WBB: Jada Williams to ISU
- Thread starter mred
- Start date
Great news. The Cyclones will have a lot of experienced talent on next year's team, which should result in more consistent play and a much better record against good teams.
I don't know womens basketball that much but this seams like the first recruit we have beat Iowa out for in a bit. So that is always a good thing.
Yeah, she did not look good. I'd go off her sophomore season stats for what we might get if she is less handicapped by her hip injury. It's one thing to play through an injury if you can play up to your ability and another when you can't, which seemed to be the case that lead to her opting for the surgery.
We dropped 7% from the 22-23 season to the 23-24 season. Audi was improving as the year was going on, but getting back to 80% as a team would be great.
Unfortunately, getting back to Iowa State women’s 2022-2023 free-throw percentage (80%) is a very unlikely outcome. That team had three exceptional free-throw shooters (Ashley, Lexi and Emily) who shot most of the free throws. This is a very unlikely % to be able to reached again with next year’s roster.
https://cyclones.com/sports/womens-basketball/stats/2022-23
An additional point is that it would be an impressive improvement to get to 75% (a 3% improvement) as this would put Iowa State free-throw percentage very close to the league leading teams’ free-throw percentage percentage from this past year (at 76%).
Also note that Iowa State shot a solid 72% and took (and made) more free throws than all teams higher in the standings (494-664).
Of course, this was due to Audi getting fouled often. It was impressive Audi’s percentage improved as the year progressed and I would expect it to further improve next year.
https://big12sports.com/stats.aspx?path=wbball&year=2024
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This addition sounds great. Now, how about tooling up our defense with some good one-on-one defense like TX put on TCU? I'm not talking about the TX A&M slapping and grabbing, but defensive pressure on the ball and ball screens?
We shot .729 which is better than avg. Even if we shot 80% we would avg. 1.3 more per game. Don't get me wrong, every little bit helps, but not as much as,I expected.
The challenge here is it is hard to play that style of defense when you do drop coverage on pick and rolls (with Audi). Texas bigs used a hard hedged on the ball screens and recovered and this isn’t in the cards when Audi is in the game. …but there are other ways to improve the defense with the addition of quicker, more athletic players.
We now have two players from the 2023 McDonald's All-American game and honestly Audi probably would have gotten an invite too if she didn't play for such a small school or was on the aau circuit more.
Possibly 3 if they approve 5 to play 5 in the settlement
I did the looking for you
Crooks 68% on 237 attempts
Brown 76% on 132 attempts
AJ 72% on 43 attempts
Joens 78% on 40 attempts
Harris 78% on 30 attempts
Hare 82% on 17 attempts
Williams 57% on 54 attempts
team minus Ryan 70%
Ryan shot 94% on 72 attempts
Getting the team up to 75% without the Ryan numbers would equate to scoring 2.34 more points per game. As someone mentioned…every little bit helps. What will make a real difference is seeing players not named Crooks or Brown getting to the line more.
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Pretty good on Alisa for 54 attempts in her limited time. I wonder what her attempt per minute played would be?
Would obviously like to see a more consistent % there.
At the beginning of the year Williams was a pure 50% shooter. Last ten games she went 8/11 from the line or 73%.
The biggest thing we need out of Hare is consistency. Jackson, Joens and Harris were all nice players last season, but didn't give consistent points from game-to-game. Hope they along with Tanke can gain consistency as they mature.
Also feel that Ariana might benefit from playing off-ball. She's a decent ballhandler, but showed some promise from 3 last season.
You aren't wrong as they went .729 on the season. That isn't bad - still top half of the NCAA - but it isn't the high 70s percentage we are used to seeing out of Fennelly teams.
But that will happen when your top player in FT attempts - with well over a third of your team's attempts - shoots only .684. If Audi gets her percentage up the team's percentage will go up as well.
