Best paint crew ever?

By Warren Grimes, a dedicated Cardinal fan

Kayla Pedersen and Jayne Appel have coined the term “paint crew” to describe the team’s interior players – and what a fine crew it is – probably the best Stanford has seen and arguably the best of any college team in women’s hoops today. The paint crew includes Nneka Ogwumike and Sarah Boothe, players that have already made their mark just two months into their freshmen year. Other players who play in the paint are Jillian Harmon, Michelle Harrison, and Ashley Cimino. There is size, talent, athleticism, determination and depth in Stanford’s paint crew.

But the title of best paint crew ever would not go uncontested. Players such as Val Whiting, Brooke Smith, and Kristin Newlin have left their mark on Stanford basketball history. If one is looking for Stanford teams with a similar profile to today’s team, one is led inexorably to the Stanford teams of 1994 to 1997, when Georgia coach Andy Landers, faced with playing Stanford in the NCAA tournament, complained that Stanford had an unending rotation of tall and talented posts. In those days, the paint crew included Olympia Scott, Kristin Folkl, Naomi Mulitauaopele, and Heather Owen, supplemented by Venessa Nygaard, who occasionally played a post position. That crew led Stanford to a number of Final Fours. In 1996-97, with the help of Kate Starbird, Jamila Wideman, and Charmin Smith, Stanford gave Tennessee a thrashing in Nashville but could not overcome Old Dominion in a frustrating Final Four overtime loss.

Comparisons of the paint crew of 1997 with today’s group are slippery. The game has changed, with more talented posts on opposing teams. Stanford’s style of offense has changed (to the modified triangle offense). Post players assume different roles when they are playing with Wideman and Starbird than they do with a different group of perimeter players. Still, basketball is basketball – shooting, blocking out, and boarding are pretty much the same now as they were then. So, for fun, why not make some statistical comparisons between players then and now. A few results may surprise you.

I have taken four players who play primarily post positions on today’s Cardinal team (Jayne Appel, Kayla Pedersen, Nneka Ogwumike, and Sarah Boothe) and added three from the mid-1990s teams (Olympia Scott, Kristin Folkl, and Naomi Mulitauaopele). The stats for this year’s players are for the current season through the Washington State game. The stats for Scott and Folkl are for the 1997-1998 team (the last year they played for Stanford). For Mulitauaopele, the stats are for 1996-1997, the last year she played. In the parenthesess following each statistic, I have indicated the player’s relative rank among the seven players.

Player	FG%	Pts/min	Reb/min	Asst/min	Blks/min
Folkl	.695 (1)	.749 (1)	.372 (1)	.053 (5)	.026 (4)
Appel	.609 (2)	.557 (3)	.370 (2)	.109 (1)	.077 (2)
Ogwumike	.600 (3)	.506 (4)	.304 (3)	.064 (3)	.019 (5)
Scott	.577 (4)	.631 (2)	.271 (6)	.052 (6)	.019 (5)
Mulitauaopele	.536 (5)	.472 (5)	.264 (7)	.075 (2)	.044 (3)
Boothe	.484 (6)	.434 (6)	.294 (5)	.052 (6)	.092 (1)
Pedersen	.419 (7)	.406 (7)	.304 (3)	.057 (4)	.014 (7)

Kristin Folkl comes off well in this comparison, with the number one position in field goal percentage, points per minute, and rebounds per minute. Folkl was an amazing athlete, one who played volleyball all four years, leading Stanford to three national championships. She found time to play basketball for two seasons and a fraction of a third (during her junior year, Folkl played only the final five games of the regular season and five post season games). In two of her three basketball years, Stanford made the final four. In her senior year, Folkl was a force in leading Stanford to a number one seed in the tournament, only to see high expectations undone when both Folkl and Vanessa Nygaard suffered ACL tears in the week before Stanford’s first round game against Harvard.

Comparing Kristin Folkl and Jayne Appel is difficult, because Folkl was not a classic post-up center. Jayne Appel, by a significant margin, has the highest number of assists per minute (Mulitauaopele comes in second, well above the third place finisher). In rebounds per minute, Folkl is the best, but is really in a statistical dead heat with Jayne Appel. Overall, Appel has a consistency, with a first or second finish in four of the five categories (in the fifth, points per minute, Appel comes in a strong third). She is a leading all-time shot blocker, well above Folkl’s blocking percentage.

Kristin Newlin had established the benchmark for Stanford shot blockers, in her last year blocking at .061 per minute. But Newlin’s record is now bettered by both Appel (this year .077 blocks per minute) and by newcomer Sarah Boothe, who leads in this category with .092 blocks per minute.

To finish seventh in a category on this list of all-time greats is no shame. Kayla Pedersen finishes seventh in three of the categories, but she is a tenacious rebounder, tied with Nneka Ogwumike for third place in boards per minute. Pedersen’s shooting stats are influenced by where she plays in the offense - she has occasionally played in the “three” position and, regardless of her assignment, often operates offensively on the perimeter, attempting three point shots more than other players on this list. This year, her three point shots have fallen only at a 22% rate, leading to an overall shooting percentage of 42%. That’s impressive – but I’m sure Pedersen will work to improve that figure. Last year, Pedersen ended the season with a 50% shooting average

For both Ogwumike and Boothe, a comparison drawn with other players with two or three years of experience is open to challenge – both freshmen are likely to climb the statistical ladder with more experience. Both have yet to learn to play defense with the savvy of veteran post players. But Ogwumike, based on just two months of play, already comes in third in field goal shooting percentage, rebounds per minute, and assists per minute – that’s very impressive. In each of these categories, Ogwumike is ahead of, among others, Olympia Scott, who went on to a decade long career in the WNBA

So which paint crew was the best ever? You decide – but it’s hard to vote against fresh paint. And this year’s crew is getting better every game.