March 4, 2023
Locked on Women’s Basketball: Evaluating big guard prospects with Celeste Taylor and Grace Berger
By The Next
How good could these college standouts be as pros?
The latest episode of Locked on Women’s Basketball continues our series of scouting reports on the top 2023 WNBA Draft prospects! In today’s episode, co-hosts Hunter Cruse and Em Adler discuss Duke’s Celeste Taylor and Indiana’s Grace Berger. (Note: Because of the video footage in this episode, we recommend watching it on YouTube rather than listening to it as a podcast.)
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Taylor, a 5’11 senior guard from Valley Stream, New York, is the 2023 ACC Defensive Player of the Year. She is averaging 11.7 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.9 steals per game. Here’s Hunter’s take on Taylor’s WNBA potential:
“The three players that I found to be most similar to Celeste in terms of [college] stats [were] DiJonai Carrington, Riquna Williams and then also Brittney Sykes … If she’s an average offensive spacer and she’s a good finisher, just kind of cutting out those mid-range jumpers as much as you can, the defense I think is good enough to where she can be a 15- to 22-minute player, whether that’s a low-end starter or … a good seventh, sixth player off the bench.”
Berger is a 6′ graduate student guard from Louisville, Kentucky, who is averaging 12.5 points, 5.8 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game. Both Em and Hunter are high on her passing ability and decision-making. Here’s Em explaining why:
“Grace Berger is a point guard true and true. … It’s not just about the age and experience with her. … The smoothness with which she can get an offense rolling in the half court, the way she can keep tempo up or slow it down and really find mismatches, both her own and teammates’, it’s really impressive. It’s really hard to find someone who’s going to keep an offense as steady and consistent, just in terms of the the intelligent way it’s run, than Berger.”
Make sure to subscribe to the Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about the 2023 WNBA Draft, WNBA trades and free agency, women’s college basketball and much more!
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