Spacing - Rebounding - 3-Point Shooting

[What Would Jesus Do?]

With Hubert's intended style changes and the addition of a couple of bigs who are also outside shooting threats, most of us were looking forward to better spacing and better outside shooting. Some of us worried that this would hurt our rebounding - a perennial UNC area of dominance.

So . . . with 8 games under our belt, how's that playing out, so far? Numbers in () are national ranks.

Year	ORB	DRB	TRB	3PA	3P%	3s (% of total pts)
2022	9.1 (229)	30.1 (19)	39.4 (70)	20.5 (248)	43.3 (4)	32.8 (136)
2021	15.7 (1)	26.7 (57)	42.8 (3)	17.6 (311)	31.8 (268)	22.3 (338)
2020	13.8 (5)	28.1 (20)	41.9 (2)	18.0 (307)	30.4 (313)	22.8 (330)
2019	13.3 (9)	30.9 (1)	44.1 (1)	23.9 (102)	36.2 (90)	30.3 (224)
2018	13.8 (7)	28.6 (13)	42.4 (1)	22.9 (125)	35.9 (116)	30.3 (192)
2017	15.8 (1)	28.0 (21)	43.7 (1)	20.0 (222)	35.5 (154)	25.3 (294)
2016	14.2 (7)	26.4 (93)	40.6 (15)	17.1 (304)	32.7 (268)	20.3 (342)
2015	13.8 (13)	26.7 (10)	40.6 (2)	13.5 (338)	35.8 (107)	18.7 (344)

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

It's disappointing, but hardly surprising, to see the drop-off in offensive rebounding.

And it's gratifying to see the robust jump in 3pt percentage.

What's surprising to me is that we aren't taking more 3pt shots. Why is that?

I mean if we are shooting 52.0% from 2pt range, then every 2pt attempt earns us 1.04 points. Whereas if we are shooting 41.5% from 3pt range, every 3pt attempt is worth 1.25 points. Even if you get more trips to the FT line from 2pt attempts - which is almost certainly true - that's a big difference.

 

[DSouthr]

Our offense is IMO still a work in progress with several aspects still in dire need of working out. Right off the top is the fact that we really need to get back to UNC fast break & secondary break ball. Those big men have to run the court hard and they need to be rewarded with a easy finish for doing so or they will not see the need to run as hard. Our PGs, especially named RJ, need to make better decisions of when to drive to finish and when to drive to draw a defender.

Guys need to move better off the ball and put themselves within the passing lanes so there is a clear pass back out to them. Don't just go to an area and stand around wondering why the ball isn't getting to you, work to get open.

And 3rd, we just have to continue to make improved decisions on shot selections, if you have to rush your shot to get it off then don't take the shot, pump fake, dribble and pop, or just give it up and work for better position. We have been getting better in that area but we are FAR from where we need to be.

Over all team identity, that ole question of "are we a offensive orientated team or a defensive team"? Clearly we are an offensive minded team at this point, for me Roy's teams were always more offensive orientated than defensive. This team over all seems to feed their defense from their offense, when their offense is rolling the defensive intensity amps up but when our offense is not great our defense seems to suffer in both effort and risk taking that gets us to often burned. I prefer the defense fuel the offense more than offense fueling defense simply because offense does not show up every night, defense can. If I just look at the Michigan game I would say we are a defense first team but when I look at all of our games so far this season I can't say that defense is leading the way for us, at times it has been hard to tell we even work on defense in practice. Does make me wonder if Michigan is just that poor of a scoring team or was it our defense that made them look that way, I suspect some of both.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Does make me wonder if Michigan is just that poor of a scoring team or was it our defense that made them look that way, I suspect some of both.

In a similar vein, it's hard to know if Michigan was just overrated or if we have improved a good bit. Or if Michigan just had an off half vs we had a great half. Too early to tell?

I mean clearly Michigan was overrated. Like us, they lost a lot of talent from last year's team. Three starters and 2 of the next 3 off the bench, I think. So while they, like us, had a good incoming class (if you include transfers), they too have a lot of adjusting to do, because they have so many new pieces. We actually have more returning starters.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Updated to include the Ga Tech game. Our great 3pt shooting in that game (58.8%) bumped us up to #4 in 3pt%.

 

[dtodd4475]

Updated to include the Ga Tech game. Our great 3pt shooting in that game (58.8%) bumped us up to #4 in 3pt%.

43% from 3 - 49% overall - 74% from the line... Very good shooting so far!!!!

 

[dtodd4475]

RJ putting up a Steph like stat line to this point. 48% FG/ 90%FT/ 51% 3'S.

Mando a gaudy 64% FG.

Manek 50/80/41
Garcia 46/76/50
Caleb 44/77/40

Even Leaky with few looks being efficient 50/83 with no 3's attempted.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Here's a chicken-or-egg question for our gurus:

Are we shooting better from outside because we have better spacing, or do we have better spacing because we are shooting better from outside?

I realize it's some of both, and that they reinforce each other, but which explanation carries more weight?