With how bad Roberts has been the past month (shooting below 40%), it’s probably not a good idea to do what the opposing defense wants you to do. There’s generally a reason they want you to do it.
He scored 18 points.
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I’m critiquing shot selection obviously. Thanks for the pointless reply.
On 18 shots. If you think that’s a good performance overall then I don’t know what to tell you. He had a good second half but his first half was a disaster.
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They update the scoreboard on points made not shots taken.
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It’s about efficiency, it’s predictive of success, but a 1:1 isn’t a bad ratio. If it was better we’d be sitting really pretty though.
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1:1 is pretty mediocre for a center taking the majority of his shots from the paint. He took at least 5 or 6 bad shots that he should have passed back out, especially considering the guards were nearly a 2:1 ratio.
Jwan scored 18 pts (9 of 18 from the field).
He also had
8 rebounds
5 assists
2 steals
Zero TO
All of this in a WINNING performance!!!
And in your mind this wasn’t “a good performance”???
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The scope of my critique was his offense, particularly his shooting. Overall he was terrible in the first half, very good in the second half.
Like I said, the original point I was making was critiquing poor shot selection from the team overall, and Roberts’ was particularly poor, especially in the 1st half.
Your other stats illustrate his strengths. He’s much better when he is playing excellent defense and playing his role within the offense, not forcing selfish, closely-guarded shots.
Not sure how many times I have to make the same point until you all understand it and stop coming at me with emotional responses that try to put words in my mouth.
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Nobody is putting “words in your mouth”.
Quoting specifically what you said (“if you think that’s a good performance OVERALL then I don’t know what to tell you”).
Right back at you, if you don’t think Jwans performance against the Zags was good then I don’t know what to tell you.
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I was speaking about the offense there. The “overall” is referencing that 18 points may seem good on its face, but not when you consider it took him 18 shots to get there.
And his offensive performance, overall, was not good. It was okay. He forced too many wild, closely-guarded shots, which was particularly egregious considering how well our guards were playing.
His OVERALL performance including defense was good. Don’t you have anything better to do than be pedantic on the internet?
I think Roberts had a decent first half. No doubt, 33% (3 for 9) isn’t ideal shooting. But it’s also not 0 for 9. And I noticed a few of his misses missed very badly…no doubt, he had some ugly attempts in there among his makes and near misses.
But that is singling out something too narrow to judge his contributions. So, I was SO glad he was out there doing his thing overall…even in the first half. I think he clearly was a positive!
And I was also glad he was creating interior action specifically. Doing so doesn’t have to result in all makes to reap benefits. It also…
- draws perimeter defenders in to open up perimeter looks (including assists then and open looks later).
- potentially draws some fouls on bigs
- gets the ball up for offensive rebounding opps (a known goal of Sampson’s approach
- provides himself (and the staff) a way to figure out what will or won’t work against this opponent (which has regularly pays off later in the game, like it did here…to say the least).
This is a game where coaches are usually best off not over-reacting to some momentary failures…especially from your star players.
And it is great that CKS knows that…as opposed to pulling the plug on an approach that has been proven to work over the course of a game (and season). Had some of our fans suggestions been deployed (have Roberts benched or restrained) we easily lose that game to Gonzaga.
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I agree with your (very good) analysis if this game had occurred in a vacuum, but it is unfortunately part of a trend for Roberts this year, which offensively, is a down year for him.
His FG% is down 10-13% from his previous 3 seasons, and he’s mired in a 10-game slump where he’s shooting 40% from the field and a lot of those shots have been very poor looks-- closely guarded, double-teamed, etc-- where he should have passed back out to the perimeter. He’s been pressing, taking much more selfish shots than he used to. Which again, is particularly egregious this year when we have elite outside shooting and don’t need to rely on our interior scoring like we used to.
Again, I need to reiterate that this did not start out as a “ROBERTS IS TERRIBLE” post. My original post simply pointed out that our bigs were inefficient last night compared to our guards who were unbelievably efficient. This has been the story in a lot of our games this year, and if we want to win the championship, I don’t see how we can keep wasting so many possessions on post-ups, especially since all 3 of our bigs are so bad at the free throw line (though Francis has improved a lot).
Only 16 threes from the best 3-point shooting team in college basketball makes no sense to me re: offensive balance, especially when our bigs were far from dominant. (Also 3s are MUCH more likely to be offensively rebounded than wild 5-foot hook shots.)
Just to clarify my feelings on Roberts-- he’s a fantastic player overall. He’s just struggling with his shot as of late and we would be better off with him taking far fewer shots, particularly if our guards are playing as well as they have been. We don’t need Roberts taking nearly 20 shots to win, nor do I think we are playing our best basketball if he does.
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My point is that if you don’t probe the interior enough (even if it’s not clicking over 50%)…
- Your 3pt opps will be reduced in quality and the percentage there will definitely go down. The perimeter success will not be sustainable at the rates you are touting.
- you won’t take over the game (like Roberts did) getting a 2nd half all-american performance from him, one that was critical in winning the game.
We can agree to disagree.
I myself am 100% glad the staff didn’t try to stifle what Roberts had cooking - even when he was 3 for 9. And I don’t need a vaccuum to view it that way. It absolutely worked.
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So you don’t think a big man, who doesn’t shoot 3s, and went 9 of 18 from the field (50%) isn’t good???
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1ppp by definition is not very good. First year watching basketball?
You are preaching to the choir re: the interior game opening up the outside game. It’s obviously a necessary component of a balanced offense. I just think you can achieve that without having your 3 bigs take more shots than your 3 guards who are significantly more efficient.
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A big who doesn’t shoot 3s, who goes 50% from the field (not 2 of 4 but 9 of 18) is damn good.
1 point per possession is not very good. 50% on shots in the paint is also not very good. Those are okay numbers. You want closer to 1.25 points per possession which would align more closely with Roberts’ past shooting percentages of 60-63%. (That’s also what the Coogs average on the season-- 2516 points on 1999 shots, or 1.26 points per possession, excluding turnovers.)
You aren’t winning games getting 1 point per possession, friendo.
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its not horrible but you’d imagine coaches like few or painter would live with j’wan taking 18 shots over risk having our 3 headed monster in the backcourt really get going
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