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- Buff & Blue Club
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Surrounding Castro with shooting
One of the things that held us back this year was the lack of shooting around Castro. That we were able to get him the ball so well despite mediocre at best shooting was really incredible.
So one of the goals this season had to be to get more shooting around Castro - and it feels like we’ve done it really well.
At times next year, we’ll surround Castro with:
Dinkins 38% (on 76 made threes)
Autry 38% (62)
Benjamin 36% (43)
Johnson 40% (49 in just 22 games)
That’s about 8 threes a game at 38%. It’ll be really hard for teams to collapse on Castro because every one of them will make it if left open.
That is to write off the others. Will need Jones’ defense to key our defensive attack and his playmaking (and maybe his shooting will improve). We’ll need Aranguren’s all around game, and he can shoot some, too. Marshall gives us size and can also shoot (especially if he reverts to his soph year form). And We know Bevins will make a defense pay for leaving him in the corner.
But I’m loving that we’ll be able to field legit lineups with 4 shooters around Castro.
Obviously Jones and others will get heavy minutes too, but when that lineup is on the floor, it will really open things up for Castro.
If we can maintain the defense and hit the boards hard, this team could take another big leap forward.
- Gwmayhem
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Re: Surrounding Castro with shooting
This is all great if the newcomers can maintain their percentages playing at a higher level. Fresh in my mind is Drumgoole dropping from 37.3% in the CAA to 30.3% this past season. Or Trey Moss who was never an adept three point shooter falling from 29.1% in his last season at William & Mary to 24% for GW. Maybe better athletes playing better prepared defenses had something to do with this. Even Alex Mitola's three point percentage dropped to 35.5% while at GW (his career high for a season had been 41.8%), though on roughly 1/2 of the attempts he was used to at Dartmouth.
As for newcomers moving up, Jean Aranguren's percentage dropped from a bench player at Iona (39.7%) to a prominent one at Hofstra (34.2%) though his volume more than doubled. Bubu Benjamin was at 38% last year playing in the WAC, Tyrone Marshall's clip fell from 37.2% to 31.5% though on much higher volume, and though technically not moving up, Luke Hunger is at 18% for his career (and will take them). Tre Dinkins breaks the mold here, improving from 34% to 36.5% while at Canisius, and then upping that to 37.9% this past season at Duquesne.
The benefit to all of these players will be playing with Slim, someone who will keep defenses honest and hopefully open up the three point shooting game. In 2024-25, GW's problem was never about getting good looks from 3. Maybe this was a tribute to CC's offense, or that defenses were inviting us to take 3's, or a bit of both. Our new group of shooters, on the whole, can be described as capable shooters who struggled a bit when given more volume. Most will be going up against better defenses, but perhaps with less of a spotlight on them relative to their earlier stops. With (hopefully) a healthy Garrett back in the fold, it will be interesting to watch.
- dmvpiranha
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Re: Surrounding Castro with shooting
GW opens up at #50 in Bart Torvik's preseason projections (although it's obviously still very early for many teams in adding to their roster)
The additions of Bubu and Woo Marshall yesterday certainly answered certain ? marks with the roster, especially with regards to athleticism on the roster.
I guess if we're nitpicking, would it have been beneficial to get a down transfer in the backcourt in place of one of the up transfers from an upside perspective? In general, it appears that CC doesn't prefer to recruit athletes in the backcourt, so hopefully at least a couple of the guards can break down defenses and attack the basket to either finish or set up for an open three to the shooters mentioned above. Jean has that ability, but his game reminds me more of Pato in terms of being more crafty than a pure penetrating guard. CJ did that sometimes last year and hopefully can take a step forward. Tricky and Tre don't really do that as much. That would open up an opp for Trey Moss, but right now he's looking like an end of bench player given what CC has brought in. Hopefully the guards can finish better in transition too.
It will be fascinating to see what the whittled down rotation will look like come conference play. Every year on paper it looks like the team can go deeper, but this might be the deepest team yet. I'm not even sure where Ty fits into the puzzle, and I was hoping to see him get more minutes next year. I wonder if CC goes back to an uptempo style after slowing things down after January this past year. Perhaps more chances to press more, although we saw that the better teams GW faced were able to better take care of the ball.
I guess if there's a hole left, it's an emergency big? Neither Bubu nor Woo have the pure height to slide down to the 5 if Luke/Slim are unavailable for any reason but I'm sure CC has a plan.
- GW0509
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Re: Surrounding Castro with shooting
dmvpiranha wrote:
I guess if there's a hole left, it's an emergency big? Neither Bubu nor Woo have the pure height to slide down to the 5 if Luke/Slim are unavailable for any reason but I'm sure CC has a plan.
Matt Colpoys just said on the GW Insiders Podcast that the roster is set so any emergency big would have to be a walk-on.