Caleb Grill

SolarGarlic

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We were a surprisingly good shooting team last year.

Of the seven tournament teams...

2012 = 37.3% (#54)
2013 = 37.4% (#34)
2014 = 35.8% (#105) -- not what you might have expected for that team
2015 = 36.2% (#84)
---
2016 = 38.7% (#20)
2017 = 40.0% (#12) -- wow, man having Naz, Matt, Monté, and Donovan together was nice
2019 = 36.2% (#81)

Not the best of the run, certainly, but not the worst of it, either.

But your point is correct...

(1.) You can never have too much guard talent. Having a shooter like Grill and a bulldog like Nadolny together is a plus, not somehow a problem.

(2.) You can never have too much guard talent or depth in college basketball.

(3.) We are pretty sure to lose Horton-Tucker, and I have my doubts that Wigginton is going to return, and we are already losing Nick and Marial. At this point, you load the cupboard up with as many wing players as you can. We'll need 'em.

Good info.

I could be off, but it's more about the style of play. Naz, Thomas, DJ, Niang (to a certain extent), McGee, Babb, Lucious – most of Hoiberg's guys were catch-and-shoot guys. The three-ball was their primary weapon.

While we shot well in 18-19, all of our shooters were isolation drivers first. Haliburton was the closest thing we had to a catch and shoot guy. I don't think it's a coincidence he had the highest percentage.

Tre Jackson looks like the type of guy we missed last season.
 

Sigmapolis

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Good info.

I could be off, but it's more about the style of play. Naz, Thomas, DJ, Niang (to a certain extent), McGee, Babb, Lucious – most of Hoiberg's guys were catch-and-shoot guys. The three-ball was their primary weapon.

While we shot well in 18-19, all of our shooters were isolation drivers first. Haliburton was the closest thing we had to a catch and shoot guy. I don't think it's a coincidence he had the highest percentage.

Tre Jackson looks like the type of guy we missed last season.

This is true, but we have always had drivers or somebody to run pick-and-roll...

PGs who ran a lot of PnR
Diante Garrett
Korie Lucious
DeAndre Kane
Monté Morris
Nick Weiler-Babb

Slashing wing types
Will Clyburn
Bryce Dejean-Jones
Abdel Nader
Deonte Burton
Marial Shayok
Lindell Wigginton
Talen Horton-Tucker

...or big men "point forwards" who were good passers...

Point forwards/passers
Royce White
Georges Niang

...to setup the shooters.

In those regards, the offense under Hoiberg and Prohm stayed pretty similar.
 
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SolarGarlic

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This is true, but we have always had drivers or somebody to run pick-and-roll...

PGs who ran a lot of PnR
Diante Garrett
Korie Lucious
DeAndre Kane
Monté Morris
Nick Weiler-Babb

Slashing wing types
Will Clyburn
Bryce Dejean-Jones
Abdel Nader
Deonte Burton
Marial Shayok
Lindell Wigginton
Talen Horton-Tucker

...or big men "point forwards" who were good passers...

Point forwards/passers
Royce White
Georges Niang

...to setup the shooters.

In those regards, the offense under Hoiberg and Prohm stayed pretty similar.

Absolutely. I almost added that a true PG is part of the equation, but ran out of ambition. I think Haliburton has a chance to be that type of PG. I haven't seen much of Nixon, so not sure what to expect from him.
 

FinalFourCy

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Good info.

I could be off, but it's more about the style of play. Naz, Thomas, DJ, Niang (to a certain extent), McGee, Babb, Lucious – most of Hoiberg's guys were catch-and-shoot guys. The three-ball was their primary weapon.

While we shot well in 18-19, all of our shooters were isolation drivers first. Haliburton was the closest thing we had to a catch and shoot guy. I don't think it's a coincidence he had the highest percentage.

Tre Jackson looks like the type of guy we missed last season.
Wigginton’s threat on the catch and shoot was the most efficient part of his game imo. He was a good catch and shoot guy.
 

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Wigginton from three...

69/172 (40.1%)
46/118 (39.0%)
---
115/290 (39.7%)

He is #16 on the list of made three-pointers by a Cyclone after two years.

#14 Justus Thigpen
#15 Lucca Staiger
#16 Lindell Wigginton
#17 Jamie Vanderbeken
#18 Kantrail Horton

Assuming he made 69 per year for four years would put him at 276 all-time...

...6 ahead of Jake Sullivan for #1 all-time.

Obviously, he is not going to get here with injury and a likely early departure, but Wigginton proved to be a better shooter than he did a PG or slasher.
 
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Tre4ISU

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We were a surprisingly good shooting team last year.

Of the seven tournament teams...

2012 = 37.3% (#54)
2013 = 37.4% (#34)
2014 = 35.8% (#105) -- not what you might have expected for that team
2015 = 36.2% (#84)
---
2016 = 38.7% (#20)
2017 = 40.0% (#12) -- wow, man having Naz, Matt, Monté, and Donovan together was nice
2019 = 36.2% (#81)

Not the best of the run, certainly, but not the worst of it, either.

But your point is correct...

(1.) You can never have too much guard talent. Having a shooter like Grill and a bulldog like Nadolny together is a plus, not somehow a problem.

(2.) You can never have too much guard talent or depth in college basketball.

(3.) We are pretty sure to lose Horton-Tucker, and I have my doubts that Wigginton is going to return, and we are already losing Nick and Marial. At this point, you load the cupboard up with as many wing players as you can. We'll need 'em.

I would call that pretty average. I certainly wouldn't call it good. I actually think it's just more about how many guys you have that can shoot because what that does to a defense makes everything else so much easier. Shayoks ability to shoot wasn't incredibly helpful because he was going to be defended the same even if he was a 35% guy. Case in point- The 2017 team. Sure, Matt and DJ racked up huge 3P% but what made that offense truly lethal was you had to stay close to them and now you have to stop Monte and Burton who you had to guard because they could shoot too but they would also destroy you off the dribble. There's no way to win. This year, we had two pretty good shooters and then a bunch of other guys who were very streaky or they weren't good shooters. I just think when you put 3+ guys out there who can shoot it at a 38%+ clip, you become infinitely hard to guard. We were a really good offense this year but it really seemed hard at times and another problem was putting LW,THT and Shayok out there all at once put your best shooters out there but none of them are facilitators so they don't get the other 2 guys opportunities to shoot.
 

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I would call that pretty average. I certainly wouldn't call it good. I actually think it's just more about how many guys you have that can shoot because what that does to a defense makes everything else so much easier. Shayoks ability to shoot wasn't incredibly helpful because he was going to be defended the same even if he was a 35% guy. Case in point- The 2017 team. Sure, Matt and DJ racked up huge 3P% but what made that offense truly lethal was you had to stay close to them and now you have to stop Monte and Burton who you had to guard because they could shoot too but they would also destroy you off the dribble. There's no way to win. This year, we had two pretty good shooters and then a bunch of other guys who were very streaky or they weren't good shooters. I just think when you put 3+ guys out there who can shoot it at a 38%+ clip, you become infinitely hard to guard. We were a really good offense this year but it really seemed hard at times and another problem was putting LW,THT and Shayok out there all at once put your best shooters out there but none of them are facilitators so they don't get the other 2 guys opportunities to shoot.

I agree with most of this.

I would argue the team last year had at least four, if not five, guys who you have to scheme to "not leave," considering their 3PT% in the Big 12 conference...

41.4% = Haliburton
41.3% = Shayok
38.0% = Wigginton
34.8% = Weiler-Babb
33.3% = Horton-Tucker

Rotating off of any of them, save maybe THT, was really dangerous. Those guys above were just as able to take somebody off the dribble as Burton (well, a few of them).

The offense last year, with its 4/1, actually looked quite a lot like that 4/1 year with Naz and Matt. Barttorvik ranked the offense from Monté's senior year as #11 in the country, and the offense from the past season was ranked as #9 nationally in the same resource.

Your description of the philosophy behind that offense... spacing spacing spacing with numerous good shooters and a few slashers who could exploit the territory that it created... was the same last year. Just change the names out from 2017 to 2019 instead.

The offense worked last season. That was never really the problem.

I think Prohm was pretty smart/strategic about never having more than 2/3 of Shayok, Wigginton, and Horton-Tucker out there at the same time. I know that we did it some, but I think he tried to minimize it as much as possible. I agree with you that having three volume guys out there at once is never going to be efficient, but we rarely did that.
 

FinalFourCy

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I agree with most of this.

I would argue the team last year had at least four, if not five, guys who you have to scheme to "not leave," considering their 3PT% in the Big 12 conference...

41.4% = Haliburton
41.3% = Shayok
38.0% = Wigginton
34.8% = Weiler-Babb
33.3% = Horton-Tucker

Rotating off of any of them, save maybe THT, was really dangerous. Those guys above were just as able to take somebody off the dribble as Burton (well, a few of them).

The offense last year, with its 4/1, actually looked quite a lot like that 4/1 year with Naz and Matt. Barttorvik ranked the offense from Monté's senior year as #11 in the country, and the offense from the past season was ranked as #9 nationally in the same resource.

Your description of the philosophy behind that offense... spacing spacing spacing with numerous good shooters and a few slashers who could exploit the territory that it created... was the same last year. Just change the names out from 2017 to 2019 instead.

The offense worked last season. That was never really the problem
Yeah, I would say it was very good from the standpoint of “it’s just more about how many guys you have that can shoot”. Those five, plus Jacobson. And these guys could all drive. Which is a credit to their individual ability but also our ability to space the floor. Structurally it didn’t change, just the names.

It did seem hard at times, but that’s been true of all of the tournament teams. Is there a team that doesn’t have lulls? Imo it was hard when teams were allowed to maul LW, Babb, Shayok, and THT. For many years we’ve struggled some when teams are able to get physical without getting whistled in addition to slowing the game down.
 
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Yeah, I would say it was very good from the standpoint of “it’s just more about how many guys you have that can shoot”. Those five, plus Jacobson. And these guys could all drive. Which is a credit to their individual ability but also our ability to space the floor. Structurally it didn’t change, just the names.

It did seem hard at times, but that’s been true of all of the tournament teams. Is there a team that doesn’t have lulls? Imo it was hard when teams were allowed to maul LW, Babb, Shayok, and THT. For many years we’ve struggled some when teams are able to get physical without getting whistled in addition to slowing the game down.

Imagine this from the other perspective -- look at the Iowa State 4/1 offense, either 2017 or 2019. How exactly would you try to slow it down? I know you said it was "unguardable" with the spacing and shooting clicking right, but there has to be a way, right?

"Rough up the guards and dare the refs to call it" is one obvious way. "Hope they miss shots, then rough them up some more on the defensive glass, which will have the added benefit of probably roughing their smaller lineup up on the offensive glass, too."

Unless you have elite perimeter defenders that nobody can drive on, the obvious solution is to go big and mean and just try to kill us on the boards. Happened under Hoiberg for years, and it is happening under Prohm now. It is just a schematic weakness.
 

FinalFourCy

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Imagine this from the other perspective -- look at the Iowa State 4/1 offense, either 2017 or 2019. How exactly would you try to slow it down? I know you said it was "unguardable" with the spacing and shooting clicking right, but there has to be a way, right?

"Rough up the guards and dare the refs to call it" is one obvious way.
Which is perhaps a difference between teams. I could buy that Wigginton and Co had less savvy in handling the refs swallowing their whistles than the group of Morris, Thomas, and Naz.

The perception of it “getting tough” to score may also be skewed by shot quality, but still scoring at a good clip. Hard to quantify, but we had guys that could make ridiculous shots.
 
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Sigmapolis

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Which is perhaps a difference between teams. I could buy that Wigginton and Co had less savvy in handling the refs swallowing their whistles than the group of Morris, Thomas, and Naz.

The perception of it “getting tough” to score may also be skewed by shot quality, but still scoring at a good clip. Hard to quantify, but we had guys that could make ridiculous shots.

That’s just experienced that the team last year did not have compared to the team with so many seniors. Those guys had spent years in college basketball, and Naz is on the Mt. Rushmore of “he’s still in college” for college basketball. You are saying age gives insight into the craft and meta-game that just takes time to learn.