Player of the Week Profile: Maddy Olson (2017)
Maddy Olson was voted our Player of the Week earlier this year—way back in December, in fact, and we finally caught up to Maddy to ask her a couple questions. One, about her 39 point explosion against Cretin-Derham Hall that…
Access all of Prep Girls Hoops
Continue reading this article and more.
Continue ReadingMaddy Olson was voted our Player of the Week earlier this year—way back in December, in fact, and we finally caught up to Maddy to ask her a couple questions. One, about her 39 point explosion against Cretin-Derham Hall that earned her our Player of the Week honors. And, secondly, about her commitment to Minnesota State-Mankato, which we previously had not had the chance to ask her about.
But, first, a little background. Maddy is a 5-4 point guard at Rosemount who also has been playing with the Fury for too many summers to remember. She was always a pest on defense, a tenacious ball defender with quick feet and quicker hands, and if you tried your patented cross-over move on her at center court, well, that was 2 points for her.
She picked up her offense pretty quick, too, from 6 ppg as a freshman to 12 as a sophomore, then 19 as a junior, and 21 ppg this year. Last year she was #9 in the state in 3-pointers with 70 in 27 games, or 2.6 per game, for 7.8 ppg or 41 percent of her total points. This year she has 33 3s in 16 games or a little less than 2.1 good for 6.3 ppg or 30 percent of her points. So you’d have to assume she’s scoring more 1 and 2-pointers but we don't have the data for further analysis.
As we said, she exploded for a career-high 39 against Cretin. How did she score them?
“When I get really hot,” Maddy said, “it's usually from hitting my threes right away. That causes the defense to close out harder and guard me tighter, where I have more room to operate and drive. When I feel myself starting to get hot it also helps boost my confidence to just keep shooting.”
Remember that she’s 5-4. How does she deal with that? “I've always been much smaller than everyone, so I guess really I've just adapted to it. I have to be quick to get by bigger defenders and use different moves to get them off balance. Also over the past 2 years I've worked on my release and foot work so my shot has gotten a lot quicker.”
I forgot to ask her about her defense, so I’ll just note that since January 1 (not counting the 39 points vs. Cretin and 35 vs. Hutchinson), she has been scoring 20 ppg but equally important, the other team’s point guards have generally not been too successful. She out-scored Temi Carda 11-10, Lyndsey Robson 21-11, McKenna Hofschild 17-14, Katie Guentzel 28-12, Allie Pickrain 28-3. Only Noelle Tomes of East Ridge has outscored Maddy, 22-21. Of course, there’s a lot that goes into those numbers. It’s rarely truly a head-to-head matchup any more with all the transition offense and switching and all of that. Still, those numbers speak pretty well for the Minnesota State-Mankato recruit.
“I chose Mankato,” Maddy said, “because when I visited there everything felt right. I loved the coaches and team, it was the perfect distance from home and the facilities are amazing. What they like about me is I'm a true point guard that loves to push the ball but also knows how to run an offense, which I believe will fit perfectly in their up tempo style of play.”
It will be interesting to see her as she continues going against Guentzel and Pickrain, among many others, in the NSIC.