NU’s Lack of Shooting - research needed

[OurDecay]

I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around the way that - seemingly independent of coaching and players - NU almost never has good shooters, and certainly not a good shooting team.  It has been this way for quite a while.  I’ve considered different potential causes:

 

1. recruiting players with poor mechanics

2. recruiting players that simply have never been good shots

3. our level of competition we face is beyond the talent we possess

4. we are poorly coaching shooting

5. we are not coaching shooting enough 

6. something within our program creates players who aren’t “clutch” and cannot replicate practice habits in games

7. our players are not mentally tough and as result their shooting falls apart, or lack of confidence 

8. we just simply don’t have good offensive players 

9. we cannot identify good shooters in recruiting 

10. we do not have a good offensive system to give people good looks

11. the overall recruiting limitations of being the worst P5 basketball program in the county

12. something about our practice facility/PBA doesn’t translate to shooting in away games

13. we do not simulate game situations 

 

what do you guys think?  I’m not an expert on shooting mechanics or recruiting.  What do you think the biggest causes are?  Even tonight I watched guys who are adequate career 3-pt shooters (at other programs) airball or clank wide-open 3s.  Why?

 

[Cazzie22]

Can we bring back Jerry Fort from my generation?

[Faux Mike Peltz]

Shooting is more mental than mechanical. And our guys don’t seem to have a lot of confidence. Teddy does, but I’m not so sure that helps or hurts at times haha. 
 

[HuskerFever]

Here's a few key points to look at over the seasons:

• We're experiencing the worst FT% performance in the last 20 years (#1 and #3 worst)
• Nearly the worst FG% shooting in the last 20 years (#2 and #4 worst)
• Horrid 3P% shooting in the last 20 years (#3 and #6 worst)

 

 

EDIT: One more thing to add that I found interesting. Miles' final years at Nebraska are somewhat aligned with the PTS/MIN that Hoiberg is outputting right now. Not alluding to any coaching opinions; my hypothesis just would have been that Hoiberg was substantially pushing his teams to score faster than the coaches we've seen before. I suppose this might be more prevalent if we saw better shooting percentages out of this team.

Edited December 31, 2020 by HuskerFever

[HB]

We desperately need our resident shooting scholar Norm to weigh in on this thread.

[jayschool]

Strictly as an aside (because I have no answers on why we never seem to be able to shoot against teams not called "Doane), our Big Ten opponents' shooting percentages through three games compared to ours in those three games:

• Field Goals 83-of-178 (47 percent) and Nebraska 60-of-178 (34 percent)
• 2-point FGs 54-of-93 (58 percent) and Nebraska 40-of-98 (41 percent)
• 3-point FGs 29-of-85 (34 percent) and Nebraska 20-of-80 (25 percent)
• Free Throws 42-49 (86 percent) and Nebraska 36-of-58 (62 percent)

[jayschool]

Don't know how it relates, but words of advice from Terry Pettit: "Some haystacks don't have any needles."

 

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by jayschool

[swoll cracker]

21 minutes ago, jayschool said:

Don't know how it relates, but words of advice from Terry Pettit: "Some haystacks don't have any needles."

 

 

 

Terry is one of the most thoughtful and profound people I have met.  Not sure how many of you are aware that Terry was instrumental in getting Tim Miles to Nebraska from Colorado State.

[jayschool]

26 minutes ago, swoll cracker said:

 

Terry is one of the most thoughtful and profound people I have met.  Not sure how many of you are aware that Terry was instrumental in getting Tim Miles to Nebraska from Colorado State.

I was at CSU from 1999 to 2009, and I covered Tim's first two teams at CSU for the now-defunct examiner.com while teaching there. I talked to Terry a couple of times just sitting in Moby watching a game. The Rams were awful, even with Marcus Walker.

 

On edit: I also convinced Tim to talk basketball with me over smoothies at the Juice Stop. What a great guy.

Edited December 31, 2020 by jayschool

[Red Don]

Holy Moly Jay!    Where Haven't you been.  

[jayschool]

14 minutes ago, Red Don said:

Holy Moly Jay!    Where Haven't you been.  

It goes like this: Nebraska to New Jersey to Florida (Coral Gables) to Florida (Gainesville) to Colorado (Fort Collins) to Kansas to Colorado (Boulder) to Iowa City.

 

Still trying to wash off the patchouli stench from four years at CU.

Edited December 31, 2020 by jayschool

[jayschool]

Great insight from @Jacob Padilla

 

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by jayschool

[Norm Peterson]

On 12/31/2020 at 12:03 PM, jayschool said:

Great insight from @Jacob Padilla

 

 

 

That's a big part of the problem and certainly no mystery. You have a black hole where your floor-spacers should be. The other problem is the we have a black hole where our roll man on the P&R should be. All of those things cause us to be severely anemic on the offensive end.

[Norm Peterson]

On 12/30/2020 at 9:07 PM, Faux Mike Peltz said:

Shooting is more mental than mechanical. And our guys don’t seem to have a lot of confidence. Teddy does, but I’m not so sure that helps or hurts at times haha. 

 

I think it's multi-factorial. Some guys just aren't blessed with shooting touch and other guys have it in spades. Some guys can just toss the ball toward the rim and it goes in; others couldn't hit the ocean if they fell out of a boat.

 

Mechanics matter for a variety of reasons. Bad mechanics can result in a slow windup and delivery, which means you'd have to have more space to get the shot off even if you were one of those guys who could throw it at the rim and swish it.

 

The third factor is feel rather than thought. You have to turn off the part of your brain that thinks "how strong do I need to shoot it to get it that far?" and just let muscle memory take over. Guys who miss more than their ability suggests they should are probably thinking too much. It's hard to turn off that conscious thought process and let muscle memory take over when you're pressing and worried about your slump and the team's struggles.

 

Going out and hitting a couple can cure some of that. It's why you want a guy to shoot himself out of a slump. Keep giving him the green light. Hopefully it'll pay off. I think that's what we're doing with Lat and Thor but Thor has almost given up taking shots.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Norm Peterson

[Norm Peterson]

On 12/31/2020 at 12:03 PM, jayschool said:

Great insight from @Jacob Padilla

 

 

 

It's interesting that the floor-spacer guys and the on-ball guys have the same number of 3-point attempts in Big Ten play. But the guys who need to be your 3-point specialists have 1/4 as many makes on the same number of attempts.

 

Just think how much different this team would be if our floor spacers were shooting only just as well as the on-ball guys. That would be 12 more 3-point makes or 36 more points. Yeah, we still lose to Ohio State, but we beat Michigan and take Wisconsin to the wire.

 

And if our floor spacers are hitting those shots, then our on-ball guys are probably more efficient going to the rim.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Norm Peterson

[Handy Johnson]

This has obviously become a “Head Space” problem more than recruiting or mechanics. It’s a cliche for a reason, but good shooters do shoot themselves HOT. Hopefully tonight (MSU) once they see the first few go in, it’ll open up the floodgates...

Edited January 2, 2021 by Handy Johnson