Is there a law we don't know about?

[Ray Morgan]

 There must be a little known ordinance that went into effect in Queens County around 1984 precluding St. John's coaches from recruiting guys that can shoot. How else can you explain that, since the recruitment of Chris Mullin and Ron Rowan, SJU has had one class after another with players that are, to say the least, wanting in the shooting department. Not that the teams prior to Mullin's arrival were filled with shooters, but you could at least think back to Kevin Cluess and Glenn Williams, and farther back to Billy Schaeffer in the early 70's.

Since Rowan graduated, the only serious shooter SJU had was Bootsy Thornton, who could hit a three pointer but was more of a mid range shooter. Paris Horne and Hardy were deep threats, but could hardly be considered dead eye shooters. So in 25 years, one real shooter? And this in an era where you get three points for a jump shot that isn't exactly at the old ABA line. I love the athleticism of this group, but come on. Can't any one of these guys hit an open jumper? The problem is exacerbated by the lack of a penetrating point guard that can draw attention and dish, and the absence of a real inside threat, but these guys had plenty of open looks last night and were not all that close. Look at the shooting percentages on Harrison and Greene for the season. Better yet, don't look if you are having a late dinner. Anyone that didn't read the scouting reports on the freshman class would assume that the 2 non quals, Pelle and Sampson, must have been shooters, especially since the others aren't. Yet reports on them showed that they needed work on their outside games as well. Nuri? How about 0 from 3 point land for his shortened season. The lone returnee, Stith? No comment

There must be an answer to this puzzle somewhere. Perhaps the coveted super athletes that can shoot are top twenty rated and just historically went elsewhere. There are still plenty of shooters out there that, while not as athletic, are valuable deep threats. Just once I want to see an announcer talk about a SJU player the way they talked about Mullin. I know that this team was built for length and speed, and that all got blown apart when 2 likely starters failed to qualify. But even with the bright future this team has, assuming some help comes next season, it is awfully difficult to watch this team struggle from beyond 5 feet.  

 

[MCNPA]

 Once again. A recruiting class of just 6 or 7 guys all of whom are freshmen are not a model for polished play nor deadeye shooting. The poor shooting is much a function of several factors. These kids are adjusting to this league, the defenses amongst a host of other factors. We're essentially a high school team out there that's trying to grow up real fast. Shooting will improve as we move on in the season and on in years of experience. Harrison is a good shooter who will be excellent as time goes on. Mo needs to get more consistent but has a nice stroke as does Greene.

Lavor Postell was an atrocious shooter as a freshman. The remedy is time and more bodies on the court.

 

[sam i am]

 many years ago i spoke to mike jarvis at a h.s. game at st. doms. i told him his players could jump to the top of the backboard but could not throw the ball in the ocean. he said that would change next year with doyle and ingram. we know how that worked out. nothing has changed. as a fan for 50 years who watched chris and tony jackson it was really sad to watch last night.

 

[Section3]

 many years ago i spoke to mike jarvis at a h.s. game at st. doms. i told him his players could jump to the top of the backboard but could not throw the ball in the ocean. he said that would change next year with doyle and ingram. we know how that worked out. nothing has changed. as a fan for 50 years who watched chris and tony jackson it was really sad to watch last night.

 

It was tough to watch Sam, but you gotta have faith that it'll improve.

Only shooting displays that I can remember rivaled last night's was a game at Nassau Coliseum against Oregon (#1 ranked at some point that season) and of course the 1st half of that Georgetown disaster (think we were down 36-9 in the 1st half).

 

[MCNPA]

 Against providence we shot 56.5% FG, 36.8% from 3. We're certainly capable of better.

 

[Ray Morgan]

 many years ago i spoke to mike jarvis at a h.s. game at st. doms. i told him his players could jump to the top of the backboard but could not throw the ball in the ocean. he said that would change next year with doyle and ingram. we know how that worked out. nothing has changed. as a fan for 50 years who watched chris and tony jackson it was really sad to watch last night.

 

It was tough to watch Sam, but you gotta have faith that it'll improve.

Only shooting displays that I can remember rivaled last night's was a game at Nassau Coliseum against Oregon (#1 ranked at some point that season) and of course the 1st half of that Georgetown disaster (think we were down 36-9 in the 1st half).

 

It has been awhile, but against Georgetown I recall a ton of turnovers due to their press, and much less opportunities than last night. There were plenty of open looks last night in addition to all the rushed shots.

 

[Ray Morgan]

 Once again. A recruiting class of just 6 or 7 guys all of whom are freshmen are not a model for polished play nor deadeye shooting. The poor shooting is much a function of several factors. These kids are adjusting to this league, the defenses amongst a host of other factors. We're essentially a high school team out there that's trying to grow up real fast. Shooting will improve as we move on in the season and on in years of experience. Harrison is a good shooter who will be excellent as time goes on. Mo needs to get more consistent but has a nice stroke as does Greene.

Lavor Postell was an atrocious shooter as a freshman. The remedy is time and more bodies on the court.

 

There is no doubt that too many shots are desperate heaves to beat the shot clock. Harrison is forced to take too many threes well beyond both his range and the three point line. But you have to be in complete denial to think that there isn't a little problem here, to say the least. I like Harkless' mechanics. He looks like the type that can be a good shooter up to the three point line. Harrison has a strange release, and his shot is a little flat for a long range guy. Compare that to Kuric's arc and release. Picture perfect. Granted, he is a senior with a deeper, more experienced supporting staff. But my point is that it's not just this year, it's been this way for 40 years. What gives? The strange thing is even guys with reputations as shooters in high school such as Chuck Sproling and Freddie Lyson couldn't shoot to save their lives at this level. It just doesn't make any sense, especially the way nearly every team we faced seems to have several three point threats. By the way, assuming everyone finished their dinner, Harrison is at 38%, 32% from 3, Greene is at 31%, 22 from 3. It will get better. But it would still be nice if somehow a real life Rick Mount type showed up on this campus next year.

 

[Section3]

 many years ago i spoke to mike jarvis at a h.s. game at st. doms. i told him his players could jump to the top of the backboard but could not throw the ball in the ocean. he said that would change next year with doyle and ingram. we know how that worked out. nothing has changed. as a fan for 50 years who watched chris and tony jackson it was really sad to watch last night.

 

It was tough to watch Sam, but you gotta have faith that it'll improve.

Only shooting displays that I can remember rivaled last night's was a game at Nassau Coliseum against Oregon (#1 ranked at some point that season) and of course the 1st half of that Georgetown disaster (think we were down 36-9 in the 1st half).

 

It has been awhile, but against Georgetown I recall a ton of turnovers due to their press, and much less opportunities than last night. There were plenty of open looks last night in addition to all the rushed shots.

 

You're probably right (it has been a while)...for me the common thread was that sick feeling watching these 3 games

 

[usguard]

I think defense improves with cosaching more often than shooting Great shooting is a gift. 

 

[MainMan]

To be sure, Kyle Kuric is a very good player and a great shooter.

But I have a feeling that if we signed a kid whose finalists are Southern Illinois and Saint Louis, this board would be a shti storm.

 

[lawmanfan]

 Where have you gone Sergio Luyk, Timmy Doyle, Willie Shaw, Ricky Torres, Fred Lyson, etc etc etc all of whom were supposed to solve our 3 point shooting woes?

I think the issue is that you watch teams like Duke, Kansas, UNC, Arizona on TV, you play mid-major teams like Northeastern, Cornell, Columbia, and you throw in a few BE teams like ND and Louisville and all of them have game plans that depend on shooting a lot of 3s. Those programs therefore go out and recruit multiple guys who can shoot 3s, plant them around the perimeter, and take it from there.

It's not a bad strategy - if you hit 40% from 3 then the other team has to hit 60% from 2 to break even, if the shot attempts are equal.

However, SJU has never gone in that direction. In one form or another, from Louie to Mahoney to Jarvis to Norm to Lavin, the primary focus of our offenses has always been to get the ball to the rim either in a half-court environment or in transition. As a result SJU has never had more than one long-range threat, and it always seems to be a lower priority than finding a point guard, a small forward, or a big. That's why Bootsy is the only consistent deep shooter we've had since, well, Mullin, who didn't have a 3-point line to shoot from.

SJU is far from the only program that eschews heavy reliance on the 3-ball, and I don't think there is a definitive answer to whether one approach is better than the other. Either way if you execute well on both ends of the floor, you have a chance to win.

 

[fun]

 However, SJU has never gone in that direction. In one form or another, from Louie to Mahoney to Jarvis to Norm to Lavin, the primary focus of our offenses has always been to get the ball to the rim either in a half-court environment or in transition. As a result SJU has never had more than one long-range threat, and it always seems to be a lower priority than finding a point guard, a small forward, or a big. That's why Bootsy is the only consistent deep shooter we've had since, well, Mullin, who didn't have a 3-point line to shoot from..

 

I don't think this is true. We haven't had many consistent 3 point shooter since Bootsy (actually Hardy) because the ones we recruited didn't pan put (Patterson, Wright, Torres). It wasn't for lack of trying. And now that we have a shooter - I'll be surprised if Harrison doesn't shoot around 40 percent next year - I expect to see it a bigger part of the offense moving forward.

 

[bobre45]

 Where have you gone Sergio Luyk, Timmy Doyle, Willie Shaw, Ricky Torres, Fred Lyson, etc etc etc all of whom were supposed to solve our 3 point shooting woes?

I think the issue is that you watch teams like Duke, Kansas, UNC, Arizona on TV, you play mid-major teams like Northeastern, Cornell, Columbia, and you throw in a few BE teams like ND and Louisville and all of them have game plans that depend on shooting a lot of 3s. Those programs therefore go out and recruit multiple guys who can shoot 3s, plant them around the perimeter, and take it from there.

It's not a bad strategy - if you hit 40% from 3 then the other team has to hit 60% from 2 to break even, if the shot attempts are equal.

However, SJU has never gone in that direction. In one form or another, from Louie to Mahoney to Jarvis to Norm to Lavin, the primary focus of our offenses has always been to get the ball to the rim either in a half-court environment or in transition. As a result SJU has never had more than one long-range threat, and it always seems to be a lower priority than finding a point guard, a small forward, or a big. That's why Bootsy is the only consistent deep shooter we've had since, well, Mullin, who didn't have a 3-point line to shoot from.

SJU is far from the only program that eschews heavy reliance on the 3-ball, and I don't think there is a definitive answer to whether one approach is better than the other. Either way if you execute well on both ends of the floor, you have a chance to win.

 

As I posted on the other thread when you are the number 342 (out of 344) three pt shooting team in the nation you really don't stand much of a chance of winning consisently under today's rules. There are many other teams with personnel problems like we have but only 2 in the country are shooting worse from deep than we are. This goes way beyond philosophy in my opinion. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's wrong.

 

[mc_94]

 I'm hoping we play the 2 teams that are below us.

 

[lawmanfan]

 However, SJU has never gone in that direction. In one form or another, from Louie to Mahoney to Jarvis to Norm to Lavin, the primary focus of our offenses has always been to get the ball to the rim either in a half-court environment or in transition. As a result SJU has never had more than one long-range threat, and it always seems to be a lower priority than finding a point guard, a small forward, or a big. That's why Bootsy is the only consistent deep shooter we've had since, well, Mullin, who didn't have a 3-point line to shoot from..

 

I don't think this is true. We haven't had many consistent 3 point shooter since Bootsy (actually Hardy) because the ones we recruited didn't pan put (Patterson, Wright, Torres). It wasn't for lack of trying. And now that we have a shooter - I'll be surprised if Harrison doesn't shoot around 40 percent next year - I expect to see it a bigger part of the offense moving forward.

 

I agree. What I was inartfully trying to say is that we only seem to recruit one three-point shooter at a time. I can't recall any SJU team where you ever had to guard more than one guy on the perimeter.

Contrast that with the offspring of Coach K (Brey, et al) or with the Roy Williams approach which is often to put two or even three guys on the 3 point line and play from the inside out, as opposed to what we have done forever, which is play from the inside in, and only when that fails dump it to the long guy who maybe if he's lucky gets to run off a screen or a curl as opposed to receiving the ball chucking it up and hoping it goes in.

 

[fun]

I agree. What I was inartfully trying to say is that we only seem to recruit one three-point shooter at a time. I can't recall any SJU team where you ever had to guard more than one guy on the perimeter.

Contrast that with the offspring of Coach K (Brey, et al) or with the Roy Williams approach which is often to put two or even three guys on the 3 point line and play from the inside out, as opposed to what we have done forever, which is play from the inside in, and only when that fails dump it to the long guy who maybe if he's lucky gets to run off a screen or a curl as opposed to receiving the ball chucking it up and hoping it goes in.

 

When Lou was coaching there was no three point shot, so it made sense to shoot as close to the basket as possible. Mahoney was Lou's clone. Fran's teams used the 3 to good effect. Jarvae had no offensive scheme to speak of and Norm tried to get shooters, they just didn't pan out. So I think outside Lou it's less a philosophy than happenstance. That said, here's a pretty neat (thats right neat) chart that tracks SJ use of the 3 versus their opponents. Except for recently SJ more or less tracks everyone elses, although its usually a tad under

http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/st-j...1-2012&chart=threefg_attempted&type=all#chart

 

[lawmanfan]

When Lou was coaching there was no three point shot, so it made sense to shoot as close to the basket as possible. Mahoney was Lou's clone. Fran's teams used the 3 to good effect. Jarvae had no offensive scheme to speak of and Norm tried to get shooters, they just didn't pan out. So I think outside Lou it's less a philosophy than happenstance. That said, here's a pretty neat (thats right neat) chart that tracks SJ use of the 3 versus their opponents. Except for recently SJ more or less tracks everyone elses, although its usually a tad under

http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/st-j...1-2012&chart=threefg_attempted&type=all#chart

 

That is a cool chart. Seeing SJU vs national averages would be interesting too.

Not sure I agree with your "tad under" assessment. I didn't have time to run the averages but it looked to me as though most years SJU attempted 20% - 25% fewer threes than the opponents, with the exception of the three years or so where SJU jumped up (I'm pretty sure one of those was a Bootsy year and another one may have been Willie Shaw's freshman year).

 

[JackofVirginia]

 Where have you gone Sergio Luyk, Timmy Doyle, Willie Shaw, Ricky Torres, Fred Lyson, etc etc etc all of whom were supposed to solve our 3 point shooting woes?

I think the issue is that you watch teams like Duke, Kansas, UNC, Arizona on TV, you play mid-major teams like Northeastern, Cornell, Columbia, and you throw in a few BE teams like ND and Louisville and all of them have game plans that depend on shooting a lot of 3s. Those programs therefore go out and recruit multiple guys who can shoot 3s, plant them around the perimeter, and take it from there.

It's not a bad strategy - if you hit 40% from 3 then the other team has to hit 60% from 2 to break even, if the shot attempts are equal.

However, SJU has never gone in that direction. In one form or another, from Louie to Mahoney to Jarvis to Norm to Lavin, the primary focus of our offenses has always been to get the ball to the rim either in a half-court environment or in transition. As a result SJU has never had more than one long-range threat, and it always seems to be a lower priority than finding a point guard, a small forward, or a big. That's why Bootsy is the only consistent deep shooter we've had since, well, Mullin, who didn't have a 3-point line to shoot from.

SJU is far from the only program that eschews heavy reliance on the 3-ball, and I don't think there is a definitive answer to whether one approach is better than the other. Either way if you execute well on both ends of the floor, you have a chance to win.

 

Lawman, you forgot that great shooter from Denver, Chuckie Sproling.

 

[ccnobz]

 However, SJU has never gone in that direction. In one form or another, from Louie to Mahoney to Jarvis to Norm to Lavin, the primary focus of our offenses has always been to get the ball to the rim either in a half-court environment or in transition. As a result SJU has never had more than one long-range threat, and it always seems to be a lower priority than finding a point guard, a small forward, or a big. That's why Bootsy is the only consistent deep shooter we've had since, well, Mullin, who didn't have a 3-point line to shoot from..

 

I don't think this is true. We haven't had many consistent 3 point shooter since Bootsy (actually Hardy) because the ones we recruited didn't pan put (Patterson, Wright, Torres). It wasn't for lack of trying. And now that we have a shooter - I'll be surprised if Harrison doesn't shoot around 40 percent next year - I expect to see it a bigger part of the offense moving forward.

 

I agree. What I was inartfully trying to say is that we only seem to recruit one three-point shooter at a time. I can't recall any SJU team where you ever had to guard more than one guy on the perimeter.

Contrast that with the offspring of Coach K (Brey, et al) or with the Roy Williams approach which is often to put two or even three guys on the 3 point line and play from the inside out, as opposed to what we have done forever, which is play from the inside in, and only when that fails dump it to the long guy who maybe if he's lucky gets to run off a screen or a curl as opposed to receiving the ball chucking it up and hoping it goes in.

 



I saw Cuse doing exactly what you desribe there-- they had a guy at the free- throw line against the zone and two guards , who are both 3 point shooters seperated at the top of the three point line-- and the passer would just pass the ball out to whomever was open for a open 3 ball. Sort of like a triangle at the top of the key. To your point you do need 2 guys who can nail the 3--- Cuse seems to have like 4.

 

[monte]

I know his name has been mentioned a few times on this thread, but I don't recall Ricky Torres ever being considered a dead eye shooter. But then again these days there's a lot of things that I don't recall.