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I don't expect Crooks to see the floor much her freshman season to be honest. It's a big jump up in quality of competition and I think the bigger gap for her will be on the defensive side but I can also see some struggles offensively too where she is no longer the biggest player on the floor by a lot where she can just shoot right over everyone. It's no knock on her, I think she has a great attitude and some upside but will likely be somewhat of a project early on in her career.
This is probably the most realistic evaluation of Ms Crooks that I’ve seen on here.
After hearing and reading about her for a couple of years, I finally got to watch some of her state tournament minutes this year.
I was left wondering.
Sure, the post early about her having great hand eye coordination, touch, and sense of where the basket is is true. Very true. Those are her strengths.
Well, along with strength.
So my actual impression of her was…Victor Alexander. Clearly. Only, she gets off the floor less—which is saying a lot. An awful lot.
Small school competition, and I watched her get her flat footed shot blocked by a smaller girl. She doesn’t run the court well, she doesn’t move her feet on defense. And in the Big 12, last I looked, 6’3” is going to be an undersized center. No more easy shooting over people—or blocking shots.
So it’s going to be an adjustment for her, though she clearly doesn’t need the “S” part of a college S&C program as much.
I hope it works out for her to learn how to best utilize her strengths. After all, Big Vic learned to—and wound up a first round pick.