Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I agree, which is why I remain optimistic. Additionally, while our shooting over the course of the entire season simply will not be stellar, we do have the capability to get hot. For reference per Sports Reference (heh heh), our 2005 time shot it about 39% from three on 22.5 attempts per game. Last year we did get at least make over one third of our threes on multiple occasions (wins in orange, losses in blue):
52.6% at Wisconsin on 19 attempts
48.0% vs. #9 UCLA (Las Vegas, NV) on 25 attempts
43.5% vs. #2 Texas (New York, NY) on 23 attempts
42.4% vs. Monmouth on 33 attempts
42.1% vs. Indiana on 19 attempts
38.5% vs. Minnesota on 26 attempts
36.7% vs. Lindenwood on 30 attempts
34.6% vs. #19 Virginia (Las Vegas, NV) on 26 attempts
34.6% vs. Eastern Illinois on 26 attempts
33.3% vs. #10 Michigan State on 18 attempts
Now, needless to say that we also had games like at Ohio State (20.7% on 29 attempts) and Braggin' Rights (22.6% on 31 attempts) where it made your eyes want to bleed. But the point is that ideally this year we are not only a better shooting team but we will also not rely on shooting the three to win games Iowa style and we will not jack up forced threes due to an incohesive offense as much as we did last year. Our defense and athleticism will win us most of our games. If we are also shooting it well, we can beat anyone on a given night. Just for another reference, here are our games so far this year compared to the 2022-23 average and low:
40.0% on 25 attempts vs. Western Illinois
33.3% on 33 attempts vs. #4 Marquette
32.3% on 31 attempts vs. Eastern Illinois
32.1% on 28 attempts vs. Valparaiso
31.6% on 26 attempts for 2023-24 average
30.8% on 25 attempts for 2022-23 average
25.0% on 16 attempts vs. Oakland
25.0% on 20 attempts vs. Rutgers (2022-23)
22.7% on 22 attempts vs. Southern
22.6% on 31 attempts vs. Missouri (St. Louis, MO) (2022-23)
20.7% on 29 attempts at Ohio State (2022-23)
17.9% on 28 attempts vs. Ohio State (2022-23)
17.2% on 29 attempts vs. Nebraska (2022-23)
So while we are barely shooting it better than last year overall, I can find three silver lining/positive outlook takeaways:
1. Last year had some absolutely crazy performances such as Shannon going off vs. UCLA in Vegas. I'm not going to go through and recalculate the stats game by game, but I wonder just how bad our shooting was last year outside of a few outlier games where we got uncharacteristically hot. I do NOT anticipate such a variance in performance this year.
2. On that note, while we are barely above last year's average, we also haven't had quite as many awful performances, I guess? Still possibly too early to say. However...
3. In the games where we have not shot it that well this year, we have ALSO taken fewer attempts! I think I can speak for the majority of fans that I lost years off of my life last year watching us miss three after three and yet keep shooting them and not adjust our offensive approach. I have already seen a huge improvement in that regard with this year's team.
TL;DR
Shannon is indeed a beast, and I love our defense. If we can have consistency with those two things, we will give ourselves a chance even in nights where we are shooting poorly. Last year, we gave up 67.2 PPG (88th in the nation) and allowed opponents to shoot 41.6% from the field. So far this year, we are allowing 58.7 PPG (9th in the nation) and allowing opponents to shoot 34.0% from the field. Say what you want about cupcakes, we have also played Marquette, and our defense also passes the eye test!
If we DO get hot shooting ... look out.
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