Jackie best player on US Team at World Beach Games, but
by Domerduck (2019-10-17 13:42:53)
Edited on 2019-10-17 15:38:28
Post Reply Return to McGraw's Bench

unfortunately the women are out, losing in the quarters in OT to Brazil 14-12 (see article below). The US women dominated the first 3 games in pool play: 22-5 over Dominican Rebublic, 22-4 over Jordan, and 22-3 over a previously 2-0 Russia Team. But when it mattered most they couldn't back it up. Jackie scored 7 of the first 10 in that game as the US led 10-3 over Brazil and then Brazil scored 8 straight to take the lead. Jackie scored the next 2 to get the lead back, but unfortunately Brazil tied it to send it to OT where they won, scoring the next 2 points. JY went 7-11 in that game while the other 3 each went 1-6.

Jackie's had by far the best stats for the US team over the 4 games, scoring 27 points with a 55% FG pct. Ruthie Hebard, the only college player from Oregon, scored 16 with a 59.3% FG pct while the 2 players connected to UConn both shot below 50%: Collier 19 points at 47.1% and the only high schooler & a UConn commit-Paige Bueckers scored 26, but only shot 43.5%.

This reminded me of the 3x3 2018 world championship where 4 Oregon college players represented the US, dominating pool play, but lost in the quarters in a close, low scoring game to an experienced Italy team who ended up winning gold. That team also beat Russia in pool play, a team which ended up getting silver. If the US team keeps losing in these tourneys they may not qualify for the 2020 Olympics, which would be a shame.

My take if they had put in a WNBA guard (my suggestion Arike or Kelsey Plum who are both in the US team pool like Collier) instead of Bueckers, they would have won it all. These 4 had never played together which doesn't help. Jackie has played with both Arike and Kelsey and that would have provided more chemistry and either of them would have been able to hit the long shots (2 pointers in 3x3) which they relied on Paige to shoot.

I really don't understand why they put a high school player on a team that played adults. Even that relatively successful Oregon 3x3 team, all the players had at least 2 years in college and had played 4 years in high school. They also won the US tournament, (now the last two years) with Sabrina the MVP both times and AA Ruthie Hebard on that team. I also know it took an experienced set of college players (Ionescu, Hebard, Ododo, & Williams) for that US team to win gold in the 3x3 Pan Am games against experience adult women teams.

Bueckers has only played 3 years in high school. I guess some folks want to anoint her the next Sabrina, but that expectation seems premature. It certainly was proven in this tourney.





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