Love Women's Basketball Share Our Passion For Women's Basketball
On paper USK Prague have looked good for some time since the fall of Brno. Several Czech National Team stars, good Americans and Europeans, but the outcome on the floor has been disappointing.
Main issue I see Prague has had was on the defensive end and particularly rebounding. In a group that featured the likes of VICI-Aistes, Lotos Gdynia and Gyor, Prague were outrebounded by 4 rebounds per game on average.
That issue was addressed by signing Kia Vaughn and Rebbekah Brunson. Early returns on bringing in Kia Vaughn have not been optimistic – Prague were outrebounded by 12 rebounds earlier this week by Nicole Ohlde and Hana Horakova led Brno. Rebbekah Brunson should have a larger impact on rebounding, but how well she works together with Vaughn is yet to be seen.
You would figure that with their height USK would be one of the last teams struggling with rebounding, but their tall wing players aren’t particularly mobile, so they tend to get outhustled for rebounds.
Touching up a little bit on the remaining post players – neither Ilona Burgrova, nor Jelena Dubljevic have been particularly good rebounders so Brunson and Vaughn will be essential.
Oddly enough of the four posts, Rebbekah Brunson has the worst career shooting percentage and it’s not close – Brunson’s shooting at 42% while the other three have been shooting well in their fifties.
On the wings Eva Viteckova is a very good player to have – 40+ percent shooters from behind the arc don’t grow on trees. Despite the good shooting touch, Viteckova tends to disappear for games at a time. Katerina Elhotova is quite similar to Viteckova in that regard.
Neither of the signed Montenegro guards, Jelena Skerovic and Anna de Forge, are not nearly as good shooters as the both Czech players. De Forge is not a good ball distributor either, so basically the only thing she brings to the team is the miscellaneous “veteran experience”. Skerovic appears will be the main distributor of the team. Odds are that with these high percent shooters around her, she will have a sub average season in terms of assists.
Not much about French guard Anael Lardy. She’s basically Elin Eldebrink of this team – will not matter in the outcomes of any of the games.
As many times before, this team “should” finish third in Group C. If history is any indicator, they’ll finish fourth with a bad enough record to get a Russian team in the playoffs.
