Also, to put it in perspective, Chiney's senior year tally was an insane 967 points. Nneka's senior year was 809, Chiney's junior year 805. To crack the top ten, Smith will need at least 623 points, which would put her just behind Nicole Powell, who had 627 points her senior year, good for ninth all time. Assuming we go deep into the PAC-12 and the tournament, we should be roughly halfway through the season, and since Smith seems to be picking up steam as she goes, you figure she'll at least match her current tally, if not out-perform it, since Tara subbed her out early in a lot of our early-season blowouts. Doubling 357 would put her around 720, which would put her 7th all time, between Candice's and Nneka's sophomore years (both missed games due to injury as juniors). If she keeps her average pace per game of 21 ppg, she'd finish just above Kate Starbird for 5th all time single season ppg, above Powell's 20.2. So Powell seems like a good analog for single season performance, albeit that Powell was a more consistent contributor across her four seasons.
Which seems about right: I'd put Smith one rung below our historically best offensive players (Wiggins and Ogwumike x2), who all started from basically their frosh years. Smith only became a regular starter last season, and only a reliable, game in, game out scorer this season. Even last season she had some really quiet games, including a stretch mid PAC-12 play where she scored in the single digits for something like 7 of 10 games. She exploded in the post-season and hasn't looked back since.
Intriguingly, she is also on pace to come very close to breaking Appel's single season record of 84 blocks (Smith has 40 so far), and will very likely pass Appel's junior year tally of 70 for 2nd all time. So although she has some weaknesses as a defender, as a shot blocker she will almost certainly be up there with Appel and Chiney, McCall and Tinkle, all of whom maxed out at 66 blocks in a season. And indeed, Smith already has 62 blocks, good for 7th all time, from last year...
Which seems about right: I'd put Smith one rung below our historically best offensive players (Wiggins and Ogwumike x2), who all started from basically their frosh years. Smith only became a regular starter last season, and only a reliable, game in, game out scorer this season. Even last season she had some really quiet games, including a stretch mid PAC-12 play where she scored in the single digits for something like 7 of 10 games. She exploded in the post-season and hasn't looked back since.
Intriguingly, she is also on pace to come very close to breaking Appel's single season record of 84 blocks (Smith has 40 so far), and will very likely pass Appel's junior year tally of 70 for 2nd all time. So although she has some weaknesses as a defender, as a shot blocker she will almost certainly be up there with Appel and Chiney, McCall and Tinkle, all of whom maxed out at 66 blocks in a season. And indeed, Smith already has 62 blocks, good for 7th all time, from last year...