Superfly, it’s not worth getting into this convo. I tried to be very diplomatic and reasonable about it to no avail. Some refused to believe that as good as Coop is, she had three players ahead of her in the guard rotation at SC, which she did. Wish Coop the best going fwd, and never bothered me she transferred to another SEC school, I’m glad it was UT tbh. She will be an integral part of that team going fwd and she deserves a role like that. Once Fulwiley signed with SC I kinda expected it anyway, but when PaoPao came as well then Coop of course knew what was in front of her. Raven and PaoPao plus Fulwiley, Coop and Johnson was a crowded room.
And yes WC, Coop was a 5 star MCD AA,
so were the four others and three were ahead of her. Coop struggled mightily in shooting her freshman year (36% FG, 37% FT, 24% 3)and she was never gonna beat Raven out as the PG, her handles are good but nothing like Raven’s. And she doesn’t shoot anywhere close to what 2x All PAC12 PaoPao does so she was not gonna win the SG slot. As for her competition with Fulwiley, Coop had a ton of experience going against Fulwiley and there was never any question about which of those two would end up on top of each other in a rotation, Fulwiley was always the alpha, Coop absolutely knew this As did everyone in the state of SC. Peace all and believe me, wishing nothing but the best for Coop, she will excel at UT with a dedicated role and time to improve her shooting.
@WinnerCircle you are not wrong to compare Coop to Rivers, similar athletes. Perhaps similar careers. Rivers is excelling at NCSU, but she also struggled at SC mightily shooting the ball. She is shooting only 40%/25% at NCSU this season (though that’s so much better than her fresh year at SC and soph year at NCSU) and yes she does so many other things really well of course.
But after the Iowa loss in the FF last year, SC‘s CDS made an effort to retool the backcourt and make SC
a good shooting team from the perimeter. It was their
biggest weakness. They are now the leading 3 pt % shooting team in the nation ytd (42% from 3 as a team) and #2 overall FG % shooting team (52%). Recruits like Mcd AA Tessa Johnson (40% from 3) and PaoPao (leads nation in 3% at 56%) are part of that plan at the guard rotation. DS saw a need to get pure shooters in her lineup. Looks good so far, and you can argue against those moves but they are sitting at the top right now so just maybe DS knows what she is doing.