Ms. Smith,
IF the rumor is true, could be a potentially BIG transfer for the Buffs. (All I see so far is a random post in the Volleytalk.com forum. Assume we'll hear soon if she has become a Buff since I assume she'd start at CU this semester, and would need to sign something before starting classes?) Coming out of high school and club, she was considered a PREMIERE player known for all-around excellence (Maybe/ hopefully similar to Stanford's just graduated star Jordan Burgess?).
In addition to being the #7 ranked prepvolleyball.com national Senior Ace, as Bebe mentioned, she was also named
National High School Player of the Year by both (1) the National Coaches Association (
http://gazette.com/prep-notes-l-ps-smith-named-national-player-of-year/article/1554017) and (2) Maxpreps (
http://www.maxpreps.com/news/qMp_la...s-2014-all-american-girls-volleyball-team.htm).
From her Purdue stats (
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/pur/sports/w-volley/auto_pdf/2015-16/stats/season_stats.pdf)
1) Her
attacking stats weren't overwhelming this (freshman) year at only 0.72 kills/set and a .179 hitting %. I believe a probable cause of that was she started the season recovering from a shoulder injury (labrum tear). Therefore, although she did manage to play in 111 of the Boilermaker's 122 sets, I'm guessing she lost
a lot of practice time over the summer (and maybe wasn't 100% when the season started?), so probably wasn't able to work her way to becoming a consistent main offensive option as a freshman for a pretty top team (Purdue ended up ranked #17).
2) Even though her offensive numbers don't look overwhelming, she was still able to be a big contributor
defensively, with a VERY good 2.06 digs per set. (With Alexis Austin leaving, there was no
obvious choice for who the
6 rotation outside hitter(s) might be for the Buffs next year, and Ms. Smith would be the most obvious one to fill that role IF she is coming to CU. Of course, there's ~5+ other players I'm sure she will have to compete
hard against to earn one of the 2 left-side hitter positions.)
3) Although the serving stats available to the public (aces and service errors) are NOT nearly enough to properly evaluate the real quality of a player's serve, it does appear Ms. Smith has
at minimum a very
efficient serve, as I'd
guess her ace to service error ratio (12 errors vs. 21 aces, or 0.57 errors per ace) must have been
one of the best in the nation. As reference, the average for the Pac 12 overall this season was 1.67 service errors per ace (1.8 in conference play), with UCLA the best as a team at 1.34 errors per ace.)