Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Stat Line of the Day: March 30th

Maya Moore (UConn): 28 points (12-18 FG), 10 rebounds, 7 steals vs. Duke
Moore is just two wins away from leading the Huskies
to their 3rd straight national title
In high school and college basketball, there's something special about 1,000. To get 1,000 points is a significant acheivement--it signifies the player made a real contribution to the program over their years there, like scoring 10 points per game over the course of 100 games. To get to the next level, to get to 2,000 points, is really something, limited to the real stars of the college game--the Kemba Walkers, Kyle Singlers, and Steph Curries of the college basketball world. But 3,000? If someone played 130 games over the course of their college career--and this assumes quite the freshman season--one would need to score 23.1 points per game to hit that plateau. But that's just what Maya Moore has done--3,000 points, to go along with her 1200+ rebounds and 500+ assists--over the course of her spectacular college career. When UConn made their run at UCLA's record of consecutive wins, breaking it with their 89th straight victory this past December, some questioned if the streak had as much validity as UCLA's winning streak. I really think that's because some people just don't understand how good Maya Moore is. She's shot 53.2% from the floor for her career, just over 40% from three, and her career point total is more than 600 points higher than her closest Husky competitor (Tina Charles, with 2,346 career points). She's won basically every award there is to win in her first three years alone--Big East player of the year (as a freshman), the Naismith Award for national player of the year, three-time AP All-American, an ESPY, Scholar of the Year awards...the list goes on, and that's not including the awards she'll win this year. I don't think coach Geno Auriemma will have any problems recruiting more top-level talent to Storrs, but he's certainly losing quite the special player in Maya Moore.


Honorable Mention
Lebron James (MIA): 27 points (10-21 FG), 10 rebounds, 12 assists
Mike Bibby (MIA): 23 points (7-11 FG, 7-11 3PT) vs. Cavaliers
A two-for-one special here, as both these men managed to put up pretty nice stat lines--in a 12-point loss to James' former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the first time the Heat had lost to the Cavs in four games this season. Nothing incredibly special about either of these--it's the first time Bibby had hit seven threes in a game this season, but it's certainly not LeBron's first (or last) triple double. While I certainly think the win may have been overstated by some, it's still nice to knock off the King at his former palace, so I sort of understand where Cavs fans are coming from. Also lost in this stat line was the atrocious play of Chris Bosh: 5-for-14, 10 points, and only 4 rebounds with a lovely -24 +/- for the time he was on the court. 

Drew Storen (WAS): 0.2 IP, 7 H, 4 R (4 ER), 1 HR vs. Mets
Sometimes relievers just have these days where they can't seem to do anything right. Maybe it's because they're used to only needing to face one or two batters at a time, but many relievers don't enjoy facing 9 batters in one inning. Maybe there's another reason. Either way, what Drew Storen did against the Mets is embarrassing--in spring training, there's no reason to give up 7 hits around only 2 outs, including a 3-run home to David Wright. I would say that Washington could hope to get Storen fixed by the time the regular season starts (he currently sports a nice 11.12 ERA), but the reliever could be in for a sophomore slump of his own. 

No comments:

Post a Comment