Thursday, August 20, 2009

Draft pick number doesn't mean much during regular season

Funny that in the WNBA, quite often the higher-picked rookies aren't the ones who end up shining as the season goes on. Mark Bodenrader talks about the issue on the dot-com. Terps Kristi Tolliver (third pick) and Marissa Coleman (second pick), have struggled to get their games on this summer, while DeWanna Bonner (fifth pick) and Shavonte Zellous (eleventh pick) have come out of nowhere and become leaders on their teams.

Some players adjust better to the WNBA game than others. In the same way that the International game is different from the US game, the W game is not the same as the college game. There are so many variations in the college game, too, with the number of coaches out there.

The moral of the story is that even if you play for a smaller school like Pittsburgh, as Zellous did, you can make it in the WNBA. That sounds so American.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

the difference for langehorne has been the change in the front office and coaching staff. the entire team now has a coach (plank) who knows her stuff and instills confidence.

in the fo, taylor went out and brought the much-maligned harding over from minny with them (pland and taylor) to give them a true pg.

unfortunately, coleman went down with that high ankle strain otherwise i think she would have had a shot at the roy.

beard is having herself a great season, some of which can be attributed to the fact that she now has some good players around her to allow her to just do her thang. ;)

now, if currie could just play better (although, its no secret that she has trouble staying focused).

scullyfu

Rebecca said...

A lesser-known school, yes, but I would not list a BEast school as "smaller", (except maybe Providence), much as I wouldn't exactly list a SEC player like Bonner as an underdog.

Anonymous said...

I agree. Pitt has an enrollment of almost 34,000 students. UConn about 28,000. Who is the smaller school? Both are in the Big East. Of course UConn has had more success but calling Pitt a smaller school is off base. Any school in the BCS conferences isn't a "smaller" school.

Sue Favor said...

My bad - I should have added the word "reputation" after "smaller." Pitt isn't exactly known for women's basketball the way other schools are; that's what I was trying to say.