Conversation wtih J’Wan Roberts:
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These sit downs are great. I love hearing the players reflect back on their time at UH.
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What a neat guy he is!
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If you haven’t checked out the No Conference for Old Men podcast, you should. Some great insight from a basketball coach and the data analytics side, too:
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Thx Ryan!
Yeah please give it a listen folks, we tried something a little different this time for the final 3rd segment. Kind of a friendly debate on the state of this team that got a bit heated 
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Would like to hear back if we should keep a segment to debate/discuss topics of interest, thx 
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I listened to the podcast, and I found the debate in the middle interesting. I agree with both sides to some extent.
(I’m not familiar with everyone’s names yet, so forgive me for that.)
one of the guys point that stood out is that he’s comparing the “end-of-season” version of last year’s team to the “beginning-of-season” version of this year’s team. Almost everything he said this year’s team lacks compared to last year’s team was ALSO said about last year’s team around this same time. For example, we didn’t have a “closer” at this point last year. Shead had an offensive awakening toward the end of non-conference play last year, but before that, he wasn’t someone regularly “closing out games” as our main scorer.
If LJ had just a little more energy and made the game-winner against Bama (32 points and the win in regulation), this wouldn’t even be a talking point. One shot doesn’t define his full-season potential. Just like last year, this could end up being a non-issue towards the end of the year.
That said, to counter the other guy (even though I agree this team could eventually be better than last year’s), there’s a key factor to consider: role adjustments—or, more critically, “role acceptance.” Almost everyone is returning, but nearly all of them are trying to move into a different role this year. There’s an adjustment period needed to handle those new roles (e.g., Terrance transitioning from being the defense guy to becoming an offensive threat). For some players, it’s about realizing that the new role they’re pushing for might not be the best fit, and they need to accept what they excel at instead. That process takes time.
also, the poor “2-point percentage” doesn’t tell the full story. We’re shooting much worse than usual on “2s” if you look at all 2-point attempts as the same.
It’s not that we’re necessarily making less 2s overall, but we’re taking more mid-range shots than we typically do. LJ, Uzan, and Terrance—our primary scorers except sharp—are primarily operating in the mid-range.
The bigger story, in my view, is that J’Wan is being far less aggressive on offense. He’s supposed to be our post threat, but that presence just isn’t there right now.
frequency by region
We have one of the lowest post-up attempt rates in the nation and one of the highest mid-range attempt rates. Surprisingly, we’re actually shooting pretty well from mid-range, but even good mid-range percentages hover around 40%. However, 40% from the lens of general “2s” is actually very inefficient. Sampson mentioned fast breaks and post ups in the press conference so that could change, its a shot selection issue and less a poor shooting issue
(For added clarity: we typically shoot more mid-range shots than the average team, but this year it’s especially bad.)
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Ive mentioned this in at least 2 of the game threads, they need to clean that up, its pretty much the lowest value shot you can take and we take way too many.
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Yes, living on those long two point shots is not good, but the better defenses we are facing are steering our guys to those shots by crowding the three point line and clogging the paint. As has been mentioned by others, having two bigs that can’t even shoot a ten footer, on the floor together, plays right into the hands of that type of defense.
The other thing that’s not helping is we seem to get the first step on the defenders when driving, but then pull up instead of forcing the issue with the other teams big. If you go hard and make them commit to you, that should open up a big for a pass and less contested post shot.
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This is the biggest culprit, IMO.
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I’m catching a plane to come in for the Butler game, so I’ll try to respond w/ quick responses to your points…
Bill’s the old guy that was comparing current team to last year’s ending team. I said the same thing to him offline afterwards as well.
I’m Steve, the other old man you referenced. And of course there are “some” adjustments every year. But w/ 4 starters and really 7 of our top 8 players back, our adjustments are smaller than most of the other teams we’ve been facing. So I don’t accept Bill’s rationale for our challenges.
The 2p shooting comment, you’re right in there are different types of 2’s. However as a pure analytics guy (and I’m being a bit flippant here), I don’t care because a 2’s a 2. And we’ve either run plays for more midranges or the kids have elected to do so themselves so far. Bottom line is for a team that takes a lot of 2’s, we’re hitting at a miserable rate so far.
And for Roberts, he needs to pick up all aspects of his game imo. Not just the inside scoring bit.
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Because we shoot a bunch of 10-15 footers instead of 2-5 footers.
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I dunno that I’d rather have a contested jojo or jvier 3ft shot vs an open LJ 12 footer at elbow, but good point above on guards not forcing issue to draw bigs and dish for uncontested layup. Shead was really good at that.
And part of that is we’re not collecting rebounds and getting put-backs, but too many guys seem to have an aversion to attacking the rim (I mean in a Sharp kind of way and not a Jo-Jo tomahawk hook shot kind of way).
If those are the 2 options, sure. But that isn’t the majority of the close 2s and mid-range 2s.
Close 2s we are shooting .579, mid range .378. Mid range is by far the worst option, we shoot .425 from 3, we should be taking less than 20 midrange pg, last year we were a 19., this year 27.
It is actually worse than I had expected. We attempt more mid-range shots than anyone else in the nation, ranking #1 in mid-Range shots per 100 possessions. Yikes!
edit, here are teams sorted by MRAR
NOT good company.
That’s a great description of “attacking the rim”. You’d think the rim stole JoJo’s girlfriend and his dog, the way he “attacks” it with the ball.
Would like to see him put a little more touch on his shot.
Also a little chicken - egg action in that you need to hit midrange j/float at higher clip before big comes out to open some pass / lob. Got to improve what you do worse to open up what you do better. I like the guards getting opps in their hip pocket, but runner / j threat has to be legit to open up.
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