WBR Tom wrote:Here's the Primer for Loyola. I went on a bit of a tangent in this one and wound up taking a deep dive into Creighton's three-point shooting, because while doing research for the Ramblers I noticed that CU's three-point rate (percentage of shots that were threes) on Saturday against Texas Southern was the highest ever in the 26 years KenPom has tracked that stat.
https://whiteandbluereview.com/pregame- ... -up-first/
That deep dive was awesome. And interesting. It also somewhat affirms the "pick your poison" mantra that teams are taking with Creighton. As of now, opponents are trying to take away Kalk and CU is jacking threes at a pretty high - and efficient - rate. If that efficiency stays strong, teams may need to adjust, in which case the volume of attempts should go down and Kalk could finally show some interest in playing basketball.
For me the bottom line is this: Ash, Trey, Baylor, Bello, Miller and Traudt should never pass up a good look at a three. No need to force anything, but if it's there, you shoot it. If that means a historic number of attempts, I'm fine with it because we should win most of the games.
Now, will there be a few games when the shots don't fall as efficiently, and CU loses? Yeah. I don't expect CU to go undefeated this season. When that 8 for 28 game happens, will some fans say, "See, I told you!!!" Sadly, yeah. The Jays could win 20 in a row with this approach, lose #21, and a not-so-bright fella, with inexplicable confidence, will say, "This is why you can't rely so heavily on the three." Infuriating, but whaddya gonna do?
You play to your strengths. Shooting is an absolute strength of this team. It's imperfect, but here we are ranked #8 and on the rise. Not too shabby! "We need to get him the ball in the post more" should never be a response when Steph Curry goes 1-8 from three.
Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2023 9:33 am