3 Pt. Shooting

[wendy1]

I think it is pretty clear at this point that we are completely dependent on our 3 point shooting to win games against good teams. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. What I didn't like about how we lost the Maryland game was that we abandoned the 3-Pt shooting after we had so many misses.

Any good team we play is going to be capable of clogging the lane and slowing down our bigs. The downside to this strategy is that we are going to get lots of good looks from outside. Our strategy cannot be to continue forcing it to our bigs no matter how many people are guarding them. Fadeaway J's and turnovers created by a forced pass to our Center's help us much less than a missed 3.

We have very good shooters on this team and the only way to get them going is to let them shoot their way out of the slump. We were actually leading the game after going 2-20 from 3. Imagine if someone finally got hot and hit just 2 or 3 in a row. The final minutes would have played out much differently.

There is absolutely no possible way that we were going to make only 2-21 in our next 23 attempts. Cline, Mathias, Thompson, and Stephens if playing are all pretty streaky shooters, but they are all good shooters. Like it or not, when we play good teams, if we don't get 3's from one or all of them, we are probably not going to win. If we just shot 7-25 in that game, we likely would have won.

Our bigs are doing a great job of getting the team spacing for jump shots and we have to keep taking them even if they aren't going in. There simply isn't a good alternative offense at the moment.

 

[Tadal32]

I will agree. Abandoning the 3 is never the answer. Getting better 3 looks while continuing to move ball side to side.
My observation of the shooters have been PJ takes good shots, Dakota appears to be rushed, often feet are completely set and his eyes aren't on the target until just before his release. Almost like he is worried about what goin on around or looking to make a last second pass. Either way it's a bad habit. His dribble pull-ups look real natural and he should look to do this more often. Kline is also rushed and not open half the time. Imop he doesn't move well off the ball to shake his defender which doesn't create enough space and leads to his fading. Notice most his misses are short. He just a frosh, will get stronger and quicker. Not worried here. Stephens also is slow to create space but he gets good height on his release. I think he needs to penetrate more to get to the 15-18 ft range. Early last year he did this and that seemed to get his 3 ball going each time. Ray takes good shots but often doesn't look at the basket. This is a problem for me. I would require him to catch in triple threat every time reguardless of his intentions. Notice how defense sags to the bigs when he doesn't do this. Vince takes good shots just drives a little too deep somtimes. Biggie has bad form imo. His rotation is bad because his guide hand is to envolved causing side spin. I would change his form to get his shooting hand and elbow more under the ball. And also spread his fingers more.

 

[TC4THREE]

Agree 100% and said this earlier in the season. When we miss a 3, everyone starts bitching about how we need to get the ball inside without realizing that the defense is trying to take that away from us. Smart coaches will take that away from us and make us do something else. Unfortunately, we don't exactly have a dynamic slashing guard that get in the lane and score/create. What we do have is a bunch of players that are capable of shooting well from outside. Yea, some of them have shot fairly average this season but I'm comfortable saying that I will take an open 3 from PJ, Dakota, Kendall, Cline, Davis, or Edwards this season whenever we don't have a good opportunity to dump down to AJ or Isaac. As this team is constructed, it seems to be our best second option to getting the ball into the post. I say we let it fly and don't apologize.

 

[*4purdue*]

I think it is pretty clear at this point that we are completely dependent on our 3 point shooting to win games against good teams. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. What I didn't like about how we lost the Maryland game was that we abandoned the 3-Pt shooting after we had so many misses.

We must have been watching different games. The game I watched, we were ahead with about 5 min. to go & started jacking more 3's.

 

[IamBob]

Just my opinion, we will never shoot "well" from 3. Part of it is mental, part of it is running a good offense which involves spacing, setting good/multiple picks/screens/skip passes. In Painter's tenure, we have not been able to consistently run set plays/in bound plays (still throwing the in-bound over the half court line just to get it in). I don't see us working for a good 3-point shot.

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

every team needs to at least shoot average from 3. Some better. Purdue just needs average. msu and iu need to be better than average. We can't be atrocious like at Maryland. No team is gonna win like that. You can't be terrible at any aspect of the game and expect to win big games. Just not gonna happen. Against md it was 3 point shooting. Other times it's been turnovers. Sometimes you just have to play better. RC isn't Reggie Miller. There's no reason for him to be flying off a screen trying to hit a 3 going sideways as a freshman on the road. And we did it twice! Sometimes a good jumpshot is ok. it doesn't have to be a 3. We have a tendency to FORCE the 3 or FORCE the pass inside instead of just playing hard and getting an open look. Play better.

 

[Boiler Buck]

Need scoring threats @ all 5 positions. Currently we have it at 3 positions. The lack of either a stud 1 & 2 is killing the Boilers. A 2 guy like a Macura or Bluiett who we badly missed on, just like we missed on every 2 since we had E'Twaun Moore is so sorely needed.

 

[sporre]

These are good observations, and thought a lot about our poor 3-point shooting year after year, even with "good" shooters. I really that there are reasons for our poor shooting, and the reasons vary from player to player. But an overarching problem is that I think Painter doesn't do a great job of coaching his guys to shoot well. I think there are a lot of things a coach can do in that department, and maybe Painter isn't doing it well:

1. Confidence and swagger - our teams just haven't played with swagger since 2011, and I don't think Painter fosters it well. I don't even think our guys' body language looks like they think the shot is going in. Probably the most important thing that I think this team is missing. We should have swagger - we are bigger than everyone we play, with good talent at every position, and we should be intimidating people.
2. form - I have heard Painter say on his TV show that he tries not to mess with a player's shot very much, referring to Barlow at the time. I think everyone needs constant feedback and attention to form - shooting, baseball swing, football throwing, etc.
3. Getting feet set
4. running offense that produces open shots, not contested ones off balance.
5. shot selection

If we had shot 40% from three, we would have blown them out Saturday.

 

[Dryfly88]

Balance, Balance and more balance. 3 pt shooting for the vast majority of college players is about being balanced and squared up to the basket. PJ and Ray are most often squared up and on balance when they shoot and their % show that. Neither of them are pure shooters by any stretch but they for the most part take balanced shots. KS and RC take way too many unbalanced shots. They come flying off a screen and catch and shoot without coming set. Only elite shooters can do this effectively and we don't have any of those.

Take good "quality" 3 pt shots and you will see the % increase to a more acceptable level. We need to be in the middle to upper 30's % wise as a team and we will be just fine. Shooting in the teens and 20's isn't going to cut it.

 

[IamBob]

Off topic.... enough years have passed that it doesn't seem like Moore or Hummel ever missed from behind the arc.

 

[Casey and his Brother]

I've been saying it for awhile, these guys try to look kewl instead of squaring up and looking the ball in. Even crappy players like me figured out after missing a bunch of shots that they go if you want them to, instead of just wanting to shoot. There's a big difference in this mentality, and it's not a selfishness thing, it's about having a purpose to what you're doing instead of going through the motions hoping that something works out for you. No reason these guys should miss 20 3's. Outside of Kline and then at the end of the game, they were getting good looks, but they just fling the ball towards the rim instead of shooting the ball through the hoop.

 

[cprh9u]

Need scoring threats @ all 5 positions. Currently we have it at 3 positions. The lack of either a stud 1 & 2 is killing the Boilers. A 2 guy like a Macura or Bluiett who we badly missed on, just like we missed on every 2 since we had E'Twaun Moore is so sorely needed.

Agree we need a 2 and have missed on several, but we have missed on even more PG's. That said at the 2, we have Stephens who's had every opportunity to be a stud 2 and has just regressed and Mathias, who has slightly progressed this year but not as much as many hoped for as year 1 to 2 is supposed to be the biggest jump.

Player development seems to be lacking in both of their cases. You can blame them, the coaching staff, or split it up however you want.

 

[boilerzz]

Mathias:

2015/2016

Offensive efficiency - 100.2/116.5
Effective FG% - 44.7%/50.9%
Assist rate - 13.5/19.5
TO rate - 16.5/14.8
2P % - 34.1%/44.8%
3P% - 32.2%/35.4%
FT % - 71.0%/92.9%

I'd say every single metric he's expected to contribute with has tangibly improved year over year. If you want to look at KenPom Tier A or Tier A/B opponents, the improvement is even more substantial.

 

[lbodel]

Just my opinion, we will never shoot "well" from 3. Part of it is mental, part of it is running a good offense which involves spacing, setting good/multiple picks/screens/skip passes. In Painter's tenure, we have not been able to consistently run set plays/in bound plays (still throwing the in-bound over the half court line just to get it in). I don't see us working for a good 3-point shot.

Nothing bothers me more than people who make wild generalizations like the "oh he always turns the ball over", "we never run in-bounds plays right", etc.

As for 3 point shooting, it's a tough conference. There's only 4 teams in the Big Ten shooting over 35% from 3 in conference games. Purdue's shooting 34%. Not great, but there's only 4 teams shooting "well". It's easier said than done.

But you know what? Purdue's 3 point field goal attempts are also 9th in the Big Ten.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is one of the most important part of being successful. You don't HAVE to be great at everything - there's no team in the country that is. But know what you are good at and what you aren't - and acting upon that is important.

The problem Saturday wasn't so much our shooting percentage, it was the number of them that we shot. If Swanigan took 1 three instead of 5….that's 4 possessions we may have gotten a better shot. If Vince drove towards the basket a couple times instead of shooting a 3 (which he was off on that day) - that's a couple possessions we could have gotten a better shot.

It comes down to the possession game. Purdue actually shot 15 more times than Maryland. Now, they had more free throw attempts on fouls, but it goes to show how shooting that many 3s hurt us. Maryland didn't shoot the ball well from 3 either - they shot 22%. But they only attempted 18 - 7 fewer than us. If we took 7 fewer 3s, we could have won that game.

 

[*4purdue*]

Nothing bothers me more than people who make wild generalizations like the "oh he always turns the ball over", "we never run in-bounds plays right", etc.

As for 3 point shooting, it's a tough conference. There's only 4 teams in the Big Ten shooting over 35% from 3 in conference games. Purdue's shooting 34%. Not great, but there's only 4 teams shooting "well". It's easier said than done.

Not sure if your stats are "wild generalizations" but according to the official B1G web site, there are 6 teams shooting over 35% in conference play and OSU is at .348

3-POINT FG PCT G 3FGM 3FGA PCT.
1. Michigan State 11 100 221 .452
2. Iowa 11 88 222 .396
3. Indiana 11 105 269 .390
4. Michigan 11 109 284 .384
5. Wisconsin 10 60 170 .353
6. Nebraska 11 76 217 .350
7. Ohio State 11 65 187 .348
8. Purdue 11 76 221 .344
9. Illinois 11 89 259 .344
10. Maryland 12 78 252 .310
11. Northwestern 11 73 247 .296
12. Rutgers 11 55 189 .291
13. Minnesota 11 60 211 .284
14. Penn State 11

 

[rjmpu82]

All other things remaining constant....defense , rebounding, etc., if we take 18 threes a game and hit 6 we are going to win most of the time....the vast majority of the time. I don't think this is an unrealistic expectation.

 

[dwhitebash11]

If every team plays us like Maryland did, then Biggie needs to shoot 5-6 threes. He's a decent 3pt shooter for a big guy. If they double our bigs, then our bigs need to make the right play. Isolate him, spread everyone else out on the perimeter, and FORCE the defense to make a play. Either you go 1 on 1 with an elite center, both have a good post game, or you double, probably with either Swanigans defender or Hill if he's in, and force Hammons/Haas to pass to the open guy who NEEDS to hit the 3. It's a pretty simple concept that gets lost at times.


We started the season out this way, and we need to get back to the basics. If they don't double the entry pass, our main goal EVERY possession needs to be to get the ball to Hammons/Haas on the block, early in the shot clock too. They will draw fouls or hit the basket more than 50% of the time. If they miss, everyone else should be in position for transition defense. I don't care if Hammons/Haas score 50+ of our ~70 points a game. If the defense allows the entry by playing 1 on 1, then give it down low and force the defense to make a move.

 

[lbodel]

Not sure if your stats are "wild generalizations" but according to the official B1G web site, there are 6 teams shooting over 35% in conference play and OSU is at .348

3-POINT FG PCT G 3FGM 3FGA PCT.
1. Michigan State 11 100 221 .452
2. Iowa 11 88 222 .396
3. Indiana 11 105 269 .390
4. Michigan 11 109 284 .384
5. Wisconsin 10 60 170 .353
6. Nebraska 11 76 217 .350
7. Ohio State 11 65 187 .348
8. Purdue 11 76 221 .344
9. Illinois 11 89 259 .344
10. Maryland 12 78 252 .310
11. Northwestern 11 73 247 .296
12. Rutgers 11 55 189 .291
13. Minnesota 11 60 211 .284
14. Penn State 11

Ok, well these are obviously updated nearly real time - it changes constantly. Two of the teams are 35.3% and 35%. So ok - there's 4 teams that shoot over 35.5%. That's still not a lot of teams that are shooting "well" from 3 point.

We're within 1% of being the 5th best 3 point shooting team in the conference.

35% is not "good" to me, but it's pretty good in the Big Ten.

 

[wendy1]

We must have been watching different games. The game I watched, we were ahead with about 5 min. to go & started jacking more 3's.

Don't quote me, but I think at one point in the last 7 minutes we were winning against a top 5 team on the road and had already attempted 21 or 22 3's making only 2 of them. In other words, attempting a lot of 3's surprisingly wasn't really hurting us even when shooting a low percentage. What kills us is trying to force the post when it just isn't there and subsequently turning the ball over or having a center take a fade-away from 15 feet.