Our weekly WNBA Retrospect series continues at Locked on Women’s Basketball! The series reviews game film, stats, news articles, and more to determine who has been the best prospect in WNBA history. Last week, Hunter Cruse, Em Adler and Lincoln Shafer discussed the top three picks in an incredible 2013 WNBA Draft: Baylor’s Brittney Griner, Delaware’s Elena Delle Donne and Notre Dame’s Skylar Diggins-Smith. This week, the trio will be discussing the Gold Mamba out of Notre Dame, Jewell Loyd.
Loyd was a major piece of the dominant Notre Dame squads from 2012-13 through 2014-15, including playing over 31 minutes per game as a freshman on a team that wasn’t lacking in backcourt talent, with Diggins-Smith and Kayla McBride already being veteran contributors. After declaring for the draft after just her junior year, Loyd went on to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 WNBA draft, joining the Seattle Storm en route to the franchise’s resurgence in the late 2010s.
Em on the mechanics that made Jewell’s shooting so exciting as a prospect:
She is just so smooth moving into the catch that [her shots] … technically look like a high degree of difficulty. But in reality, you know, she’s just able to be so comfortable and the power transfer is just so smooth into these shots, that it really reduces the amount of time that she needs to get them off.
Watch or listen to the full podcast to hear the rest of the prospect report on Loyd. And make sure to subscribe to the Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about the WNBA, women’s college basketball, basketball history, and much more!