Who can name the player that is currently our most accurate 3 point shooter in the 2024-2025 season….amongst the regular rotation players (guys that average more than 10 min per game)?
Without cheating and looking at the stats…
- Thread starter Perd Hapley
- Start date
I swear I didn't cheat. Just remembered him hitting a couple vs Kentucky and figured he can't have many attempts. I had actually typed in Kugel but changed it before posting.
So I don't watch us play directly. I'm self-admittedly ignorant about basketball, and don't particularly enjoy it, outside of MSU when they are good and the first round of NCAAs. I 'keep up' with MSU kinda with side viewing and checking the score, and try to only comment on big picture items, unless it's one of the games I attend in person. So keep that in mind.....
But when I heard Cam was bombing 3s and running point guard, I was shocked. Appears to be working though.
But when I heard Cam was bombing 3s and running point guard, I was shocked. Appears to be working though.
He is not going to shoot many. Only 8 attempts on the year. He banked one in. But the PG thing allows us to bring the ball up without pressure. It also allowed an immediate ball screen to get matched on Murray who he can easily back down which forced OM into the lane and created kick outs opportunities and cuts. It’s what we did down the stretch.
Harris then Hub then Kugel but all roughly the same. I’d like to see conference stats at this point.
Turns out Harris has the highest. Very close between Harris (36.8%), Hubbard (35.8%) and Kugel (34.5%). Overall we're 32.7% which is awful.
Kugel at 37.5%, Harris 34.4%, Hubbard 30.0%, and Melendez 18.2% (yikes!). Overall 28.8% (yikes again).
This confirms what has been clear to those of us who watch, Kugel is not afraid of the spotlight. He plays big in big games.
I'm actually not surprised RJ is shooting so poorly. He's shown a hesitancy to fire away in these big games. But he more than makes up for it with defense and rebounding. Just gonna reiterate here that Kugel, Harris, Melendez, Matthews & Murphy should be getting some extended run. Maybe Hubbard's shooting would improve if we rested him a bit more.
Melendez surprises me. But I agree about Hubbard. If he's not shooting well, he doesn't need to be playing 35-40 minutes per game.
Martavious Russell at 50%! However, he only averages 5.5 mins in 8 games played with a total of 7 points on the year.
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Martavious Russell - Mississippi State Bulldogs Guard - ESPN
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The team has definitely moved back towards the long held MSU average from deep.
You can roll that boulder up the hill only so far before the weight of it is too much and it rolls right back down to where you started...or worse.
Over the last decade we are between 28% and 34% from deep for all but like 1 season.
We are at 32.7% currently, so right there in the middle of the range.
You can roll that boulder up the hill only so far before the weight of it is too much and it rolls right back down to where you started...or worse.
Over the last decade we are between 28% and 34% from deep for all but like 1 season.
We are at 32.7% currently, so right there in the middle of the range.
If you want to be positive, you could say if our shooting only slightly improves we could be a VERY dangerous team.
But if you want to be negative, the fact so many teams shoot better than their season average from three against us does not bode well for tournament play. It only takes one hot night to end your season.
But if you want to be negative, the fact so many teams shoot better than their season average from three against us does not bode well for tournament play. It only takes one hot night to end your season.
On the season, opponents have made 35% of their 3pt shots.
In conference so far, opponents have made 33.8% of their 3pt shots.
The issue isnt that we are giving up a lot of 3pt makes(it could be lower, obviously), its that in conference play our most frequent shooting player both overall and from deep, is making only 30% of his shots...from both inside and outside the arc.
Hubbard is only making 30% of his 2pt shots too. Thats atrocious. His eFG% is a touch under 40% even!...that is also atrocious since he is a shooter and 2/3 of his shot attempts are from deep so they count 50% more than inside the arc.
Vandy & USCe are doing a lot of the heavy lifting keeping our conference opponent 3P% down. The last three games our opponents are shooting 42.8% from deep. We haven't been shy about doubling in the post or trapping. That might be giving them more wide open looks.
A big problem we have is that we are just taking too many 3’s for a team that doesn’t shoot them all that well.
We’re 4th in the SEC in 3-point attempts per game, but in the bottom 1/3rd in 3P%. It’s not actually as bad as it looks on the surface, because part of that is our pace of play is intentionally up tempo, so we’re taking more shots overall than all but a few teams. But still, 3’s are accounting for almost 41% of our shot attempts, which is too high for a team that shoots 32.7%. We need to be more like Arkansas, a team that shoots around our same percentage (a little better, actually) and has a similar pace of play, but takes about 4-5 fewer 3’s per game. We need to be in that same 35-36% range as a percentage of overall attempts.
Jans also needs to be reviewing film to see what situations we are making 3’s at a high clip (transition, catch-and-shoot, etc.), and which ones we aren’t, and start making adjustments. One thing I’d say is that nobody besides Hubbard needs to be pulling up off the dribble, and even he needs to chill out a bit on that for the time being.
We play elite shooting teams like UK, and we get lulled into trying to keep up with their accuracy from deep….it ain’t ever going to happen. We need to play our game, and not let other teams’ offense dictate our offense. We also need to play the passing lanes less and start locking down the perimeter shooters more. They want to try and take advantage by going down low? Let them. That’s our game. We can let Matthews, Nwoku, and Murphy handle the inside with their length and athleticism, and let Melendez handle the penetration from their backcourt. As it stands now, we’re 15th in the SEC in 3-point % defense, and 12th or 13th in overall ppg allowed. Our D ain’t what it used to be, and needs to (and can) improve.
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Yeah and against Auburn they were simply running double ball screens to one side in the first half and it was creating open looks for them.
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