Uri’s Week 5 Filmroom: Pass-First Playmakers

I’ll openly admit that I have a massive bias towards players that can make magical passes and elevate everyone around. I believe that they are inherently winning players even if they end up on the wrong side of the scoreboard. They’re the most fun players to play with at all levels--high school, AAU, pick-up in your local park--and deserve to be showcased. Week 5 in Wisconsin prep hoops certainly showcased some of the steadiest playmakers in the state. Players whose core contribution to their team is their creation, acting as a multiplier effect for the skill levels of their teammates. Let’s breakdown some of the best pass-first playmakers I saw this week: <strong>Makenna Huguet | New Berlin West | Class of 2022 | Point Guard | Unranked</strong> What always stands out about a team in their half-court sets is who <em>looks </em>like the most natural point guard on the court. Who has the most comfortable handle? The most natural passes? The most fluid motions along the perimeter? This player is the one you want with the ball in their hands to initiate your offense and for New Berlin West, Huguet fits the bill. She doesn’t force passes and has great feel for spacing along the perimeter. She routinely positions herself in a way that opens her up to receive the ball and create for others, look at the play below: https://youtu.be/5wuaiHr8z-g This is a great example of how small movements and reading the floor can make players around you better. With the ball in a suboptimal position (baseline, with the dribble already picked up), Huguet uses a little v-cut to get more space from the defender and move from the weakside top of the key to the strongside slot, a much easier pass to make. The ball isn’t in her hand for more than half a second before she swings it to the weakside wing for an open three. That shot didn’t go in, but regardless of the result it’s the small stuff that a lot of players don’t do that shows how comfortable a playmaker Huguet is. Speaking of comfort, Huguet’s ability to handle the rock opens up so many more playmaking opportunities, especially in transition/semi-transition contexts. Her handle lets her initiate the offense instead of waiting for someone else to do so. The play below (again against West Allis) epitomizes this. https://youtu.be/8WpjJXKUKeU Watch the play again and pause at around six seconds. Huguet has <em>5 sets of eyes </em>on her. She reads the floor quickly and it leads to a trey bomb for NBW. This is some more of that "small stuff". Huguet attacks the middle of the floor in semi-transition, knows where her perimeter players need to be, reads the floor accordingly, and picks out the <em>most </em>open player for the <em>best </em>shot. None of that is inherently complicated, but it’s what makes Huguet such a good point. Handle, IQ, vision, confidence. One more play, this one against New Berlin Eisenhower. Again, like a mid-90s Tupac album, all eyes on her. Now look at the simple and killer read she makes: https://youtu.be/JjQUXlPzTSI Skip pass over three defenders for the three. But notice how hard the weakside help-defender commits to the paint. Huguet waits for the extra half-second until the defender takes one too many steps away from her assignment to fire the bullet to the opposite wing. I’d also like to believe that this was all set up by the pass fake to Megan Schultz. This would make a seemingly simple read a touch more complex, manipulating the defense’s goal of stopping Schultz and turning it into easy buckets. Huguet exemplifies the idea that the simplest play is sometimes the hardest to make, but the most effective at the same time. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="204139" first="Katelyn" last="Nee"] | New Berlin Eisenhower | Class of 2022 | Point Guard | Unranked</strong> Nee is another talented passer that demonstrates a lot of similar qualities to Huguet. Feel, handle, know-how, etc. But what immediately pops out with Nee is her execution. Eisenhower runs a lot of interesting stuff to open up the paint for [player_tooltip player_id="204151" first="Brynn" last="Fuerstenberg"] and Nee is the locomotive that is endowed with the responsibility to make sure everything runs as smooth as possible. Take one of the opening plays against Greendale this past week for example: https://youtu.be/tHiTCYwBC-g This play isn’t Eisenhower’s offensive set, it’s a designed play with the intention of getting #11 great inside positioning against a 2-3 zone. The play begins with the wing/forwards at the freethrow line, Fuerstenberg on the weakside corner, and the two best ball-handlers at the slots. The wings break, setting down screens against the 3 and 4 position of the 2-3. This lets Fuerstenberg dive cut to the basket and attack the rim. Now pay attention to Nee. 1. She’s the one organizing the positioning of the wing players. 2. She’s constantly looking over the top to align her pass with the natural timing of the play. And 3. <em>That pass arrives like a bullet the second Fuerstengerg enters the passing window</em>. There’s no laziness in anything she did to get her teammate open and her leadership sured up the execution of the play. Another one of my favorite aspects of Nee’s game is her transition play. She consistently looks to advance the ball with a pass instead of with the dribble. And the passes she chooses to sling down the court are coming at you with pace and accuracy. The old adage of the point guard being the quarterback of a basketball team rings most true in transition. Look at how Nee finds her runner in the play below: https://youtu.be/ilxE03dSqsg Again, Nee finds Fuerstenberg and puts the pass exactly where it needs to be. Her head is up the entire time reading the open floor, finding a rather significant heigh mismatch in transition and exploiting the opportunity to get an easy bucket. This goes back to the pride Nee demonstrates on every possession. While an easy read that most point guards <em>should </em>make, you can watch 10 straight Ike girls varsity basketball games and you’ll see Nee make the exact same play time and time again. She reads the court, finds her target, attacks space with passes, and exploits advantages. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="156106" first="Tahlia" last="Moe"] | Stevens Point (SPASH) | Class of 2023 | Point Guard | #61 Overall Prospect</strong> I already wrote about [player_tooltip player_id="156106" first="Tahlia" last="Moe"] <a href="https://prepgirlshoops.com/2021/12/monday-night-across-the-state-class-of-2023-standouts/">here</a>, but basketball is fun, and watching Moe pass is fun, so let me indulge. A key aspect of her shot creation is recognizing the mismatches on the court, whether that be personal or somewhere else. In the play below the case is the former. https://youtu.be/Vag4y5zH7yI Moe notices she has a size mismatch against her defender and rather than running a series of cuts and screens to get the positioning she wants and letting the defense adjust, she attacks and gets immediately to the mid-post. All the while, her head stays up looking for cutters in open space. She’s soft-doubled as she tries to go baseline looking to sling one to her weakside shooter, quickly adjusts, and hits the inside cutter with a perfect pocket pass for a layup. Moe isn’t necessarily the fastest guard out there, but raw speed is hardly the most important trait for a guard. Moe attacked her mismatch and opened up two great looks (weakside corner and the cutter) by forcing the defense to react. Here’s another play where she takes converts her mismatch into an assist: https://youtu.be/RvWtpWXSlxc The mismatch actually begins to affect the defense on the boards, where Moe grabs the offensive glass. Nevertheless, she takes her smaller defender inside, forces the help to overcommit at the risk of giving up a layup, and attacks the space created with an easy pass. She forces the defense to make a decision by attacking her mismatch, and she’s one of the best in the Wisconsin Valley at doing just that.