UNM Freshman Takes It Slow After Wreck

[Mark]

Tuesday, October 2, 2007
http://www.abqjournal.com/sports/599030sports10-02-07.htm

UNM Freshman Takes It Slow After Wreck

By Ken Sickenger (http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/email_reporter.pl)

[Roob]

Rough start to her career. She seems to stay upbeat despite the setback.

[ThickLobo]

I have high hopes for Jessica. I think she has potential to among the great Lobos by the time she graduates. She has Abbie Letz/Mandy Moore-type bball insticts. She has some height and scoring instincts. She has a work ethic that could develop into good team leadership skills. It'll be fun watching her develop.

[Dr.M]

I agree that she sounds to be one of those recruits who can help us right away. We've been hurting the past few seasons for a post who is strong enough inside to defend and yet can drift outside and score. She sounds to be that type of player. I hope she's in the athletic mode of Linsey Arndt.

[Lobodawg92]

Dr. M. You are right about last year not having an inside/outside threat in a post. I had hoped Angela would do it, but her range was a little limitied. She looks to be picking up on the 12-15 ft jumper though. For all the talent Dionne has, she is not an outide shooter. I think Valerie is the kind of player who does have a nice outside (3pt) shot.

For this season, I am more concerned about some of our guards being able to hit the 3. We are going to be strong inside with Dionne, Angela and Val. Let's just make sure we don't have 5 defenders in the paint! :-)

[loboincruces]

It is fortunate that Jessica's injuries were not more severe...good to know that her headaches are beginning to diminish. I think she has serious potential to be a difference maker for UNM over the course of her career as a Lobo. I am so looking forward to this season, lots of youth and relatively small amount of upper class experience, yet a very intriguing group. Go Ladies!!

[txlobo95]

I had hoped Angela would do it, but her range was a little limitied. She looks to be picking up on the 12-15 ft jumper


IMHO, that's one of Angela's major weaknesses at least through her first two years on offense is settling for a jump shot. She needs to take the ball up strong in the middle and either get fouled, get a lay-up, or get a very short jumper going to the basket.

Dionne is more of a finesse player on offense using her speed to get around defenders. Thus why her rebounding numbers are not terribly impressive for a power forward. If her back is healthy this year and she has improved her strength, her rebounding numbers should go up materially this year.

Last year, that left us at a deficiency of having a player very willing to mix it up inside and get garbage buckets and be a rebounding machine. Timi tried to mix it up on defense, but was a non-factor on offense. Eileen seemed to be that type of player, but coach was not comfortable playing her more than just a few minutes at a time.

I'm hoping Either Angela or Val will take the challenge to get very physical in the middle on both offense and defense to take a little of the inside scoring pressure off of Dionne and add a major rebounding presence in the middle that we sorely need.

Abbie was tremendous at this her last couple of years. If Jessica or Kelsey can rebound strong and get physical and post up strong on offense and mix it up on defense, I would look for them to get quality minutes this year.

With our relative inexperience at the PG position, we will need to control the boards this year, which will help this team control the tempo. This means we need our inside post players to get more physical and improve their rebounding and inside offensive punch.

With all the new players and so many possibilities at every position, it should make for a very interesting year.

[ThickLobo]

Good evaluation. With the inexperience at PG we may see the team playing more of an up tempo. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but there may be a situation where the guard with the ball takes it up. If our post players can run the floor, that could be an effective weapon on offense. Dionne can score quickly just like Stoudameyer does for Phoenix.