Spring Break
Moore looks to surpass the hype
Mike Northup
Issue date: 11/14/08 Section: Husky Hoopla
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First UConn freshman and just the second freshman ever to earn First Team All-American honors. First freshman to be named Big East Player of the Year. Finished just 16 points shy of Kara Wolter's record for most points in a single season in UConn history with 678. First on the 2007-08 team in points and 3-point field goals made, second in rebounds and third in assists.
Forward Maya Moore put together a rookie season for the ages last year for the Huskies, and she's still got three more to go.
So what can the favorite to win National Player of the Year do to improve upon her game going into her sophomore season? If you ask Moore and coach Geno Auriemma, there's plenty of work still to be done.
"Sometimes when you have a case like Maya Moore, there's so many things that she does to impact the game as a freshman that you almost think she's not," Auriemma said.
The average freshman, Auriemma said, needs work adjusting to the pace of the game and the demands that go along with it. By the time sophomore year rolls around, it's expected that you're adjusted and fewer problems result.
"And at that point, you start to ask more of them, and to think better, be more alert, recognize things that happen," Auriemma said.
The 6-foot-tall Moore has never had problems physically dominating her opponents, whether it was at Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Ga., in AAU ball with the Georgia Metros or even throughout the course of the previous year for UConn.
The biggest step this season for Moore, according to both Auriemma and herself, will instead need to take place inside her head.
"All her time in high school and AAU, there never had to be a Plan B," Auriemma said. "So now, as players get better that are guarding her and as situations we put her in are a little bit more difficult, how do you go to Plan B without thinking about 'I have to go to Plan B.'"
According to Auriemma, Moore is at her best on the floor when she can play to her instincts rather than having to read the game. Most of Moore's problems stem from when she's already made up her mind on what she's going to do before letting the play develop.
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