would have a little more compassion than to do the Monarchs like that. Or is there something that I don't know. Because it sounds like some of you all in the know may be preparing to go on without her.
I would not think that she would play overseas throughout the Winter of 2007, then turn around and retire? I would hope that Yolanda Griffith would have a little more compassion than to do the Monarchs like that. Or is there something that I don't know. Because it sounds like some of you all in the know may be preparing to go on without her.
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One would hope they'd have an idea about her decision since they speak in "our system calls for 4 post players and we have four post players" terms. They keep talking about too "we think she's going to come back" Until she actually signs I'm not going to stop being concerned. I'm not wringing my hands, but I'm not entirely comfortable. Ticha might be a different story, if she wasn't coming back, she would have signed somewhere else by now I would think. Like us, other teams should know what their needs are coming into the draft based on what free agents they have or have and angle on signing. The coaching staff talks as if Ticha is coming back. Again tho, why hasn't she signed if that's the case?
Lisa Willis is the best defender from UCLA's big three. She was someone I wanted here last year, but there were supposedly questions about her work ethic her senior year. Whiz filled that backcourt need apparently with Scho. Quinn is considered the all around better talent, all things considered.
Lisa Willis is the best defender from UCLA's big three. She was someone I wanted here last year, but there were supposedly questions about her work ethic her senior year. Whiz filled that backcourt need apparently with Scho. Quinn is considered the all around better talent, all things considered.
The WNBA website updated their draft board, to reflect the changes made after today's deals to get Chelsea Newton and La'Tangela Atkinson.
As it currently stands, the Monarchs have only two picks:
Round 2, 21st overall
Round 3, 36th overall
Unless Whisenant can pull off a monster deal between now and draft day, the Monarchs don't have much of a chance to get a highly-regarded player.
As it currently stands, the Monarchs have only two picks:
Round 2, 21st overall
Round 3, 36th overall
Unless Whisenant can pull off a monster deal between now and draft day, the Monarchs don't have much of a chance to get a highly-regarded player.
I'm thinking we don't need an impact player after the moves he made today. We are FULL. We can have 13 players total, 11 active. Assuming our captains are coming back, this is what it looks like right now:
1. Ticha Penicheiro*
2. Kara Lawson
3. Nicole Powell
4. DeMya Walker
5. Yolanda Griffith*
6. Kristin Haynie
7. Chelsea Newton
8. La'Tangela Atkinson
9. Rebekkah Brunson
10. Adrian Williams
11. Scholanda Dorrell
----------------------
12. Kim Smith
13. LaToya Bond
14. Brittany Wilkins
15. Miao Lijie
16. 2nd Round pick
17. 3rd Round pick
*hurry up and sign ladies!
1. Ticha Penicheiro*
2. Kara Lawson
3. Nicole Powell
4. DeMya Walker
5. Yolanda Griffith*
6. Kristin Haynie
7. Chelsea Newton
8. La'Tangela Atkinson
9. Rebekkah Brunson
10. Adrian Williams
11. Scholanda Dorrell
----------------------
12. Kim Smith
13. LaToya Bond
14. Brittany Wilkins
15. Miao Lijie
16. 2nd Round pick
17. 3rd Round pick
*hurry up and sign ladies!