Seniors With The Green Light

[SaintMisbehavin]

Plenty to be lamented about bench point production this season, but at this point in the year it's incredibly clear what the recipe for success has to be: let your seniors shoot the ball.

Since the player pool has changed with the reduction/absence of a bench volume shooter, here's how the past 8 games' shot selections have broken down, with the seniors' field goal attempts compared to the rest of the teams' (note the "Senior 1, 2, etc" are not consistently the same seniors' shot attempt numbers):

Player	Quin - W	Iona - L	Man - W	St.Pete - L	Rider - W	FF - W	Quin - W	St.Pete - W
Senior 1	14	10	8	2	5	5	8	7
Senior 2	14	14	14	8	12	16	13	8
Senior 3	14	16	12	9	9	12	12	8
Senior 4	20	5	10	N/A (MW Susp)	11	9	14	14
Rest of Team	11	18 (Richard 4-9)	11 (Richard 5-5)	19 (Richard 6-9)	9	9	12 (Nico 2 mins, no Richard)	12 (Nico w/6)
Sr FGA %	85%	71%	80%	50%	75%	82%	80%	76%

Is balanced senior scoring the only recipe for success? Of course not. Proper defensive schemes, exploiting mismatches, limiting turnovers & fouling, rebounding all contribute - but it's incredibly clear that this team succeeds when the seniors carry not just the scoring load, but the shot attempt load. The bench can be a positive contribution if it does all of the things I just listed, but limits its shot selection to exclusively open jumpers or lay-ups. If Richard misses additional games with his ankle injury, I think it's fair to say we'll see the seniors taking 80% of the shots in every game going forward. Let's hope that continually leads to Ws. 

[Deleted]

There should only be 4 guys shooting threes right now. Richard, Bisping, Wright, and Long.

If someone else shoots a three with more than 10 seconds left on the shot clock, they should be banished to Narnia.

[$cott]

Feb 3, 2017 11:29:46 GMT -5 @saintkk said:

There should only be 4 guys shooting threes right now. Richard, Bisping, Wright, and Long.

If someone else shoots a three with more than 10 seconds left on the shot clock, they should be banished to Narnia.

If Fisher is on the court and wide open he needs to take the 3. If he's not shooting them then there is absolutely no point in playing him, it is the only thing he potentially brings to the table. Ogunyemi has attempted 3 of them since 12/5 so he's not a problem there, was obviously shooting them way too much early. Shivers is 3 for 8 since the New Year, not a disaster and not shooting too many of them. I agree with you on Smithen. I fully agree that this team should be taking less 3's overall but if you have guys out there that can never take them then you are allowing the defenders to back off and pack the paint. You need those guys to be able to take the occasional wide open three to keep the defense honest, even if they aren't hitting them at a high rate.

[Tony]

Correct- you have to shoot and hit some 3's when open. Reason why we lost to Iona is nobody could hit a wide open shot- Iona played a packed in defense with 4 guys with 1 foot in paint. Teams that have really packed it in vs us, beat us just about every time.

[Deleted]

Evan Fisher is 5 for 28 from three. That's 17.9%.

At what point do you stop beating the dead horse?

You know where I stand...and it's behind Friday and WB...or Heurter.

JO, Fisher, Smithen, and Shivers are shooting 20% from three on the year as a group. Just say no.

[$cott]

Feb 3, 2017 17:40:30 GMT -5 @saintkk said:

Evan Fisher is 5 for 28 from three. That's 17.9%.

At what point do you stop beating the dead horse?

You know where I stand...and it's behind Friday and WB...or Heurter.

JO, Fisher, Smithen, and Shivers are shooting 20% from three on the year as a group. Just say no.

If it were my call Evan wouldn't see the court. However, if he is on the court he needs to have the green light to shoot from 3 if they leave him wide open. Playing him while not allowing him to shoot a 3 is a total waste of a spot on the floor.

[Tony]

Feb 3, 2017 17:49:59 GMT -5 $cott said:

Feb 3, 2017 17:40:30 GMT -5 @saintkk said:

Evan Fisher is 5 for 28 from three. That's 17.9%.

At what point do you stop beating the dead horse?

You know where I stand...and it's behind Friday and WB...or Heurter.

JO, Fisher, Smithen, and Shivers are shooting 20% from three on the year as a group. Just say no.

If it were my call Evan wouldn't see the court. However, if he is on the court he needs to have the green light to shoot from 3 if they leave him wide open. Playing him while not allowing him to shoot a 3 is a total waste of a spot on the floor.

agreed- the worst thing that could have happened to EF was the good shooting game vs D2 team. Early in the year he was chucking them up, moving his feet or when guarded- in short bad shots. It killed his confidence, now he is struggling hitting wide open 3's-- and if he cant do that he doesnt help us at all

[OneIndian]

Feb 3, 2017 17:49:59 GMT -5 $cott said:

Feb 3, 2017 17:40:30 GMT -5 @saintkk said:

Evan Fisher is 5 for 28 from three. That's 17.9%.

At what point do you stop beating the dead horse?

You know where I stand...and it's behind Friday and WB...or Heurter.

JO, Fisher, Smithen, and Shivers are shooting 20% from three on the year as a group. Just say no.

If it were my call Evan wouldn't see the court. However, if he is on the court he needs to have the green light to shoot from 3 if they leave him wide open. Playing him while not allowing him to shoot a 3 is a total waste of a spot on the floor.

Scott I usually agree with you but no way should a player who is shooting 17% from 3 shoot, EVER. I hate to say it but when he's on the floor we're going 4 on 5 anyway whether he's clanking shots or not!

Play TH or WB both have the potential to be better scorers. He'll even SF has way more upside. I'm done with the Fisher experiment, there isn't a coach in this conf that would be giving this kid a minute of PT.

[greengold4ever]

Feb 3, 2017 17:35:56 GMT -5 Tony said:

Correct- you have to shoot and hit some 3's when open. Reason why we lost to Iona is nobody could hit a wide open shot- Iona played a packed in defense with 4 guys with 1 foot in paint. Teams that have really packed it in vs us, beat us just about every time.

We didn't get many open looks from 3, credit the Gals with suffocating perimeter D that led to rushed long bombs with shot clock winding down.........and sorry but real reason we lost is our inability to defend faster/quicker athletes by staying in man D (thanks Patsos).......couldn't stop them from scoring, so it would not matter how many shots we hit...........4 minutes left in game, Cluess took air out of the ball and milked clock, he had game in hand and knew they would win, otherwise they drop 90 plus on us easy.......