The Moses Lake vs. Mt. Tahoma game at the Riverside Classic was the first time I've watched Carly Noyes with her high school team. All previous viewings were with her club team, the Spokane Stars. In this setting she was guarded by a post with similar size at 6-foot-5 who was also a bigger player which you won't find too often in the State of Washington. She also had a smaller player around 6-feet who is an accomplished shot blocker and better athlete so she had to recognize which player was guarding her throughout the game and take advantage of the mismatches at the time. Also note this game had a lot of pressing and up and down moments where the game was not played to her strengths in the half court.
Carly Noyes receives a kick-out.
Noyes shows much more confidence on the court with her high school team. Her older sister is on the team as well, and is a starter, but Noyes shows here that she has some leadership ability not present over the summer. Noyes has a confident and capable point guard running the show but she is only a freshman and Noyes has the presence on the floor that her teammates buy into.
Noyes isn't afraid of contact and uses her body to get position, getting stronger will unlock her game even more. She shows a good understanding of footwork in the post as well which leads me to believe her back to the basket repetoire can be expanded with good instruction. Right now she uses a drop step and a step-through. She keeps good balance on the step-through but much like she found this summer, defenders are not biting on her initial ball fake to open up the lane for the step-through and she gets stuck sometimes. Getting a nice and easy jump hook to go with her drop step would really help as the more times you score on your first move the easier the fake and counter moves will be. The footwork is there and getting quicker with her moves will help alot against top notch competition.
The saying goes, you can't teach size. This much is true and Noyes is not one of those 6-foot-5 kids trying to be a wing player. Her skill set, size and build all compliment her being a center or true post at the next level. She does very well against basic high school competition and will have a chance again this summer to battle other college bound post players as the State of Washington doesn't offer too much post competition this year.
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Chris Hansen is the National Director of Scouting for Women’s Basketball at HoopGurlz.com. He leads the panel that evaluates and ranks girl's basketball prospects nationally for HoopGurlz. Chris has been involved in the women’s basketball community since 1998 as a coach, trainer, evaluator and reporter. He can be reached at chris@hoopgurlz.com [2].