Coleman's ability to hit from 3 is essential for this offense to thrive.Otherwise opposing center is able to play off clogging driving lanes resulting in surplus 3 attempts.His inability to finish at rim also limits kickout chances.Need CH to command respect from distance.
Agreed. I don't remember the last player I have seen whose 3-point attempts look literally flawless going in the hoop or absolutely terrible depending on the situation quite to the extent of Coleman, haha. Maybe Da'Monte? FWIW, the sample size this year is so small, but these are Hawkins' five best and five worst 3-point shooting games last year:
67% vs. Wisconsin on 9 attempts (W)
63% vs. Eastern Illinois on 8 attempts (W)
50% vs. Syracuse on 2 attempts (W)
50% at Minnesota on 2 attempts (W)
40% vs. Virginia (Vegas) on 5 attempts (L)
Conversely, these are some VERY specific games where if he could have just turned in a decent performance hitting 3-pointers, we would have turned losses into wins:
0% at Iowa on 5 attempts ... we lost by 2.
0% vs. Penn State (BTT) on 2 attempts ... we lost by 3.
0 attempts at Indiana ... we lost by 3.
That might not sound that important, but that is THREE more Quad 1 wins and pushes our Selection Sunday record to 23-9. That very likely has us fighting for a #6 seed and completely transforms our NCAAT outlook, IMO.
As I said in another thread, if this squad is shooting the three well, they can beat literally anyone ... just too many weapons and too good of a defense on the other end. The trick for us is shooting the three well without becoming a team that falls in love with it even when it isn't working like last year.