March 18, 2023
Locked on Women’s Basketball: Good, bad and ugly for WNBA Draft prospects
By The Next
Which sharpshooters' games will translate best to the WNBA?
The latest episode of Locked on Women’s Basketball continues our series of scouting reports on the top 2023 WNBA Draft prospects! In today’s episode, co-hosts Hunter Cruse and Em Adler are joined by special guest Lincoln (dovienya_ on Twitter) to discuss UConn’s Lou Lopez Sénéchal, Iowa State’s Ashley Joens, Ohio State’s Taylor Mikesell and Oklahoma’s Taylor Robertson.
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Lopez Sénéchal played four seasons at Fairfield and was the 2021-22 MAAC Player of the Year before coming to UConn this season as a graduate student. The 6’1 guard/forward is averaging 15.7 points and 3.2 rebounds per game while shooting 46.7% from the field and 43.0% from 3-point range. Lincoln dives into the intricacies of Lopez Sénéchal’s shot compared to other spot-up shooters in this draft class:
“Lou’s shot is, it comes a lot more out of dribble handoffs and coming [off of] one-dribble pull-ups, whereas Joens is shooting a lot more spot-ups off of drive-and-kicks and coming … in isolation, one-on-one possession. And Lou’s shot is a bit more compact than a lot of other shooters; she keeps her base wide and has a really, really sweet stroke. But it can be a bit heavy in her right shoulder. Especially later in games, I’ve noticed that she’s kind of pushing with her right shoulder rather than setting a base. But she still makes a whole lot of her shots coming off of dribble handoffs, especially even late in games when she’s losing her mechanics a little bit.”
Em then questions how Joens’ shooting will translate to the WNBA if she is asked to play a different role than she does currently as a ball-dominant player for Iowa State. The 6’1 guard/forward is averaging 21.5 points and 9.6 rebounds per game on 41.7% shooting from the field and 35.5% from 3-point range, and she recently notched her 3,000th career point.
“If you’re not someone who’s going to command the ball a whole lot because you can create offense for the rest of the team, you’re going to be set up in the corner a lot. You’re going to be taking those corner threes. But also, the thing is, given the stat breakdowns, she derives so much of her shooting off the dribble and … coming off of very high ball screens and coming off these high players. And it sort of directs where an offense can go if she’s not going to be as dominant on the ball as she has been at Iowa State.”
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