Vacation Gatekeepers

[Xville]

But the question about whether we had enough shooting or not. And whether we were counting on Free / Hunter to fill the stretch big role.

You didnt answer that.

Post 104 man. good gawd.

[MHettel]

Yeah fair enough, he clearly wasn’t shooting as much behind the line. Though he still had a good mid range game, IMO. You can still work a pick and roll with it. And he is almost always a mismatch when he can have room against the opposing 4 in the paint. He works best with a stretch 5 in that regard for sure

yes, exactly

[MHettel]

Post 104 man. good gawd.

well, we could get to post #250 if you want. Or you could just answer the question.

[Xavier]

yes, exactly

That’s what made him a 2nd team all big east guy. Ability to beat you in many ways, tough to guard. But he was damn good in the paint. I honestly think he was underrated when healthy last year. I hope we get something close to where he was next year. Makes me excited thinking about what his game was.

[Xville]

well, we could get to post #250 if you want. Or you could just answer the question.

What I believe is that with a competent inside game, that opens up opportunities for shooters. X didn't have a competent inside game, so that not only put a hell of a lot of pressure on guys that could shoot, but also allowed defenses to play a certain way. Did X have as many shooters on the team as the year before? Probably not but I think X had enough.

With a healthy free and hunter getting 25 points a game or so, that opens things up quite a bit

[IM4X]

Really?

Free took 34 3's as a Freshman. 78 as a soph, 46 as a junior, and then 22 last year. Someone told him his job was not to shoot.

I vividly recall that many, if not MOST of his 3 attempts came at the very end of the shot clock. we hasn't looking for his shot, and he just happened to have it when an attempt was necessary.

Free played in 22 games. He took ZERO attempts in 8 of them. He took 3 attempts in the first 9 games. Of his 14 made 3's last year, he had 8 in his last 7 games. Arguably he was getting a little more comfortable as the year went on. But I'm not sure i would have penciled him in as a stretch guy for this year. Will be interesting to see how hes used next year. I'd prefer that hes the guy that benefits from having a less crowded lane if he had a stretch 5 that can pull then other big man outside.

It is very likely Sean worked with Free to be more selective with the 3s he took like he did with many of the players he inherited from Steele.
So Zach took fewer, better shots.

That is not the same thing as someone telling him his job is not to shoot 3s. Sean may have said that to Hunter- I highly doubt he said that same thing to Zach.

The fact that Free took fewer shots and improved his percentage to 60% from 3 when doing so tells us two things:

Zach has learned to become a better decision-maker, taking smarter 3s.
Zach is indeed a very capable 3 point shooter who will absolute be given the green light to shoot 3s.

I’m not sure why you’d choose to sell one of our players short. Fremantle was downright remarkable before his injury. He took smarter shots and made a much higher percent of them because of it. How does that make him a bad 3 point shooter? He isn’t.

We know Sean has an incredible knack for helping players develop into much better players by teaching them to make smarter decisions. I expect to see Zach take more 3s than he did last year and shoot at a percentage similar to what Nunge shot last season.

[nuts4xu]

With a healthy free and hunter getting 25 points a game or so, that opens things up quite a bit

I think it's optimistic to expect 25 points from Hunter and Freemantle next season. I am not counting on that much production, especially with Hunter.