Young Point Guards in the Big 12

[carolann]

I was thinking about FOY. I started looking at the Big 12 stats. What struck me was the number of freshmen point guards leading teams this year. I was going to call this thread, "freshmen point guards" but changed it to "young" to include sophmore, Shalee Lehning.

We've seen the recent graduation of veteran point guards such as Jamie Carey, Erin Grant, Latoya Bond, and Nina Norman. This year will be the last for Lindsey Medders, Britney Brown, and Kendra Moore. One might ask, who's going to be leading the teams? Not to worry.

The 4 below (3 freshmen and a sophmore) have taken command of their teams. All can make the assist or make the shot. I’ve seen Lehning, Riley, and Cortijo go the basket. Kohn? I don’t remember. Someone who’s watched KU games will have to tell me. All 4 have at least a decent outside shot. Most are good rebounding guards when they need to be.

Shalee Lehning – Sophmore, KSU
Lehning was fun to watch against Baylor. You could see the fire in her eyes as she continually grabbed her teammates together. I don’t know what she was telling her teammates, but she was saying it with conviction. A true point guard leader seemed to me to be the missing piece on the team that included Ohlde, Wecker, Mahoney, and Koehn.

Andrea Riley – Freshman, OSU
She looks good in the stats and she looked pretty good on the television screen yesterday against Texas Tech. She’s a good fit for a Budke team.

Kelly Kohn – Freshman, Kansas
She’s another freshman point guard who is putting up good numbers and leading her team on the floor. Just by the numbers, she could be a FOY candidate. It may not help her that KU isn’t doing better in conference, but I think people can see that KU is an improved team.

Carla Cortijo – (redshirt)Freshman, Texas
She has taken over the Texas team since conference play began. Anyone who watched Texas/Texas A&M today knows how important Cortijo is to the Longhorns. Since the injury to Erika Arriaran, Cortijo has increased her minutes from a little over 20 minutes a game to close to 40 minutes. Cortijo averages over 4 assists a game on the year and over 5 in conference play.

Other young point guards:

Raquel Christian, freshman, Texas Tech
She made the winning shot for Texas Tech yesterday. The quickness of Christian and Henderson was a crucial part of Tech’s ability to pull out the win yesterday.

Whitney Houston – Freshman, Colorado
Another small, quick point guard.

Following are some stats from the Big 12 site before today’s Texas/Tx A&M game. The numbers are the left show the numerical ranking in Big 12 conference games only.


SCORING AVG
14.Kohn, Kelly-KU........... 12.2
15.Riley, Andrea-OSU........ 11.6
23.Cortijo, Carla-UT........ 10.5
29.Lehning, Shalee-KSU...... 9.8

Rebounding
18.Lehning, Shalee-KSU...... 6.2


Field Goal Percent
7.Lehning, Shalee-KSU...... .545

ASSISTS
1. Cortijo, Carla-UT........ 5.25
3. Riley, Andrea-OSU........ 4.40
4. Lehning, Shalee-KSU...... 3.60
10.Kohn, Kelly-KU........... 3.00

ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIO (Min. 3.0 assists/game)
1. Cortijo, Carla-UT........ 1.91
6. Kohn, Kelly-KU........... 1.25
8. Riley, Andrea-OSU........ 1.10
9. Lehning, Shalee-KSU...... 0.90

STEALS
6. Riley, Andrea-OSU........ 2.20
7. Lehning, Shalee-KSU...... 2.00
11.Kohn, Kelly-KU........... 1.80

Murphree at Tech is very good, but is her future at Tech at the point guard position?

[BearLady]

Excellent points, carolann. And great re-cap. Lehning is a budding star. I think Cortijo is as well. I sure enjoy watching them play.

[sybarite]

I'm not sure what you want to call Jordan Murphree. She's pretty good at some guard position, if not a traditional point.

Jenna Plumley is getting playing time away from Kendra and Britney.

You could do this at a number of positions with last year's and this year's classes of freshmen. People almost forgot to notice that Griffin is a superior center. Danielle Wilson has been stunning this year. Lot of talent coming into the conference. Some of it is hidden behind starters.

[carolann]

You're right. We could do that at a number of positions.

Yes, Plumley is a freshman point guard that I forgot to mention. Near the end of the OU@CU game, OU, of course, wanted to get the ball to Courtney Paris. Who did Coale put in the game to help make sure that happened? Freshman, Jenna Plumley. And, Jenna made a couple of excellent entry passes.

[Bball Girl]

interesting issue...thanks for bringing it up.

I think that Christian will be our point guard next year or we might see Murphree and Christian trading off depending on what they're running.

Riley is going to give other teams some nightmares...she's got great speed with quick hands. I enjoyed watching her.

Lehning and Cortijo are so different...but fun to watch and having an impact.

I haven't really seen the others play much yet...

[wildcatwomen]

I never really thought about this subject in terms of the entire conference. It certainly shows that things will only get more exciting in the coming years.

I appreciate the positive comments on Wildcat Shalee Lehning. She's quite the kid - came from a town of 1500 where her team only lost 6 games in 6 years -- four her freshman year in high school and two her sophomore year (no losses in grades 7, 8, 11, and 12). She made the transition from high school to a leadership role on the WNIT championship team with grace and confidence.

I feel really lucky to get to watch such talented players all season long.

If you want to start talking about young post players I'd nominate Marlies Gipson and Ashley Sweat from KSU along with Kelsey Griffin from Nebraska and Bernice Mosby from Baylor. Need we even consider either Paris sister "young"? Kelsey really impressed me last season and she was not in good health then. This season could prove to be even more successful for her.

[HuskerFan86]

Coming into the season, I'm guessing most people would've said that Lyndsey Medders was hands down the best point guard in the Big 12, with Takia Starks also in contention. However, after watching Lydnsey play a few times on TV and having seen Shalee play in person this past week, I would say Lehning is on the verge of or may already be the best point in the conference. Her ability to penetrate deep into the lane and create shots for herself and others is unbelievable and she seems to have all the intangibles you look for in a great point guard. If I had to build an allstar team from Big 12 players, Shalee would be my starter at the point.

Also, people should watch out for Yvonne Turner from Nebraska as a point guard for the future. She has been playing some outstanding defense recently, her ballhandling is solid, and her minutes have been on the rise now that the conference season has started. She also hit a huge three pointer vs. Mizzou on saturday to maintain the Huskers dwindling lead. I also think Kiera has taken Yvonne "under her wing" this season and I don't think she could ask for a much better mentor:)

I think KState will be dynamite next year with Gipson (soph), Lehning (soph), Zanotti (soph), Sweat (fr), and Kincaid (fr) and Wheeler (r-soph?) returning as their nucleus (although the loss of Coggins will hurt a lot).

People may think NU will drop off the map after the loss of Hardy, Aubry, and Spiric next year, but I think our future teams could be even better with Griffin (soph), LaFleur (soph), Page (jr), Turner (fr), and Montgomery (fr) as our foundation.

Kansas and Texas are both insanely young, most of aTm's best players are sophomores, Baylor has Wilson, Bradley, Morrow, Allison, Player, and Darett who I think are all freshmen and sophomores...The conference is really scary this year, but I think it might be even better over the next couple of years.

[ChipperF1]

I like Lehning. She's got something you haven't seen in a K-State point guard in a long time. This kid has explosion combined with smarts. Last year, she learned how good she could be and now she's showing it. I don't know if she's Lyndsey Medders good yet, but she's getting there.

"People may think NU will drop off the map after the loss of Hardy, Aubry, and Spiric next year, but I think our future teams could be even better with Griffin (soph), LaFleur (soph), Page (jr), Turner (fr), and Montgomery (fr) as our foundation.

It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. When you look at Hardy for example. She was solid, but inconsistent. Aubry was rather substandard, until this year. Jelena Spiric, is rather pedestrian as well. So maybe just maybe, it won't be as big a loss as some may think. We're losing a senior class that moved the program forward, but we have returning players who have a greater upside.
Where Nebraska will end up will really depend on the growth of our younger cast in the next year. Kelsey Griffin has the potential to be the best Husker womens basketball player ever if she continues to expand her game and improve. T.K. LaFleur is a serious defensive glove, but you have the work the LaToya Doage rough edges out of her game. T.K. lacks control with the basketball and doesn't shoot consistently well. Yvonne Turner is very much the same. Defensively awesome, offensively? Needs a lot of work. Danielle Page is a good summer in the weight room away from being really, really awesome. Right now she's Chuck Rogers, and that ain't bad....She could evolve to Leah Rush with some upgrades. Cori Montgomery is also quite formidable. I like what she's showing. She's has the ability and the want-to. She just needs experience.
Nicole Neals needs work, but has that want-to as well. So does Kala Kuhlmann. Nikki Bober is the project, but next year she has to take a step forward..
Plus, there is the recruiting pipeline. If Nebraska can continue the progress we are seeing this year, that could bring a whole new level of talent here. Getting the good in-state talent to stay helps, but expanding that pipeline will be necessary to move us up in a very competitive league.


The Big 12 is going to be quite a battle in the next few years. I think the folks who are selling this league short will be in for quite or surprise in the years ahead. The talent pool is swinging into our favor.