WASHINGTON — When Brown senior Grace Arnolie drilled a 3-pointer early in the second quarter against George Washington on Saturday, first-year Charlotte Adams-Lopez understood her assignment for the rest of the half: Keep feeding Grace.
Three minutes later, Arnolie hit her third 3-pointer of the quarter off a quick pass from Adams-Lopez. She turned around, stuck out her tongue and high-fived her fellow point guard as they ran back on defense.
Arnolie would hit one more three before halftime, finishing with 14 points in the second quarter alone. Two of the 3-pointers were assisted by Adams-Lopez, and twice, Arnolie sought out her rookie for celebratory high-fives.
“[It] definitely felt good,” Arnolie told The IX Basketball postgame about her second-quarter surge. “Once I hit a couple, I was definitely looking for my shot. I’m glad they were falling and glad we were able to move the ball well.”
Adams-Lopez and Arnolie have started the last six games together for Brown. It’s proving to be a winning combination: The Bears are 4-2 in those games, and the two point guards have made each other’s lives easier on the court.
Entering the season, Arnolie was the Bears’ known quantity at point guard. She had already made three All-Ivy teams, including a second-team selection as a junior, and had started 74 of her 80 career games. And though she’d considered herself a shooting guard when she entered college, she became fully comfortable running the point last season.
“Grace is a scoring point guard and has really found how to become a great creator for her team, too,” head coach Monique LeBlanc told The IX Basketball after Saturday’s game.
So for LeBlanc, the only question mark about Arnolie entering the season was how many minutes she’d average. Over the years, LeBlanc has wanted to give Arnolie more rest, but she’s usually been too valuable to take off the court.
“I still feel connected to my — I don’t want to call it a promise, but I guess I’ll just call it my intention to get her some minutes [of rest] and help her play even fresher out there,” LeBlanc said in October. “I think that’s still the goal.”
LeBlanc’s hand was forced when Arnolie missed Brown’s first three games this season with an injury. She turned to Adams-Lopez, who she describes as “a true creator who can also score,” to fill that hole in the lineup.
Adams-Lopez, who teammates and coaches call “Chuck,” came to Brown from Bishop Feehan High School in Massachusetts — LeBlanc’s alma mater. She played in three state championship games and was part of a program-record 85 wins in four varsity seasons. She had a quiet college debut with 2 points, one assist, two turnovers and four fouls in 15 minutes in a loss at Belmont on Nov. 7. But that was about all the adjustment time she needed.
Adams-Lopez led the Bears with 14 points and played more than 30 minutes in each of the next two games — a 1-point loss at Holy Cross and a 2-point win at UMBC. She added five rebounds and three assists against Holy Cross and three rebounds against UMBC.
When Arnolie returned on Nov. 19, LeBlanc moved Adams-Lopez to the bench for one game, then decided to start them together. In their first game starting together, a blowout of Maine on Nov. 23, Arnolie had 22 points and four assists, and Adams-Lopez had a career-high seven assists. They also combined for eight rebounds and four steals. The lineup has stayed the same ever since.
Adams-Lopez has already won two Ivy League Rookie of the Week awards — one in Arnolie’s absence and one after Arnolie returned. She continued her strong play on Saturday with 9 points on 4-for-7 shooting, three assists and only one turnover.
This season, Adams-Lopez is averaging 7.3 points, 3.2 assists and 2.9 rebounds in 28.7 minutes per game. Her assists per game rank in the 92nd percentile nationally, and she is the Bears’ third-leading scorer. She has essentially given LeBlanc no choice but to keep playing her heavy minutes, even on a roster that has eight upperclassmen.
“I think that this is … less about us knowing from Day 1” that Adams-Lopez would play this well, LeBlanc said on Saturday. “… This is [more] a case of, she got an opportunity with Grace being out and really owned that and demonstrated that she’s somebody we can count on and that we need on the floor moving forward.”
Meanwhile, Arnolie has had a stellar senior season despite her delayed start. In seven games, she is averaging a career-high 17.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game. She is also shooting a career-high 40.9% from 3-point range on 6.3 attempts per game.
On Wednesday against Stonehill, Arnolie scored a season-high 27 points on 10-for-18 shooting, including 5-for-7 from 3-point range, and had three steals. She followed that up with 21 points on 5-for-10 3-point shooting on Saturday.
“I like everything about Grace’s shots,” LeBlanc said. “I really trust her to create and take good ones.”
The dual point-guard lineup is working so well because Arnolie and Adams-Lopez are making each other’s lives easier. Both are high-level scorers and passers, which relieves pressure on each of them. And any time an opponent decides to have its best defender pressure one of them full-court, LeBlanc just has the other one bring the ball up.
“Sometimes Grace gets pressured really heavily, and it’s like, ‘Let’s not mess around with it. Nobody has to … zigzag the whole backcourt and spend all that energy. Just let Chuck bring it up,’” LeBlanc said. “And then tonight, it was a little bit flipped.”
Having two point guards has also been a boon in halfcourt offense. Running a play for Arnolie no longer means that she always has to start with the ball and then get it back. Instead, Adams-Lopez can initiate the play, and Arnolie can move off the ball.
“I love playing point guard, but I also think it’s good to have someone who can be there and give me opportunities to play off ball as well,” Arnolie said. “And [Adams-Lopez has] been doing great at the point, too. So to be able to kind of switch off … has been really helpful to just kind of open up our offense a little bit more.”
With Adams-Lopez’s emergence, Arnolie has even gotten the rest LeBlanc intended this season. Arnolie is averaging 30.6 minutes per game, her fewest since playing 27.0 per game as a first-year. And in the seven games Arnolie has played, Adams-Lopez has played 65 minutes while she’s been on the bench.
For Adams-Lopez, adjusting to being a college point guard has been a lot simpler because of Arnolie’s presence. Since Arnolie’s return, Adams-Lopez has played 68% of her minutes next to Arnolie, who is leading the Bears in scoring. So she’s been able to learn from Arnolie in games and has her as a top target for most of the time she’s out there.
“It definitely takes a lot of the pressure off me having [Arnolie] out there,” Adams-Lopez told The IX Basketball on Saturday. “She probably has a lot of the attention on her, but … it’s just good to have a reliable scorer again.”
Adams-Lopez added, “That ability to rely on a teammate and just her consistency is amazing.”
On the season, 16% of Adams-Lopez’s assists have been to Arnolie, despite the fact that Arnolie missed three of Brown’s 10 games. And 25% of Arnolie’s assisted shots have been assisted by Adams-Lopez. Amy Dolores, Adams-Lopez’s coach at Bishop Feehan, once called her “a point guard’s point guard,” and she is embodying that with how well she’s pairing with Arnolie.
The synergy between the rookie and the veteran has helped Brown more broadly, too. The Bears have needed Adams-Lopez’s scoring not only with Arnolie out, but also since, as sophomore guard Gia Powell isn’t expected to play until at least January. Powell was their third-leading scorer last season before an injury sidelined her in February.
Arnolie and Adams-Lopez have also helped senior forward Alyssa Moreland have a career-best season. Moreland is averaging 13.2 points and 10.3 rebounds per game on 51.9% shooting from the field, and two-thirds of her assisted baskets have come off passes from her point guards.
Similarly, Adams-Lopez and Arnolie have combined to assist on more than half of sophomore forward Aima Ofunrein’s assisted baskets and more than 40% of junior guard Olivia Young’s.
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Overall, Brown’s offense and defense are both running more smoothly with both point guards on the floor. The Bears are outscoring teams by 33.8 points per 100 possessions with them on the court together, but they’re getting outscored when only one or neither is in the game. The team’s assist rate, turnover rate and effective field goal percentage are all best with both point guards in, too.
Brown’s potential showed in flashes on Saturday, as the Bears raced out to an 11-0 lead by rebounding the ball, pushing the pace and moving the ball quickly on offense. “We just went out there and tried to push the ball in transition and get paint-touch, kick-out threes,” said Adams-Lopez, who had 5 points in that span. But in the second half, the Bears couldn’t get enough defensive stops or transition opportunities, and they ended up losing by 5.
Last season, the Bears were a tough out all year with Arnolie as their elite point guard, just missing the four-team Ivy League Tournament on a tiebreaker. Now, with a first-year point guard who wears No. 12 to Arnolie’s 21, has similar brown curly hair and sometimes wears an identical single leg sleeve, opponents are seeing double.
As LeBlanc put it on Saturday, “Another team might really have one big defensive stopper that they want to put on the ballhandler. Well, we’ve got two.”
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