1 of 1- BM
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GW Magazine Article
Got my copy of the glossy GW Magazine which had a (somewhat strangely worded) article about Jamion Christian. It had a few nice nuggets that were interesting to me.
“I measure a guy by what he can do, not by what he can’t do,” says the now-37-year-old Christian... ...“If a guy can only make shots from one spot on the floor,” Christian continues, “my job is to get him to that one spot on the floor. It’s not to complain and be upset that he can’t make them from the other five spots, right?..."
Different from some other coaches we've had (ahem, ML, ahem), but explains why he's happier to watch Seymour and Battle camp out at the line than other coaches would be.
Christian runs his own version of Havoc, modified for 3-point fecundity. He dubbed it “Mayhem.”
That may be the reason we're all having problems spotting Mayhem. We're all looking for Havoc-style full court pressure and Mayhem is the tough pressure D we play closing out on 3pt shooters. We're now #4 in the country in opponent's 3pt shooting percentage so I'd say Mayhem is working pretty well.
That team, by the Tribe’s historically meager standards, was loaded. It featured Marcus Thornton, who the Boston Celtics took in the second round of the 2015 NBA draft, making Thornton the Tribe’s first NBA pick. It was Christian who lured Thornton to William & Mary, using his data-based evaluation system to ID an undervalued high school player. Then Christian courted him early and always.
I had no idea. I always thought this was a massive recruiting coup by W&M specially while watching him score at will in Kenner every Summer. Between Thornton and Jalen Pickett (who's taken a bit of a step back this season), he has a pretty good track record for picking pro-level guards.
“Basically,” says junior guard Justin Mazzulla, “guys got vulnerable—and that’s how you get to know someone truthfully is when they’re vulnerable. You know the truth about someone. A lot of the guys opened up about their lives. Coaches and the guys said stuff about their lives that was very hard for them, growing up. I saw the impact the next day. It gives you a sense of togetherness in that someone is actually listening to you, because everyone in that locker room listened to that story and saw how that impacted you and now you tend to understand how guys are affected, why they act the way they act. It opens your eyes so much more when you look at that person.”
A bit ironic that Mazzulla is quoted here, but stuff like this is probably why the team gelled so quickly when the new staff took over the reigns.
Also lots of interesting points about his recruit scoring system. Explains why we have a quant guy on our coaching staff.
- jf
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Re: GW Magazine Article
Good analysis. Interesting point on Mayhem, which may be misnamed because we don't see a lot of Mayhem, but that stat is impressive.
Not hugely impressed by the recruiting, outside of Noel Brown and JNJ (wasn't Battle a Mojo recruit) and Ace as a free walkon, but maybe there's some statistical reason for his recruits.
Lots and lots of irony on Mazz.
Assume the data gathering is why the literally 5 or 6 student managers/helpers are writing things down right behind the bench.
- Gwmayhem
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Re: GW Magazine Article
I believe JC's philosophy about not turning guys into something they are not while finding ways to exploit their strengths is spot on. What ML tried to achieve with Mikic, while well-intended, turned out to be counterproductive IMO. It' easy to see that Jameson already has more of an ability to pump fake a three and drive to the basket than Nemanja ever had. However, if Jameson's bread and butter is shooting from three, then it should stay that way for the most part.
- BM
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Re: GW Magazine Article
Gwmayhem wrote:
I believe JC's philosophy about not turning guys into something they are not while finding ways to exploit their strengths is spot on. What ML tried to achieve with Mikic, while well-intended, turned out to be counterproductive IMO. It' easy to see that Jameson already has more of an ability to pump fake a three and drive to the basket than Nemanja ever had. However, if Jameson's bread and butter is shooting from three, then it should stay that way for the most part.
I can make an argument for both sides. Rounding out the skillsets of Pato, Cavs, Yuta (and arguably KevLar) where they were all strong defenders and threats from everywhere on the court directly translated to pro careers. It may have set their game back a year (e.g., Yuta's shooting drop-off after his frosh year), but in the end, I'm sure they're happy with the end result. No doubt Arlando would be shooting threes at a reasonable percentage under that system.
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Thread Starter- Hugh
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Re: GW Magazine Article
It's also not a hard-and-fast rule for JC apparently. I remember reading that he challenged Armel to hit 150 threes a day, so I would say that's helping to round out the game of a historically poor outside shooter.
- GWRising
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Re: GW Magazine Article
I think you are reading too much into a statement probably made by JC to highlight the extreme. He is a huge believer in development, getting players better and not having them be one-dimensional. I think his point was after doing that he's not going to continue to try and fit a square peg in a round hole since most guys don't have a complete skillset. I think that was more directed at the upperclassmen he inherited who have limited time to develop. For example, it would be counter productive at this point to try to change Armel or Juice or Arnaldo to a large degree. They pretty much are who they are. However, again, I would not apply this statement in an absolutist way to the younger players who are still developing their college games.
- Gwmayhem
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Re: GW Magazine Article
The counterargument might be getting a bit distorted here. No, I don't think that JC is against helping to improve or develop his players. If any coach is against this, they are in the wrong profession.
A good coach does have to assess a few factors. Is the player smart enough to handle working on things that don't come as natural to them? And, do they have the realistic potential to improve in these areas? Armel is a great example. He's shooting 150 3's a day because the coaching staff believes that he has the capacity to become a better outside shooter. Plus, this fits with what the team needs. If the staff felt that there was just no way that Armel could ever approach being say a 40% shooter from 3, they would be smart not to waste time on this.
My point about Jameson, using Mikic as an example, is that it's not necessarily a good or smart thing to take a player who has a very strong skill and teach them to be a more well rounded player. In Mikic's case, I believe he became consumed with trying to do better in other areas and as a result, and here's the important part, his three point shooting suffered. If Jameson's outside shooting were to decrease by around 10 percentage points, would it be worth it if the tradeoff were he could get to the line a little more often or make a couple of more drives per game? Probably not. JC wants 3's and right now, he doesn't have many options who can hit them with much consistency. I'd say the last thing he should want to do is potentially mess with his best deep threat.
- Long Suffering Fan
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Re: GW Magazine Article
Love Jameson's three point shot...who wouldn't, but playing against conference quality man to man defense, it is imperative that he develop other aspect of his game (both offensively and defensively); otherwise he will be relegated to "zone buster". We have only played one game so far against competition that can be described as A-10 quality (at least for the top 8-10 teams). To again paraphrase Mike Lonergan, if your scoring game is off, you have to be able to help the team in other manners. We need to see this from both Battle and Maceo.