On Saturday’s episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, hosts Emily Adler, Hunter Cruse and Lincoln Shafer break down the Atlanta Dream hiring Karl Smesko from Florida Gulf Coast to be the Dream’s new head coach while also looking at the early college basketball season takeaways through the lens of the 2025 WNBA Draft.
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The trio started breaking down Smesko’s hire in Atlanta, with a variety of responses. While Adler wasn’t an immense fan, they all agreed that Smesko’s system has a better chance at translating to success in the WNBA than it would had Smesko left for a top college job.
“Karl Smesko’s system means get to the rim, shoot 3s and play defense,” Shafer said. “Karl Smesko, from all reports, very cool guy, very good coach and they have a long, long track record of just being incredibly successful at every level he’s been at.”
Cruse believes the Smesko hire, and particularly the system he’s expected to bring, will lead to some rather significant roster turnover for the Dream and pending free agents Tina Charles, Aerial Powers and others. But Cruse sees the hire as being a major opportunity to see Dream star Rhyne Howard shine.
“We’ve talked about how bad of a finisher she’s been so far,” Cruse said. “Hopefully, having more room to drive will create better results there — less pull-up 2s.”
The trio then moved on to discussing their WNBA Draft scouting notes from the early part of the 2024-25 college basketball season. As part of a big discussion about the South Carolina draft prospects, the trio all had praise for Te-Hina Paopao.
They also began to discuss the newest class of freshmen coming into college basketball and some standouts from that class. The main standout was UConn’s Sarah Strong, who shined for the Huskies in their win over North Carolina on Thursday.
“Her positional passing is eye-popping — even if it’s not necessarily full playmaking yet, it’s eye-popping,” Adler said. “Her screening is very good for a freshman playing her first legit game. The cutting and the movement around the perimeter are super advanced.”
They also highlighted NC State’s Zamareya Jones, the short guard who has had a strong start for the Wolfpack. The trio will continue looking at the college players through the lens of the WNBA Draft, building towards their next version of the WNBA Draft Board.
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