9 players play ten or more minutes a game, Furst included.
Enough about Colvin. He doesn't play defense well at all. Yes he can hit a jumper. He's going to be important but he's not SO good as a freshmen that somehow he's the key to success.
A big concern for our team heading into March
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Enough about Colvin. He doesn't play defense well at all. Yes he can hit a jumper. He's going to be important but he's not SO good as a freshmen that somehow he's the key to success.
It's certainly subpar. For a role where the primary benefit is outside shooting and where defense is a liability.
If folks want to quibble over cold v below average feel free.
Disagree. Same as shooting 50% from 2.
One thing that no one is really talking about is how this team is playing faster than last year. That was a major criticism coming out of the tournament loss. And I don't think you can put it all on Jones being here. I think it's an adjustment that Painter had to make and it's paying off. You would think the result would include more turnovers but we really aren't seeing that.
Agree on the lack of a 'leap' from Fletcher. IMO, that is based as much on what the team needs as it is on his offensive development. MP charged Braden to look to score more and we've seen his FGA's go up by 45% while Fletch's are down by 14% (driven primarily by the addition of Jones and increased assertiveness by Braden). Defense is another story, where I think his team defense has improved somewhat but he continues to get exposed in iso and I don't know how that gets fixed other than him adding 10 pounds of muscle in the offseason.
Agree with your point on needing other shooting options. Aside from the truly elite shooters, you're always going to have games where a guys shoots it just 'ok' and you want to have other guys who can step up. What you want to avoid, which Fletch generally has this season, are a bunch of games where you're really 'off' (below 30%).
As a reference point I looked up Dakota Mathias' junior and senior stats as he shot 45% as a junior and 47% as a senior. As a junior he shot 33% or worse in 15 of 35 games, which is significantly worse than what Fletch is trending to this year. As a senior, he shot 33% or worse in only 7 of 37 games, which is where you'd love to see Fletcher get to.
It's not a choice. They don't choose not to win the conference and win the NCAA.
Agree, CB.....Purdue is 151 in adjusted tempo, which is middle of the pack basically, but Purdue was in the 300's last year - that's a huge jump/difference, which I like.
Also, Purdue is 61 with "luck" as opposed to 129 from last year......
Painter needs to work on signing players who have above average shooting nights every time out
I'm well aware! I didn't insinuate it was a choice. I was responding to another poster. Be well.
Lance mostly, but Braden will push if it's there for sure. SOOOOO happy to see them forcing the attack when teams pressure and they break it. World of difference in confidence both ways. Up for us. Down for the pressing team. Make Them Pay.
Thanks!!
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I don't know why you think this is a burn. We aren't talking about having above average shooting every night, we are talking about a level of streakiness that some of our other top shooters don't quite have.Painter needs to work on signing players who have above average shooting nights every time out
I get it though, people are taking it as unfair criticism of Loyer and going into defense mode. But the reality is that he isn't a perfect player, and we can talk about weaknesses without people getting upset. He has two "needs to improve" being more consistent on the offensive end, and being better on defense.
1) I’m just playing dude, wasn’t meant to be a burn 2) as stated for the third time now, unless you’re comparing him to elite, elite shooters, Fletcher has not be been streaky this year, he just hasn’t 3) absolutely agree that there’s plenty of room for growth in his game, particularly on the defensive end but on offense as well
I don’t understand people claiming fatigue is an actual issue. We are talking about athletes who train and practice all week. And in their spare time they play pick up basketball games.
As high school players, as part of the process of being a high school basketball player, they would play high school games and three different seasons of AAU games.
We have 19 year olds playing in g leagues and euro leagues and in the NBA. I haven’t read one story about any 19 year old playing professionally that ever talked about fatigue as an excuse.
What I do see is injuries and players trying to play through them and I also see players returning too soon after an injury. And some injuries like hamstring injuries can be lingering or reoccurring.
As high school players, as part of the process of being a high school basketball player, they would play high school games and three different seasons of AAU games.
We have 19 year olds playing in g leagues and euro leagues and in the NBA. I haven’t read one story about any 19 year old playing professionally that ever talked about fatigue as an excuse.
What I do see is injuries and players trying to play through them and I also see players returning too soon after an injury. And some injuries like hamstring injuries can be lingering or reoccurring.
I would say maybe when guys are freshman they’re not as used to traveling via air and having to play at a high level multiple times a week/in a month on top of just being a college kid. But after that first year, it shouldn’t matter as they’ll definitely be conditioned for it. Braden has looked fine for quite some time now.
It’s fine the poster mentioned Colvin. If our guards are bricking 3s, get in foul trouble, and/or we get down in a tourney game is your answer an offensively challenged Morton? We all know deep down it’s not. Colvin could provide some valuable shooting and fast breaks. It all depends on who we play and matchups in March.
Don’t get drunk on the regular season wins and forget about our very specific guard play struggles in the tourney. Here’s to Colvin (and Heide) contributing to a Natty!
Poor shooting goes hand in hand with fatigue. Braden and Fletcher were quite obviously worn down the end of last season.
I think the college part...the mental fatigue at times can be in play, but is a different issue than minutes played or physical fatigue. Many of us might recall the stress relief when finals were over...other than those gray areas of wondering how well we did.
In Context with last year, at this point in time (mid Feb.) we see no signs of mental or physical fatigue. Second, we see no signs of this team having the deficiencies of the last couple of years. Consequently, comparisons to potential problematic issues of the past may not be in play this year.
Yes, he's consistent enough that as a defense, you have to stay in his face all the time and not help elsewhere. That keeps double teams off other guys if not Zach
He's still overmatched physically at times, but is a much better team defender (passing lanes) than many here see.
I think Fletcher has followed a fairly normal improvement curve so far.
All his numbers are up. He's just not taken the major jump that Braden has.
And until he's strong enough, can't really take. We sometimes see other soph's and even frosh being physically "Big 10 ready", but that's not the norm. 2 years in,
Heide and Waddell aren't the physical beasts they will be in another year.
Colvin has a ways to go, athleticism not withstanding.
Braden scores most of his points off pick and roll, playing off the attention Zach gets.
Whether its the curl jumper as his man drops a step covering the entry to Zach or getting to the hoop it's because he has the ball in his hands as the play is happening and Zach's action gets him open looks.
Helps that he finishes the play VERY well.
Fletchers had a few of those as well, but doesn't handle the ball nearly as much. As we've seen other teams do against us in some big loss's, it's a huge factor. Fletch has to get his running off picks mostly, and if the pick isn't good enough, or the defender is just tough enough, that's a task.
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Part of Braden's jump IMO is that bringing Zach out higher allows Braden to attack if pressured and to make split second reads as a result. When Zach was on the blocks last year, pressure would be put on Braden and he more less had to absorb it since there wasn't enough room to attack with Zach on the blocks. Now Braden scores or puts teams in rotations quite often.
Going to go out on a limb here.....better juice this year! We shall see, though.
They were also shooting poorly (as was the whole team) from long range prior to being obviously fatigued.
When problem A precedes environment B, it's fair to say one is at least somewhat independent from the other.
Environment B is present at the end of most long seasons. Problem A though hasn't preceded it this season overall so one can hope that it won't be present this time.
This has been my question since last year. If not fatigue, what was the cause of them shooting poorly at the end of the season?
It's a puzzle I hope Painter has solved.
It's funny that air travel doesn't get mentioned much, but is something that will only be more prevalent in the Big 18. I remember Jalen Rose once saying that some guys don't cut it in the NBA because the constant travelling wears them out more than others. For many, college basketball is a player's first time on an airplane. I, for one, get tired when I travel for business (not very often), even if just a short direct flight. Any added stress on a player is going to affect their performance.
Some would call that continuous improvement. 😊Painter needs to work on signing players who have above average shooting nights every time out
I wasn’t nervous about flying because I knew Billy Joel’s song about only the good die young, but it was more stressful than a typical day for me . Never thought about issues flying and sleeping in a different bed for the players before. Good points IMO
Loyer had a little slump in the first six games of the season or so, but since then he has been quite reliable from 3. There will always be some variation from game to game with 3 point shooters, just because of randomness with small samples.
They are certainly collectively shooting better from three compared to last year. Jones is a huge scoring upgrade over Jenkins and Smith took a big leap.
Plus Heide, Colvin and Gillis are all pretty decent although Gillis' excellence was also present last season.
More, better shooters should equal to fewer instances of going ice cold from outside. So, in theory, even if we struggle with those specifically built teams, we should also put more pressure on their defense even when they pack a Shaq on defense.
Let's look at recent games from 3 going backwards to the beginning of 2024:
1/3
0/0
3/5
0/3
2/3
2/6
4/4
1/3
3/6
1/1
2/5
That's ten games, five are below 33 percent, one he didn't shoot any so null, and four are anywhere from 40 to 100 percent. Single digits in five games, double figures in five games.
I guess I don't see that as quite reliable. I see it as streaky. Either he's killing it, or, well he's not.
Now it's his potential in any one game to go off for 30 that explains why you have to play him significant minutes. And he has, to be fair, had games where he didn't do much from three but contributed through drives, twos and free throws, so that's another reason you keep him out there.
Only one of these games is below 33 percent…
This post is just riddled with errors.
1. That’s 11 games, not 10, but I guess you can exclude the 0/0 for argument’s sake
2. One game is below 33%; there are 3 other games where he shot 33.3% (still only adds up to 4, not 5)
3. There are six games between 40-100%, not four.
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Yep I missed the total number of games by one which threw off my numbers so that's on me. I messed it up. No excuses
Quibbling about below 33 percent because it was 33.3 percent is not an error though, it's just a pointless argument. That extra .3 percent doesn't change it from a subpar percentage into something better.
None of which changes my point.
Roughly half the time he shoots subpar and roughly half the time he shoots very well.
He's not been consistent from three recently as claimed.
I guess I just don’t get what you expect. Every reasonably high volume good 3P shooter in D1 is going to have very similar splits.
The big difference this year is Jones. Last year 1 of our starting backcourt guys was not capable of picking up the slack if either Loyer, Smith or both had bad nights.
While Loyer and Smith are much better than last year, they both have had a number of games when they weren't at their best. If that happened last year we were in trouble. This year we can still win unless all three of our back court guys are off, which until now hasn't happened.
While Loyer and Smith are much better than last year, they both have had a number of games when they weren't at their best. If that happened last year we were in trouble. This year we can still win unless all three of our back court guys are off, which until now hasn't happened.
Shooting 1/3 is fine on a tiny sample size. You can't shoot 40% on 3 attempts. If he had a bunch of 0/4, 1/6 or 2/8 type games in there you would have a point.
Exactly. Pretty much every shooter is going to be below his average about half the time, given a large enough sample.
Anyone with a clue grasps the relationship between dead legs and poor shooting.
But you stay on your tack.
My temptation is to be critical of your data selection and the way that you presented it, as I don't agree with your approach to either, but you raise some good points and led me to look at a separate data point, which I think may be driving the perception of Fletcher's performance as 'streaky'.
Fletcher has been much worse from deep this season in games where he has shot fewer than four 3pt attempts (specifically in games where he's taken three attempts) compared to games where he take four shots or more. In the 13 games where he has taken four or more threes he's shooting over 49% from deep and has shot 40% or better in 9 of those 13 (nearly 70%) of those games. Those are elite numbers, both in terms of overall shooting percentage and consistency.
In the seven games where he's taken three 3 pointers (his numbers are actually pretty good where he's taken 1 or 2 threes), he's shot either 0% (3 times) or 33% (3 times) in six of those seven games. Now some of that is just math, as mathematically you'd expect the most common outcome for a 40% three point shooter on three attempts to be 1 for 3 and that's been the result in three of those seven games. Where he's struggled is that 1) there are too many 0 for 3 games and you'd expect more 2 for 3 games (one) and 3 for 3 games (zero). Again, 4 of 24 games where he legitimately shoots poorly (below 30%) is pretty darn good, but to your point, there are some legitimate questions to be asked in those games where he's been below average on low volume.
- MP and staff should, and probably have, looked at why there's such a difference in the numbers between when Fletch shoots three 3's versus 4 or more and figure out:
- Do they need to run more stuff for Fletch or get him to be more assertive because he's shooting it so much better in games where he has more attempts?
- Does he actually need to shoot it less in those games because teams are selling out to take away his good looks and he's shooting a lower percentage because he's forcing bad shots?
- He could be taking the exact right number of shots in that maybe he just doesn't have 'it' in those three games where he's 0 for 3.
- It may be that the sample size is just too small to come to a conclusion given the number of other variables.
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