Uri's Holiday Rankings: Best Scorers, Pt. 1

The holiday break is always a nice 1/3 of the season marker for prep hoops. With most teams playing around 10 games, this marks the first break all season where there’s a large enough sample size to make a definitive statement on who’s been playing the best hoops. As part of my holiday rankings, it felt right to start with the big one: best scorers. A few things: 1. This list is my list and my list only, not that of PGH Wisconsin or my fellow scouts 2. Raw stats played a very small role in my evaluation, however, as is the case with measuring scoring, there is inevitably going to be a correlation between scoring capability and raw output 3. This list is exclusively a product of the 2021-2022 high school season, AAU and previous seasons were not considered 4. Things I value as an evaluator: aggressiveness, handle, isolation scoring, perimeter scoring, scoring without dominating the ball, shooting ability, ability to score in the paint, mid-range, and beyond the arc, creativity, and transition scoring Also, this is NOT an evaluation of a player’s overall game or talent. Just their scoring ability. For some players on this list, scoring isn’t even their best skill (see #9’s playmaking or #6’s denial defense). But enough chat let's get to it: 10. Rainey Welson | Hortonville | Class of 2025 | Guard/Forward | Uncommitted The leading scorer for the #1 team in Division 1 is a freshman. That’s the only validation that Welson needs for making this list. She’s burst onto the Varsity scene and has overpowered her matchups since day-1. Hortonville will run specific plays just to get Welson in iso situations, which speaks volumes to the kind of belief that Celeste Ratka and the Hortonville coaching staff have in her. That belief does not come unwarranted. Once Welson turns the corner on her opposition, it’s either a bucket or free throws. Welson has one of the most electric first-steps in D-1, making her a threat whenever she has the ball in isolation settings. And Welson keeps getting better and better at controlling her speed. The addition of small hesitations in conjunction with her crazy run/jump athleticism makes her an absolute terror when attacking the basket. And while Welson has shown the ability to be a more than viable catch-and-shoot threat from the outside, she’ll need to add more creativity to her outside shooting. Again, she’s no slouch as a shooter, but when looking at the best in the state, the next step after is adding dribble-moves and movement to your shots. Doing so would open up her shot profile to high-percentage midrange looks and make her an even greater threat from the outside. The idea that Welson can become an even more deadly scorer should terrify defenses for years to come. 9. [player_tooltip player_id="132372" first="Kamy" last="Peppler"] | Hortonville | Class of 2022 | Guard | #6 Overall Prospect | Committed: UW-Milwaukee Very few players make an offense sing like Peppler. Every shot she takes comes so succinctly within the flow of the game. A couple of threes here, a blow by there, a transition bucket along the way, and before the defense has time to think about what just happened, she's dropped 20+ and Hortonville's added another dub to their resume. But don’t take this to mean she’s passive. Peppler will murder the defense if and when they slip up. Her opportunism at the point of attack is deadly, especially given the precision of her jumper at range. She feasts on defenses as they try to organize themselves in semi-transition, pulling up from way downtown and holding the release to let the defense know that they messed up. And in the half-court, few players have the level of "guard skills" that Peppler possesses--dribbling, vision, patience, shooting, finishing, etc. She has one of the tightest and most creative dribble packages in the state and operates an offense like a surgeon. The one knock I have on Peppler is that I almost wish she would take more shots. Her comfort handling the rock and raw quickness means she routinely leaves her matchup in the dust but opts to sling the ball around the perimeter like the pure point guard she is. She’s a superstar in her role as the starting point guard for one of the most talented teams in the state, which limits her scoring output. All that being said, Peppler gets buckets. She’s a three-level scorer who also happens to make everyone around her better. A future floor-raiser and ceiling-pusher for UW-Milwaukee. 8. [player_tooltip player_id="132376" first="Jacy" last="Weisbrod"] | Aquinas | Class of 2022 | Wing/Forward | #13 Overall Prospect | Committed: Northern Colorado Weisbrod gets the ultimate respect when she touches the ball. Coaches across Divison 4 find themselves yelling "Shooter! Shooter!" every time Weisbrod gets the ball. And to their credit, they aren’t wrong. The 24.4-point-per-game hooper is a bucket from downtown Weisbrod is one of the most dynamic shooters in the state regardless of Divison. She can kill you in the catch-and-shoot game, off movement, and off of pull-ups. She stays in a triple-threat position on the ball and attacks with a low dribble. She lacks elite speed and twitchy quickness but makes up for it with her ability to punish space with her jumper. One of the more unique aspects of her game is her ability to set screens in order to free herself. Off-ball screens cause a commotion for help defenses and Weisbrod knows how to manipulate this confusion into open looks. This angle makes up for her lack of straight-line explosiveness or crazy dribble package, she just knows how to get open. And while I expect some may be upset that a D-4 player finds themselves in the top scoring rankings when considering the strength of D-1 and D-2 but consider this: 53% from three-point range. Find me the level of basketball where truly elite outside shooting isn’t one of the three most important offensive skills. Weisbrod is a hooper who’ll be killing folks from downtown at the local YMCA well after retiring from the game of basketball. 7. [player_tooltip player_id="132373" first="Jordan" last="Meulemans"] | De Pere | Class of 2022 | Wing | #4 Overall Prospect | Committed: Butler Meulemans is looking to do two things on the offensive end: 1. Kill you from the outside and 2. leak out in transition for easy buckets. And boy is she good at those two things, to the tune of 25.5 points per contest, fourth in the state. That’s obviously an oversimplification of her game. When I say "kill you from the outside," Meulemans is one of the best in the business at attacking soft coverage with her jumper. She punishes defenders sagging off of her and relishes the opportunity to hit open threes in someone’s face. She has one of the quickest releases on this list and has a nearly unblockable release point. Her jump shot is one of the premier weapons in the state. And in transition, she explodes to the cup. Meulemans spearheads the De Pere defense, which naturally leads to leak-out opportunities. Again, her length makes challenging her shot in transition extremely difficult, as she uses her body well to shield the ball, and extends on her lay-ins. That explosion that you see on the break will sometimes show its head in the half-court. Though Meulemans isn’t a natural half-court, on-the-ball scorer, when she has her chances to attack the basket, she gets low, winding up like a spring, and detonates at the rim. Butler has themselves one of the most efficient scorers in the state. 6. [player_tooltip player_id="132379" first="Lily" last="Krahn"] | Prairie du Chien | Class of 2022 | Wing/Forward | #5 Overall Prospect | Committed: UW-Madison I can’t help but feel a twinge of personal happiness knowing that Krahn’s going to be a Badger for the years to come. She’s a versatile offensive weapon whose shown prowess both on and off the ball. There are so many aspects of her game that translate to the next level. First and foremost is the movement shooting. Krahn is one of the best relocation shooters in the state. As simple as it may sound, her ability to pass and cut into open space is lethal. She stretches the defense with her shooting and her movement, creating gravity that the defense has to stay attached to. And on the ball, her handle, speed, aggression and balance set her apart. She isn’t afraid of contact and has the core strength to go from full speed into a shot without looking erratic. This includes drive attempts, mid-range pull-ups, and side-step/step-back three-point shots. She’ll have to do a better job using her handles to attack space at the next level, but the raw skills and footwork are there for her. I just wish she’d be more aggressive. For Prairie du Chien, she should be getting 20+ shots a night. That she’s averaging 20.3 a game without shooting more than 20 shots in any game so far this season is a testament to her skill level and efficiency. Marissa Mosely’s first splash in recruiting is a big one.