Gwmayhem wrote:

GWRising, your point would have more merit had James made a concerted effort to get his teammates involved from the outset.  His decision-making was dubious in game #1 and has stayed that way for the most part.  The first half against W&M was an exception where he consistently made sound decisions.  Then, this strong play suddenly disappeared after halftime.  Specifically, he is not finding his three point shooters.  This is incredibly important because James is the one with the ball in his hands almost every possession that he's in the game, and because the offense is designed to free up open shooters from behind the arc based on James drawing in additional defenders.  JC has spoken about his desire to take 3's.  Thus far, our opponents are attempting over 8 more three point shots per game than GW is.  This flies in the face of what JC wants to accomplish.  Less than 1/3 of our FG attempts have come from 3.  By contrast, one of JC's MSM teams took 48% of its shots from 3 over the course of a season.  One way that this year was supposed to improve over last year was that we've added more players who can supposedly shoot more consistently from 3.  If the ball is only rarely being kicked out to find these shooters, then that's not good enough.

All of this is not to suggest that real problems concerning the defense and rebounding don't exist because they most certainly do.  However, it's become apparent that the only way this team will be successful is by outscoring its opponents in high scoring games for the most part.  If the offense is humming the way it's supposed to, the defensive and rebounding struggles become less important (still important, but less important).  

But other players must make open threes when the ball is delivered and also not turn it over. That can't be on James Bishop. He is averaging about 7 assists per game. I am quite confident that if we made shots and didn't turn it over, his assists would be in 8-9 range per game minimum. Tough to argue that a guy who gives you almost 20 a game along with 9 assists is not getting his teammates involved. Simply put, Battle, Jack, and Seymour must make open threes. Also, you forgot to mention our post players. When was the last time you saw a post player kick the ball out for an open three? JC's offense not only depends on Bishop to draw defenders but for post players to make the ball go inside out. Tough when your two true 5's have 4 assists in 6 games and 20 turnovers.

Finally, I would argue the dearth of 3 point attempts has a lot to do with what the defense is giving us. Despite JC's preference, the teams we have played thus far have allowed a lot of inside scoring. And we have taken advantage of it.

JC has harped on maximizing possessions as the key. You can't maximize possessions when you don't get stops, you don't keep people off the offensive glass, you don't rebound the ball well on the offensive glass and you turn the ball over at a high rate. We need to fix this or it is a losing recipe.
 

Last edited by GWRising (12/17/2020 2:36 pm)

Bishop is more than capable of involving his teammates. He did that mostly pretty well in the first half against William and Mary. James certainly has the ability to pass as well as score. Needs to make the best of his skills for the team.
Whatever the stats say for someone who it feels like he has ball in his hands almost all
of the time, the eye test shows he blows a lot of opportunities. Sometimes bailed out by good foul calls, sometimes by questionable ones. Sometimes, it loses games like William and Mary,etc.
  Also didn't he do unsuccessful hero ball a minute before in this game?
Afraid to look. And didn't the same thing one person thing happen at the end of either the Delaware and UMBC game (perhaps both)? 
Didn't we also have a big rally without Bishop in one of these games? 
   Other players tend to not pass the ball because they know they won't get it back. 
3 point shooters are taking lesser shots because the ball is not given to them in position at the right time. Or when it is begrudgingly delivered, it is little too late, after all personal options have been exhausted.
  We are clearly losing JNJ, Jamison and Maceo and perhaps others to this. It's pretty easy to see on their faces and actions on the court.
    We're not making them better. We're making them worse with this system, with the side benefit of losing games to lesser teams.
   We can live, though unhappily, with the shortcomings of players who try their all on both ends of the court. 
   Selfish play should neither be encouraged nor tolerated.
 

Last edited by jf (12/17/2020 4:52 pm)

Exactly JF.

GWRising, of course it would be helpful to make a higher percentage of three point shots.  Yet this offense is not supposed to be, "James, go do your own thing if our shots aren't falling."   All you really need to know is that JC would like 48% of our total FG attempts to come from 3 and currently, this figure is at 33% (which is less than our opponents percentage).

Yes, it sounds like I'm coming down hard on James but there are two realities:  first, James is clearly a gifted player who I hope can recognize the value of setting up three point shooters more often than he has; and second, the ball almost always starts in his hands so it's only logical that he will bear a large percentage of the criticism.  By no means am I suggesting that James is the only player who needs to either improve or alter his game for this team to have success.

In fact, I may have just stumbled upon the distinction.  While most GW players need to improve their respective games to date, James does not need to improve his skills as much as he needs to alter his philosophy by embracing a team concept more than he has shown to date.