List of honors for this year's team

Donate To GopherHole

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 

Yesterday, @GopherWBB tweeted that Taiye Bello broke the all-time Gopher record for offensive rebounding by snagging 152 offensive rebounds during the 2018-19 season. This was 9 more than the previous record and 25 more than the now-third-place mark. See https://twitter.com/GopherWBB/status/1113843168577970176

The statistics quoted below are from just before the Final Four games, so do not incude the last 3 playoff games.

Ty started out the season leading the NCAA Div I in rebounding - but factor into that the point that (besides Syracuse) we were playing mostly cupcake teams at the time. With the start of Big-Ten play fewer rebounds were available, so she gradually dropped down the charts on total rebounds (see below). But her forte is offensive rebounding, so she ended the season highly ranked in that category, which we look at first in terms of total offensive rebounds and then in terms of offensive rebounds per game (she ranked 4th in both), which is more relevant since it accounts for longer seasons by some teams.

Ranking in Total Offensive Rebounds during 2018/19 Season
Rank Offensive-Rebounds Name (Team)
#1 206 Teaira McCowan (Mississippi St.) 6’ 7”
#2 180 Kristine Anigwe (California) 6’ 4”
#3 174 Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah (Northwestern)
#4 152 Taiye Bello (Minnesota)
#5 148 Kayla Cooper-Williams (James Madison)
#6 145 Michaela Onyenwere (UCLA)
#7 145 Unique Thompson (Auburn)
#8 139 Zuri Sanders (Texas Tech) <-- [as noted elsewhere, Stollings inherited a rebounder]
#9 136 Bayley Plummer (Appalachian St.)
#10 136 Jessica Shepard (Notre Dame) <-- [in the Final Four]

Note that the season's offensive-rebounding leader, Teaira McCowan had 35% more offensive rebounds than Bello - however also note that she is 6' 7" as compared to Taiye's 6' 2" height. Teaira gets her rebounds via height, whereas Taiye gets her rebounds more via skill. Note also that other teams that have great offensive rebounders include Northwestern and James Madison (who both went far in the WNIT playoff), Marlene's Texas Tech, and Notre Dame (who is in the NCAA Final Four).

Below we'll summarize how well she did in terms offensive rebounds per game - in which she also ranked 4th in the NCAA.

Ranking in Offensive Rebounds per Game
Rank Offensive-Rebounds-per-Game Name (Team)
#1 5.722 Teaira McCowan (Mississippi St.)
#2 5.455 Kristine Anigwe (California)
#3 4.971 Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah (Northwestern)
#4 4.903 Taiye Bello (Minnesota)
#5 4.633 Zuri Sanders (Texas Tech)
#6 4.469 Unique Thompson (Auburn)
#7 4.400 Sydney Holloway (Bryant)
#8 4.367 Madison Hovren (Army West Point)
#9 4.353 Kayla Cooper-Williams (James Madison )
#10 4.323 Tierra McGowan (Morehead St.)

Taiye ranks 23rd in the NCAA in terms of Defensive Rebounds per Game. Below I've listed a sampling from the top 30 including the top five, any Big Ten players, any players in the Final Four this weekend, and (interestingly) several players from cream-puff non-conference teams that we played this year.

Ranking in Defensive Rebounds per Game
Rank Defensive-Rebounds-per-Game Name (Team)
#1 10.697 Kristine Anigwe (California)
#2 10.583 Megan Gustafson (Iowa)
#3 9.853 Regan Magarity (Virginia Tech)
#4 9.667 Reyna Frost (Central Mich.)
#5 9.500 Evelyn Adebayo (Murray St.)
#7 8.900 Chance Graham (Coppin St.)
#15 7.806 Teaira McCowan (Mississippi St.)
#17 7.568 Napheesa Collier (UConn)
#18 7.533 A'riana Gray (Xavier)
#23 7.355 Taiye Bello (Minnesota)
#30T 6.848 Shakira Austin (Maryland)

Finally, we list selected players among the top 23 NCAA rebounders in terms of Total Rebounds per Game. Taiye ranks 8th in the nation with respect to this metric at 12.258 rebounds per game. By comparison, Iowa's Megan Gustafson ranks 3rd at 13.361. Kristine Anigwe comes in 1st at 16.152 rebounds per game. Note that Taiye beats UConn's Final-Four-bound Napheesa Collier who comes in 23rd at 10.757.

Rank Rebounds-per-Game Name (Team)
#1 16.152 Kristine Anigwe (California)
#2 13.528 Teaira McCowan (Mississippi St.)
#3 13.361 Megan Gustafson (Iowa)
#4 13.303 Reyna Frost (Central Mich.)
#5 13.133 Madison Hovren (Army West Point)
#6 12.861 Bayley Plummer (Appalachian St. )
#7 12.794 Regan Magarity (Virginia Tech)
#8 12.258 Taiye Bello (Minnesota)
#10 11.467 A'riana Gray (Xavier)
#11T 11.400 Chance Graham (Coppin St.)
#16 11.229 Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah (Northwestern)
#23 10.757 Napheesa Collier (UConn)
 
Last edited:



<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 

Newsflash: Kenisha Bell drafted number 30 by Minnesota Lynx!

Go Lynx! Go former Gophers on Lynx!
 

CutDownTheNet said:
Newsflash: Kenisha Bell drafted number 30 by Minnesota Lynx!

Go Lynx! Go former Gophers on Lynx!
Click to expand...

Here's the full WNBA Draft results ...

2019 WNBA Draft Picks
#1 Jackie Young - 6' PG/SG - from Notre Dame to Las Vegas Aces
#2 Asia Durr - 5'10" SG - from Louisville to New York Liberty
#3 Teaira McCowan - 6'7" C - from Mississippi State to Indiana Fever
#4 Katie Lou Samuelson - 6'3" SG - from UConn to Chicago Sky
#5 Arike Ogunbowale - 5'8" SG - from Notre Dame to Dallas Wings
#6 Napheesa Collier - 6'2" PF - from UConn to Minnesota Lynx
#7 Kalani Brown - 6'7" C - from Baylor to Los Angeles Sparks
#8 Alanna Smith - 6'4" PF - from Stanford to Phoenix Mercury
#9 Kristine Anigwe - 6'4" C - from California to Connecticut Sun
#10 Kiara Leslie - 6' SG - from North Carolina State to Washington Mystics
#11 Brianna Turner - 6'3" PF - from Notre Dame to Atlanta Dream
#12 Ezi(yoda) Magbegor - 6'4" PF - from Penola Catholic College (Australia) to Seattle Storm (note: she's only 19 but an Aussie pro for 2 years)
#13 Sophie Cunningham - 6'1" SG - from Missouri to Phoenix Mercury
#14 Han Xu - 6'9" C - from Xinjiang Magic Deer (China) to New York Liberty (note: she's only 19 but a Chinese pro)
#15 Chloe Jackson - 5'10" PG - from Baylor to Chicago Sky
#16 Jessica Shepard - 6'4" C/F - from Notre Dame to Minnesota Lynx
#17 Megan Gustafson - 6'3" C/F - from Iowa to Dallas Wings
#18 Natasha Hiedeman - 5'8" PG - from Marquette to Minnesota Lynx
#19 Marina Mabrey - 5'11" SG - from Notre Dame to Los Angeles Sparks
#20 Cierra Dillard - 5'9" SG - from Buffalo to Minnesota Lynx
#21 Bridget Carleton - 6'1" SG - from Iowa State to Connecticut Sun
#22 Kennedy Burke - 6'1" SF - from UCLA to Dallas Wings
#23 Maite Cazorla - 5'10" SG - from Oregon to Atlanta Dream
#24 Anriel Howard - 5'11" SF - from Mississippi State to Seattle Storm
#25 Paris Kea - 5'9" PG - from North Carolina to Indiana Fever
#26 Megan Huff - 6'3" PF - from Utah to New York Liberty
#27 Maria Conde - 6'2" F - from Spain (currently on Polish team Wisła Can-Pack Kraków) to Chicago Sky
#28 Caliya Robinson - 6'3" PF - from Georgia to Indiana Fever
#29 Morgan Berstch - 6'4" PF - from UC Davis to Dallas Wings
#30 Kenisha Bell - 5'9" PG - from Minnesota to Minnesota Lynx
#31 Angela Salvadores - 5'10" G - from Spain (formerly from Duke) to Los Angeles Sparks
#32 Arica Carter - 5'8" PG - from Louisville to Phoenix Mercury
#33 Regan Magarity - 6'3" PF - from Virginia Tech to Connecticut Sun
#34 Sam Fuehring - 6'3" C/F - from Louisville to Washington Mystics
#35 Yueru Li - 6'7" C from Guangdong Dolphins (China) to Atlanta Dream
#36 Maci Morris - 6' SG - from Kentucky to Seattle Storm

Per Twitter: The Lynx have acquired guard @lexiekiah_4 from the @ConnecticutSun in exchange for the draft rights to 18th overall pick Natisha Hiedeman.
 
Last edited:




Congratulations, Kenisha Bell. Hopefully she lines up advisor or agent that can get her some money playing in China or Europe to. She will bring needed speed and defense to any team she is on. Would not doubt if she makes Lynx too. They need her speed and defense. Lynx got the steal of the draft.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk
 

In the run-up to the WBB Awards Banquet let's take a look at some season statistics for the players. Whenever I note a statistic in the form A/B, what that means is that A is that statistic for the whole season (32 games) and B is the same statistic for Big-Ten games only. This is sometimes helpful to show that either the competition was tougher in the Big Ten, or at least that the player or team played better or worse in the in-conference vs. non-conference parts of the season.

Let's look at some individual statistics. In these, I will often include statistics for bench players who did not get the opportunity to play a lot of minutes, which simply means that there's not a statistically significant sample, but otherwise the numbers are exact.

We'll start out with overall (2-pointer + 3-pointer) field-goal percentage, where (bearing in mind the above commennt re small sample size) you may be shocked to find out who's our field-goal-percenage leader for the 2018/19 season. Here are your field-goal percentage leaders.

Player FG%
Kehinde Bello .571 / .500
Taiye Bello .535 / .500
Annalese Lamke .517 / .426
Destiny Pitts .417 / .421
Kenisha Bell .394 / .378
Irene Garrido Perez .384 / .417
Jasmine Brunson .373 / .384
Mercedes Staples .340 / .222
Palma Kaposi .321 / .370

That's right - Kehinde Bello achieved the best field-goal percentage at .571 - during all of 74 minutes (incuding 21 Big-Ten minutes) that she played. She beat out sister Taiye by 3.6%. She also matched Taiye's field-goal percentage of .500 for the Big-Ten games. Who says sisterly competition is not beneficial? Shouldn't there be some kind of medal for Kehinde for winning this year's sisterly field-goal-percentage competition? It could be an annual thing - like the axe with Wisconsin. Let's keep that competition going - it's all the better for spurring both of them on to greater achievements next year.

Right behind the twins in field-goal percentage is Annalese Lamke at .517 for the season. Clearly the posts are shooting shorter shots, right? Nevertheless it's hard work banging around under the basket, so thanks to our post players for that. Our hard-working guards follow in sequence, starting with Pitts then Bell, then the rest at about equally spaced intervals.

Now let's look at our top 3-point shooters, examining 3-point field-goal percentage.

Player 3FG%
Irene Garrido Perez .409 / .463
Destiny Pitts .352 / .358
Mercedes Staples .321 / .231 (however after coming back from injury during post-season play her 3-point shooting improved markedly)
Kenisha Bell .271 / .265
Jasmine Brunson .245 / .229
Delaynie Byrne .235 / .500

Irene Garrido Perez is your season leader in three-point field-goal percentage - thus claiming the remarkable achievement of slightly edging-out the great-shooting Destiny Pitts for the leader-board in three-point field-goal percentage. However, it's good to note that during the final games of the Big-Ten season on through to post-season play, Pitts was on fire from three (and in general). Overall, Pitts scored 81 three-pointers this year, plus 90 as a rookie, thus setting a Freshman+Sophomore record of 171 threes as noted by Gopher media. With fewer attempts, Perez was next with 27 triples on the season. Followed by Staples, Bell and Brunson with 18, 16 and 12, respectively. Both Pitts and Perez were hot from deep towards the end of the season especially.

The fact that Perez .463 Big-Ten percentage is higher than her season percentage is indicative of the fact that towards the end of the season she was a knock-down shooter from deep. If she had sustained that .463 percentage for the entire season, she would have been the third-ranked three-point-percentage shooter in NCAA Div I - a couple slots above Nebraska's Taylor Kissinger. Her actual full-season trey percentage of .409 puts her 25th in the nation - a couple slots ahead of Notre Dame's Marina Mabrey and couple slots behind Oregon's Satou Sabally and Maryland's Taylor Mikesell. Except for the fact that the official NCAA stats exclude her from the list due to too few three-pointer attempts (e.g., small sample size). But if she had gotten more minutes earlier in the season, she might have made that list.

Destiny Pitts full-season three-point percentage of .352 puts her 124th on the list of the best NCAA Div I three-point shooters by percentage. She too shot much better both in the Big-Ten part of the season and particularly in the latter part of the Big Ten and in the two playoffs. Even if she had maintained her slightly higher .358 Big-Ten average for the full season, that would have bumped her up to a tie for 106th place. But she shot over 50% from deep in some of those late-season games. Just for reference, the best NCAA Div I three-point shooting percentage this year was 47.4%. So one could say that Destiny was a bit of full-season consistency away from leading the NCAA in three-point percentage. Hopefully she can come back next season as hot as she finished this season (and aided in three-point shooting by Hubbard and Staples and some of the rookies).

Let's look at free-throw percentage.

Player FT%
Irene Garrido Perez 1.000 / 1.000
Destiny Pitts .838 / .797
Annalese Lamke .812 / .818
Kenisha Bell .702 / .706
Jasmine Brunson .663 / .655
Taiye Bello .631 / .653

Just for fun we listed Perez first - she shot six-for-six from the stripe - but we have to disount that as too small a sample. The real achievement is by Pitts, who (if I recall) hit about 29 straight free throws towards the end of the season. Wow! Like her three-point shooting, Destiny was on-fire from the charity stripe towards at the end of the season, and thus shot .838 FG% overall. Just edging out Lamke, who was leading earlier in the season.

I'll briefly mention Bell's 140 assists for the season. That's 4.375 per game. She also had 63 steals, or nearly two per game on average. Brunson and Pitts added 82 and 74 assists, respectivey. Also adding steals were Brunson, Bello and Pitts with 38 and 37 and 29, respectively, and Lamke, Staples and Perez with 20 and 20 and 18, respectively.

Taiye Bello racked up 380 rebounds on the season, followed by Kenisha Bell with 188 and Annalese Lamke with 160. Pitts had 131 rebounds and Kaposi had 93, followed by Brunson with 74.

I noted in a prior post that (at that time) Taiye Bello was 4th in the NCAA (Div I) in offensive rebounding this year - but since then (with a couple more playoff games under the bridge) she has moved up to third place in the NCAA Div I in offensive rebounds per game - namely 4.75 offensive rebounds per game. She just beat out Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah of Northwestern with whom she was neck-and-neck all year long. [Note that Pallas was named second-team all-Big-Ten and Taiye was named to the honorable mention team, and I think the basis for that order was more scoring by Pallas.] The two players to just barely edge-out Taiye for first and second place in offensive rebounds per game were Seniors Teaira McCowan (6'7") of Mississippi State and Kristine Anigwe (6'4") of Cal. Teaira was selected #3 in the WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever. Kristine was selected #9 by the Connecticut Sun (and thus will be a team-mate of Rachel Banham).

Taiye was also 8th in the NCAA in total rebounds per game. The top three in the total-rebounds-per-game list were (again) Kristine Anigwe and Teaira McCowan (in that order) with Megan Gustafson in third place. Because different players play different amounts of minutes per game, I actually prefer looking at statistics on offensive/defensive rebound production per minute of playing time. [These too have their faults since the stat is highly dependent on how good of a team you're playing, plus if your own team is shooting the lights out, then there are no offensive rebounds to be had. But with that as a caveat, I still like the per-minute rebounding stats.] Here are our season leaders in offensive rebounds per minute played.

Player Offensive Rebounds per Minute
Taiye Bello .152
Annalese Lamke .115
Palma Kaposi .113
Kenisha Bell .049

Here are our season leaders in defensive rebounds per minute played.

Player Defensive Rebounds per Minute
Taiye Bello .380
Kehinde Bello .229
Palma Kaposi .205
Annalese Lamke .124
Kenisha Bell .119
Destiny Pitts .102
Mercedes Staples .083
Jasmine Brunson .062

One can note from the last table that next season, Kehinde Bello is probably capable of replacing the defensive rebounding of Palma Kaposi. Plus we will have some rookie posts rebounding as well. The Gophers are also notable this year for the quality of their guard (defensive) rebounding - but we will lose Bell's rebound production in that regard. Staples and Brunson may need to step up their defensive rebounding next year, or hopefully some of our rookie guards will be good defensive rebounders.

From the combined offensive/defensive rebounds-per-minute stats note that this season Taiye has hauled in a total of .532 rebounds per minute played. Multiplying by 40 minutes, that means that if she were (hypothetically) to play the entire game, then she would probably haul in 21.3 rebounds on average. Or to put it another way, this year she was on pace for 21.3 rebounds per game. And bear in mind that in being the number-one ranked NCAA player in total rebounds per game, Kristine Anigwe hauled in an average of 16.2 rebounds per game. One can view the latter in several ways. One point of view is that if Taiye can play more minutes next year (e.g., by getting into less foul trouble thus sitting-out less), then she could easily lead the nation in total rebounds during her upcoming Senior year. Another possible point of view is that, since there is credible evidence (including genetic factors) that Kehinde Bello is capable of rebounding at a rate perhaps just slightly below the rate of her sister, then if we can get Kehinde's game to the level where she can play more minutes next year, then the sum of the twins total rebounding rate might be as good as 2 X the best rebounder in the NCAA (which might not be Taiye in this scenario since her sister stole some of the rebounds that she otherwise would have gotten). Moral of the latter story: Taiye - please work on upgrading your sister's game this summer as well as working on improving your own game.

Kenisha Bell led all scorers with 611 points this season. Destiny Pitts followed closely behind her, contributing 520 points. Bell and Pitts were the heart of the Gopher scoring machine. Next in scoring were Bello (309), Brunson (251), Lamke (247), Perez (109), Staples (86) and Kaposi (45).

Whay's biggest challenge next year may be replacing Bell's points. In fact, replacing all classes of production by all four graduating Seniors will be high on Whalen's list of next-season goals. Let's take a look at the sum total of different types of production by this year's Seniors, which will need to be replaced next year.

Points 1016 = 31.75 per game (out of our season average of 69.6 point per game)
Assists 211 = 6.59 per game
Offensive Rebounds 175 = 5.47 per game
Defensive Rebounds 305 = 9.53 per game
Steals 112 = 3.50 per game
Blocks 33 = 1.03 per game
(hopefully we will not replace) Turnovers 207 = 6.47 per game
(hopefully we will not replace) Personal Fouls 201 = 6.28 per game

We will very much miss all four of our graduating Seniors - not only for their basketball production, but also for their personalities and styles of playing the game and for being such great team-mates to their team. Plus, for one thing, they took 45.6% of our point production with them, not to mention 15 rebounds - how dare they?!? But seriously, thank you to the entire team, and especially the graduating Seniors, for such a great effort this year in spite of some factors like injuries that were beyond our control. And thank you to Lindsay Whalen and her staff for making a great coaching start toward what we expect to be an up-and-coming presence in the Big Ten and the NCAA.
 
Last edited:

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom