Dee Dee Pate
5'5 point guard
Junior Senior
Pate is the Rodney Dangerfield
of the Badgers. She gets no respect. A lot of people had written
her off as a liability and as someone who had to be replaced in her junior
year. There is a reason. Dee Dee spent her first two and a
half years making the same mistakes over and over. She would get
out of control and get called for silly charging fouls. She threw
passes when there was no opening and didn't throw them when her players
were open. She turned the ball over and generally made bad decisions.
She turned the ball over, and over and over. But somewhere on her
way to oblivion, she learned. And she got better. She stayed
under control. Her decision making improved dramatically. She's
the quickest of the Badgers and the team's best ballhandler. The
team needs her when they are pressed. She is generally a fine defensive
player and has cut down her mistakes, which usually came in the form of
silly fouls, on that end also. While she has improved, she will still
have to fight for minutes in her senior season. First, Dee Dee has
to show that the improvement will last and that she will continue to get
better. Secondly, she is not a good passer. While her decisions
have improved, she lobs the ball instead of throwing crisp passes and her
entry passes are frequently poorly timed. She's not a good shooter
and her choice of when to shoot is still poor. Pate lost her starting
job for a period of time to freshman Tamara Moore. Dee Dee pouted
for about a day and then got over it. That was an out of character
incident. She's normally a very hard worker who appears to be the
most popular player on the team among her teammates.
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