Agreed. It definitely felt like we were playing into their hand taking so many shots in the interior. They were extra aggressive on the perimeter to try and force us to take inside shots instead-- and yeah, to an extent you take what the defense gives you-- but we had more opportunities to pass the ball back out of the post that I felt like we didn’t take advantage of.
Anyway, a win is a win and we played extremely well overall. I just hope shot selection doesn’t come back to bite us later in the tournament.
And by the way, I didn’t take it as “Roberts is a terrible player”. But there were a group of vocal posters that wanted him to stop attacking. Some demanded he be benched and that his misses were costing us the game.
I was not among them as I was not focused solely on a series of possesions, but on the overall best way to win the game.
I don’t think our perimeter shooters can maximize their efficiency without that deliberate interior attacking (which results in collapsing, tip outs for a dagger 3, etc). As you acknowledge, the integration matters.
Mainly just saying, I’m in favor of the approach to let Roberts do his thing. You dance with who brung ya!
For sure, and Roberts is WAY too important for our defensive attack to be benched, even if he’s 1 for 10 lol. And holy hell what a second half for him (6-9, I think most of his 5 assists?) Definitely made up for the first half.
One other thought too regarding point-per-possession.
That’s different from points-per-attempt.
I didn’t check, but I would guess that we likely got points on at least some of the possesions where Roberts missed. So saying his 9 for 18 means 1.00 ppp, is likely short changing it, right?
Yeah, I was over-simplifying it, but I over-simplified it for the guards, too (and again, I have to imagine we got more second-chance points off missed 3s than missed post-up shots.)
I actually agree. J’Wan was absolutely money around the midpoint of the season, but his shooting has just been off for weeks. Hopefully he’s back to what he was after the second half against Gonzaga.
He’s going up against a different kind of player (bigger and more skilled) than what he generally faced earlier in the season and mostly playing against better teams. And defenses are playing him differently than when he was taking shots right at the rim.
And the idea that he should “shoot less” is something people would need to take up with Sampson, because you can rest assured that he sees it differently. Even those missed shots tend to turn into points because of tip out rebounds and threes.
3s are much more likely to be offensive-rebounded than short gimmies.
And I’d be surprised if Sampson and co. would actively want Roberts to shoot 2x as often as his season average considering that’s a pretty significant deviation from our typical offensive scheme which has been elite.
That being said, I think they’re averse to micromanaging and are okay with shots that are generally logical, and I’m sure most of the shots Roberts took were fairly defensible in their eyes.
I do think they probably told Roberts to look to pass out of the post more in the 2nd half, as it seemed to my eye he was doing so more often (most if not all of his 5 assists were in the 2nd half, right?)
I stopped responding to you because you clearly don’t know anything about basketball. Your reading comprehension is also poor. I have muted you and will not see anything else you say.
I was curious about it, so I just checked.
Assuming the espn play-by-play is accurate…
It looks like on 2 of Roberts’ 9 missed fg attempts, we got the offensive rebound and scored. Once a 2 by Roberts, the other ending with a 3 by Uzan.
So…
Points (on those possesions where Roberts took a shot) = 18 pts (by Roberts) + 3 pts (Uzan) = 21 pts.
And on two of the possessions where Roberts took a shot, he got the board and took a second shot (once he scored the other missed again). So that means it was actually only 16 possessions where Roberts took a shot… resulting in (still) 21 points on 16 possessions…
…making it 1.31 points-per-possession.
I realize that is not really the debate, but it does mean success overall on those possessions where
Roberts took a fg attempt.
Doesn’t mean much, but I mostly found it interesting.
Definitely interesting. And I didn’t think about the fact that Roberts does have a tendency to grab his own miss fairly often.
He’s a great player, could just stand to pass the ball maybe 10% more. That’s really the only negative thing I could say about him (other than his free-throw shooting lol.)
I expect he will have a big game against Purdue. I’m not scared of any of their interior defenders.
Ah okay. Just seemed like he was a more willing passer in the 2nd half overall. That might have just been my perception since he was playing better overall.
Well, in your defense, you only get an assist on a made basket.
Your perception there (more willing passer) could be very true depending on whether his pass resulted in a made basket or not (maybe not even a direct shot attempt).
My perception is that you are correct in that regard (passed more in the 2nd half).
It actually does mean something, since that’s how Sampson looks at offensive possessions and scoring. Another example is the running midrange shots that LJ was taking (and often missing) during one stretch this year - Sampson specifically talked about how those shots usually result in points, and that he wants LJ to keep taking them even if he’s missing them more often than not.