Here are the schools that had two players who shot at least 111 threes (Brissett's lower total) for under 32.2% (Battle's higher percentage) with fewer than 80 assists (Battle's higher total)
I included assists to exclude bad shooting floor generals who are good at assists
These are the schools that had two players like that. Most of these teams are dreadful - someone has to shoot. We are not dreadful, why in the hell are we in this group?
I know we saw them shooting less later on but they still shot too much
Savannah State SRS 348
Cal State Bakersfield 223
Syracuse 40
Stanford 95
Charleston Southern 185
North Texas 159
Saint Joseph's 160
Army 253
Colorado 57
SIU Edwardsville 327
Delaware State 353
Houston Baptist 287
Maine 332
Interesting stat and not hard to believe, by the way, given how stagnant we looked for long stretches in most games all season. It's worth noting that Brissett changed gears in game 18 and averaged just over 2 threes a game the rest of the way, so he at least tried to adjust.
The question is what to make of it? Is it that Battle and Brissett are ball-dominant and not particularly good passers? Is it that our offensive system is subpar? Is it that we didn't have enough talent around those guys? Is it that we didn't have a true PG and our 'best' PG options were a frosh who wasn't quite ready for the role and a senior who, perhaps b/c of injury, struggled to perform at a high level? Is it because we seem to play so slow?
I guess the answer is a little from each of those factors, but my point is that it would be a lot easier to fix if it was one issue.
I think re-tooling the offense to some degree has to be a priority in the offseason. We just get so few easy baskets that piling up big assist numbers seems almost impossible at times. We get next to nothing from the post, we rarely run a set that culminates with a cutter getting a pass heading to the rim. the only time we looked to have any semblance real offense was when teams zoned us and we would get dolezaj at the high post.
Regardless, interesting to see how this plays out next year with a roster that will be very different in makeup (for better or for worse). Figure you'll see a ton of Carey at the 1 (doesn't help our shooting much but he may create off the dribble better than any guy we've had since Ennis maybe?), Buddy/Hughes/Brissett (assuming he's back, Guerrier if he's not)/Dolezaj with a healthy dose of Goodine and Guerrier off the bench and maybe some minutes for other guys who can play their way in (Girard/HW/Braswell).
Carey is the one guy who can break someone down out of that group (maybe Goodine but it's hard to tell from film) so you'd have to figure we will need to get some movement and maybe get a healthy dose of Brissett in the post? I don't know. On the plus side you've got some BB IQ (to use a meaningless phrase) with guys who seem to make good decisions with the ball (Buddy/Dolezaj/HW/Braswell in limited time, Goodine and JGIII seem like pretty polished offensive players, etc.).
But I really have no idea what an offense would look like without Frank and Tyus alternating turns running off a high-ball screen or going one-on-one.
