Yes, she is an interesting case study.
That is for sure. I spent time watching the game a couple more times now.
McCabe is an enigma in the time she plays and yet there seems to be very little set plays/screens/rotations to utilize her sharp shooting skills. Think there's only one ~45 secs left in the game on an inbound play and she drained it. Now that's what I'm talking about. Hitting 54% of her 3s sticks out like a sore thumb. Just find a way to get her more plays as first or second option. She seems to be a third+ option when the defense collapses and then a wide open kickout which is what we still want.
She effectively avgs three 3s and 3 rebounds (4x+ gain over last year) a game. If you take this out to 40 mins played that's ~5 to 6 rebounds a game. A nice uptick on rebounding is a very good addition to her game.
Her playing time has gone from ~8 mins a game to ~20.5 mins. That's a 1.5x increase (2.5x) with on court presence. You don't go from an offensive minded team to adding more of a defensive focus without having adequate defensive skills. She's only 2.5 mins behind AOG for avg playing time. Hopefully between her gains in rebounds and playing time is Jan's definition of playing "bigger". At least it's going in the right direction for her to stay on the court long enough to get targeted shots.
With her being at the top of the heap in almost all shooting %s, why not make her a first or secondary option where she is the main threat a little more. Since she's hitting such a high % of her 3s, they need to get her a minimum of 2 more shots a game so she can hopefully avg ~double-digits. Maybe draw up one play per half that she is a main targeted shooter and the rest comes how they play her now.
I do believe she is more connected than last year. I say get this girl in her comfort zone and let her do her thing a couple more times a game. She's ~20% higher than the avg 3pt shooter. It shouldn't be that hard to get her to avg double-digits when she's only a bucket a game away from it now. She should be featured just a little more with her exceptional 3P%. Maybe they do have them in the playbook and haven't found a need to show their hand on it yet.
The coaches are going a great job on both ends of the floor. Hopefully they have this little tweak for McCabe. 54% doesn't come around that often. Think we're playing with house odds at this point. Seems reasonable to showcase it just a few more times a game. Take advantage of it.
Bringing this up because AOG numbers are most likely going to take a little hit when some smarter B1G teams defend her from behind instead of in front. I hope not, but I'm just being realistic here. I think the Kansas game gave us insight into this already. AOG has made tremendous improvement this year. Hopefully she can retain much of it for B1G play also.
Thinking we need McCabe, Affolter and/or Teagen to pick up some of that potential loss, imho. Put their names in that order because of the their respective shot % so far. Like to see 2 of the 3 also avg double figures to cover for AOG if needed or just up their production as I know all 3 can. If all 3 can get there, that's a bonus. Syd will most likely get there when she returns to full health and fitness. She just has zeal for the game and she'll will herself to get there. Teagen has a lot of upside and can score from anywhere. She's already at 8.2 pts/game in her young career.
I'm not pushing Kylie out of this picture either. The good thing about Kylie is she is sneaky and sneaky fast as she contributes in many other areas that's just as important than scoring points and especially on defense. Maybe if her 3 is not dropping, she should focus on faking the 3pt and drive by her defender. She's good at that as a backup option to score more like she did in the 4th Qtr against Kansas. She had a very good 4th Qtr without needing to hit a 3.
As Heiden logs more mins, she's a wildcard as to how fast she can pick up some of AOGs pts and think she's hungry to do so.
Sreamlow just needs to keep logging the quality minutes all over the court like she's been doing already to give starters a breather.
It will be interesting to see when Guyton gets back how these mins get redistributed. Hopefully she brings as much of an early surprise as the other frosh. Mental side might hold her back for a while yet, but we'll see what can bring to the table.
Collectively the frosh already average logging 20% of game minutes and contributing 17% (14/gm) of the total points. Just what the doctor ordered for the first 5 games of their careers to clawback some our lost production from last year. It's very possible these numbers get better because the season is so young yet.
