Who will lead the 2019-2020 Gophers in scoring?

Who will lead the 2019-2020 Gophers in scoring?

  • Taiye Bello

    Votes: 3 14.3%
  • Jasmine Brunson

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Gadiva Hubbard

    Votes: 2 9.5%
  • Destiny Pitts

    Votes: 16 76.2%
  • Jasmine Powell

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Sara Scalia

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Mercedes Staples

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    21
  • Poll closed .

Waffle

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Last years leading scorer graduated. Who will it be this season?
 

Destiny-She played over 37 minutes a game in B1G play last season; I doubt her work load is decreased this season.
 

Only thing to remember is Pitts will now be the top of every scouting report. Bell took some pressure off her last year. This year if destiny struggles, gophers will struggle. Look at their closed scrimmages. They lost one by 27 when she went 1-10 from 3. They won the next one when she scored 21. Hubbard I think will surprise people as they won’t have much tape on her in Whalen’s system.
 

Yes I am counting on Whalen getting Pitts into the flow earlier in the B1G season than she did last season.

In the Gopher's first nine B1G games Destiny scored: 13, 1, 7, 15, 16, 5, 10, 19 and 19.

In Minnesota's next nine B1G games Destiny scored: 19, 14, 17, 21, 27, 22, 24, 24 and 26.
 

Likely Pitts or Hubbard, but kind of hoping its Taiye. When was the last time a true post player led the Gophers (other than Zahui B. when Banham was injured)?
 


Likely Pitts or Hubbard, but kind of hoping its Taiye. When was the last time a true post player led the Gophers (other than Zahui B. when Banham was injured)?

You have to go back to Broback or McCarville

Scoring Average:

04-05 16.0 Janel McCarville
05-06 13.7 Jamie Broback
06-07 13.2 Kelly Roysland
07-08 17.2 Emily Fox
08-09 12.8 Emily Fox
09-10 13.1 Kiara Buford
10-11 14.9 Kiara Buford
11-12 16.1 Rachel Banham
12-13 20.7 Rachel Banham
13-14 22.1 Rachel Banham
14-15 18.8 Amanda Zahui B.
15-16 28.6 Rachel Banham
16-17 19.1 Carlie Wagner
17-18 20.0 Kenisha Bell
18-19 19.1 Kenisha Bell
 

Yes I am counting on Whalen getting Pitts into the flow earlier in the B1G season than she did last season.

In the Gopher's first nine B1G games Destiny scored: 13, 1, 7, 15, 16, 5, 10, 19 and 19.

In Minnesota's next nine B1G games Destiny scored: 19, 14, 17, 21, 27, 22, 24, 24 and 26.
Look at the above stats a bit differently by breaking it down into the first 7, and then the last 11 of the B1G games (thus grouping the last two 19-point games of the first set with the first 19-point game of the second set).

This gives you a points-per-game average for Pitts of 9.57 in the first 7 games, and 21.09 for the second 11 B1G games. That's more than a doubling, and an increase of about +11.5 points per game once she got dialed-in for the remainder of the season. Thus, it seems to me that's she's capable of 21 points per game this year. Yet, there will be a lot of defensive focus on her, as noted, so let's dial that expectation down to a target goal of 20 points for a decent game by Destiny.

For some reason, DP's shot was a bit off early last season, through the non-conf games (maybe less so then due to weaker opponents on average that had more trouble defending her) and in the early part of the B1G season. But then her "shooting radar" locked onto the target for the rest of the season. Plus, on the basis of that, her confidence went up. I expect her shot to be dialed in from the get-go this season, thanks to not only more shooting practice under her belt, plus also the benefits of the NOAH shot-practice feedback system.

Thankfully, Gadiva Hubbard will also be shooting for us again this year. She's easily capable of 10 points per game. And Jasmine Brunson is also capable of 10 points per game (maybe mostly shorter jumpers and penetration, more in the style of K. Bell). So together, I'd say that Pitts, Hubbard and Brunson are jointly capable of 40 points per game.

Likely Pitts or Hubbard, but kind of hoping its Taiye. When was the last time a true post player led the Gophers (other than Zahui B. when Banham was injured)?
I concur with Whay's statement (on record in another thread) that Taiye might well be capable of multiple 20/20 games this year. I'll predict that she'll get at least one of those during the non-conf season. During the B1G season, maybe the expectations need to be dialed back a bit due to tougher (and taller) competition in the post - maybe 15/15 would be a good game with a few games even better.

Another interesting phenomenon is the improvement of Kehinde (although still not a leading-scorer candidate). Even if the younger posts take a bit of time to mature their game, I think that this year, Kehinde will be a much more capable sub for her sister (e.g., should Taiye get in foul trouble, the coaches need not despair). I think that we might see at least one 25/25 game from the twins (combined).

If you add together the expected 40-point production of the three most experienced guards (OK, perhaps SF for Destiny) plus a reasonable combined expectaion for the Bellos (during a B1G game, say) of 20 points plus 20 rebounds, that gives you about 60 points. Add in production by the rest of the team, and we could have a lot of 80- to 95-point games this year. Hopefully, they can add solid defense plus minimization of turnovers to that, for a respectabe B1G showing.

In the long run, I think it doesn't matter who's the highest scorer. I think balanced scoring plus Bello-caliber rebounding might be the name of the game.
 

I think Hubbard could surprise people .. she was the Gophers best 3 point shooter when she was healthy in Stolings final season. she made 69 3's in her Sophomore season. Teams haven't seen Hubbard and Pitts together under Whalen, so Hubbard could be like Pitts was last year.
 

Destiny should lead the team in scoring. I also expect Hubbard to be somewhere in the mid-teens with her scoring average. In the second half of the season, Destiny not only shot better, she also put the ball on the floor sometimes and shot inside the arc. She's much more difficult to defend when she is a threat to get to the hoop. It's been a year since we've seen Gadiva's game, but she has a good all-around offensive game. She can get to the hoop and she can shoot it from beyond the arc. Also, she ran the court very well in Stollings' up-tempo offense. T. Bello will have some games in the 20s, but she'll be reliant on her teammates to get her the ball inside. Also, hoping to see some 6- to 10-foot jumpers from her, presuming she worked on that in the off-season.
 



After 3 games (and prior to the Arizona State game), your scoring leaders are ...

Average Points per Game (after 3 games)
T. Bello 15.0
Powell 12.7
Pitts 12.3
Brunson 10.7
Scalia 9.0
Hubbard 8.0

A balanced scoring attack of 67.3 points from the leaders, plus some more points from the deeper part of the bench.

Who thought we’d have two Frosh among the top-six scorers?
 
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