The Myth of Post Scoring

[jaymOU]

Basketball is changing - call it analytics or philosophy or wanting to see the 3 ball go in the basket or whatever - but it is - or really more likely - has changed.

OU's "lack of a post scorer" was not the cause of OU's home loss against KU and it would not have been the cure either.

Basketball's latest evolution is the 3-point shot and reliance on it.

OU wins if Woodard, Cousins and Spangler don't go 4-16 from behind the arc. And Buddy doesn't go 0-10 on shots inside the arc. It's simple, OU, just like Villanova, Iowa State and, yes, even Kansas are living and dying more with the three-point shot.

Where was KU's low post game on Saturday? Landon Lucas and Perry Ellis combined for 17 points - six of those were on threes. Did they even throw it into the post?

KU's late-game offense came from OU's unexplainable decision to go under the high pick and roll off of Graham - who had made four threes already and drained another two down the stretch.

MAKE SHOTS. OU didn't and they lost. Would a great inside post player help you make shots? Maybe, but he does not exist on this team. OU needs to run their offense cleaner, harder cuts, stronger picks, better penetration and more ball movement.

Lon is not recruiting 4's who are back to the basket guys, primarily, in my opinion because they don't exist much anymore. Buford, Freeman, Doolittle are all stretch 4s.

True post scoring out of your 5 would be nice, but I am not sure who has that in the NCAA now, in fact, I am not sure who has that in the NBA?

Who is the best post scorer in the country? Shouldn't they play on the best team in the country? Best I can tell, the most prolific post scorer this year is Pascal Siakam from New Mexico St. He is the only guy in the top 30 in scoring that doesn't take 3-point shots.

Basketball has changed. Having a great post scorer is a thing of the past. Take and make a good percentage of threes, drive all the way to the basket for layups and use your bigs to stretch the floor and open up driving lanes.

 

[Chaser728]

Basketball is changing - call it analytics or philosophy or wanting to see the 3 ball go in the basket or whatever - but it is - or really more likely - has changed.

OU's "lack of a post scorer" was not the cause of OU's home loss against KU and it would not have been the cure either.

Basketball's latest evolution is the 3-point shot and reliance on it.

OU wins if Woodard, Cousins and Spangler don't go 4-16 from behind the arc. And Buddy doesn't go 0-10 on shots inside the arc. It's simple, OU, just like Villanova, Iowa State and, yes, even Kansas are living and dying more with the three-point shot.

Where was KU's low post game on Saturday? Landon Lucas and Perry Ellis combined for 17 points - six of those were on threes. Did they even throw it into the post?

KU's late-game offense came from OU's unexplainable decision to go under the high pick and roll off of Graham - who had made four threes already and drained another two down the stretch.

MAKE SHOTS. OU didn't and they lost. Would a great inside post player help you make shots? Maybe, but he does not exist on this team. OU needs to run their offense cleaner, harder cuts, stronger picks, better penetration and more ball movement.

Lon is not recruiting 4's who are back to the basket guys, primarily, in my opinion because they don't exist much anymore. Buford, Freeman, Doolittle are all stretch 4s.

True post scoring out of your 5 would be nice, but I am not sure who has that in the NCAA now, in fact, I am not sure who has that in the NBA?

Who is the best post scorer in the country? Shouldn't they play on the best team in the country? Best I can tell, the most prolific post scorer this year is Pascal Siakam from New Mexico St. He is the only guy in the top 30 in scoring that doesn't take 3-point shots.

Basketball has changed. Having a great post scorer is a thing of the past. Take and make a good percentage of threes, drive all the way to the basket for layups and use your bigs to stretch the floor and open up driving lanes.

This was a fantastic post and spot on! My KU friend and I were talking about our decision to go under the screens...

 

[opsooner]

Those 3 you mentioned were actually 4-18 from 3. Both Woodard and Spangler have cooled off. Spangler, especially, is going to get some wide open 3s and the team needs him to be confident in taking them and make more of them than he has lately. We probably don't win at LSU if he had not hit a few wide open ones in the second half and will need that some more before the season is over.

We are who we are and we need to do the best we can with it; and we are certainly capable of beating anyone. They are only so many really talented 5s and they do not stay around long. Our inside guys are not bad at all. Besides Spangler working on this shot I would just like to see them work more on blocking out fundamentals.

It would help be nice to have a Tashawn Thomas in there again to help the team play more inside out though.

 

[cvangild]

Some really good points made, Jay. And I agree, the game is/has been changing over the years. I would love to have a guy we could throw it down to, who has a back to the basket game...but there truly aren't many of those around. Thomas gave us that last year, but he's gone.

The truth is, we are very very close to being 23-1 or 22-2. 3 of our 4 losses have been to top 10 type teams where the game could have easily gone either way. Now I was extremely dissappointed in the loss Saturday, but for as poorly as we played in the 1st half...and to be in position to win the game says a lot to how good we are. I think we need to do a better job of defending at times, as opposed to needing a low post scorer. Getting some hands in Grahmn's face would have given us a better opportunity to win the game Saturday. Kansas beat us because they played better defense overall. We need to make teams work, just like they have been making us work lately.

Having said all that, we could easily lose 2 more games this week if we aren't ready. At Tech is no gimmee at all, and WV should be favored in Saturday's game. But the good thing is...this team is good enough to go on a run and win the whole thing in the tourney...regardless of being seeded 1,2,3 or 4. I'm not sure we've had a game yet where all 3 of our guards have been "on" at the same time. Jordan has plenty of time to get out of his funk!

 

[sperry]

Great post. We threw away the first ten minutes of that game, whcih led to the loss. You can't do that against a good team and expect to win. It's a testament to our talent level that we were able to come back and make it a good game, but it never should have been close enough at the end for KU to pull it out.


Woodard has got to get out of this slump. With Lattin as an offensive non-factor, we need our other 4 starters to carry their weight. With Jordan clanking wide open 3s, we aren't going to have much of a chance.

 

[SilliSooner]

Excuse me? Who won the NCAA tourney last year? I think it was Duke with a beast inside named Jahlil Okafor.

The three point shooting game doesn't work if you don't have an inside option. Otherwise teams with long defenders like Kansas State put on Buddy can cheat out and run the three point shooters off the line.

Kansas may have not scored too much underneath but if we double team their outside shooters Ellis and Lucas will make us pay.

Texas made a living on us underneath. If Cameron Ridley gets back into their lineup, they'll probably beat us with their inside game.

People try to claim Golden State doesn't have an inside presence. But that couldn't be further from the truth. They have a lot of post up players, some of which have two way skills, such as Maurice Spaights, Festes Ezeli, Bogut, Harrison Barnes (who has a great post up turnaround jumper) and, of course, Draymond Green.

So, I disagree with your premise. We've played our best when Lattin and Spangler were contributing more. Spangler has lost a little bit of confidence and it has hurt his effectiveness. Lattin has shown a nice little 10 to 12' jump shot which when he's on opens up a lot of things. Stepping away for the pick and pop will keep opponents rim protectors away from our drivers.

It doesn't look like Manyang is helping much but I guarantee you Kruger didn't recruit him to be a stretch 5. If he had become the player our staff was expecting, opponents wouldn't be able to double on Buddy or put a 6'6 guy on Woodard.

 

[Soonermarty]

This was a fantastic post and spot on! My KU friend and I were talking about our decision to go under the screens...

You need new friends

 

[Chaser728]

You need new friends

Can't help it... I live in Kansas. I'm surrounded

 

[jaymOU]

Excuse me? Who won the NCAA tourney last year? I think it was Duke with a beast inside named Jahlil Okafor.

He had 10 points in the finals and played 22 minutes. And Okafor's don't grow on trees. And your GS argument is "silli". Do you watch the games? They play outside in more than any team I have ever seen. Agree Barnes has a good turnaround jumper but it's not a post move at all. He is 17+ feet from the basket when he lets it go.

Basketball is changing. BTW in the title game last year, Wisconsin lost by shooting 33% from three, with Dekker and Broson - two of their best shooters combining for 1-9 behind the arc. 5 point game. If those two shoot their normal percentage Wiscy wins.

 

[TINY]

Excuse me? Who won the NCAA tourney last year? I think it was Duke with a beast inside named Jahlil Okafor.

He had 10 points in the finals and played 22 minutes. And Okafor's don't grow on trees. And your GS argument is "silli". Do you watch the games? They play outside in more than any team I have ever seen. Agree Barnes has a good turnaround jumper but it's not a post move at all. He is 17+ feet from the basket when he lets it go.

Basketball is changing. BTW in the title game last year, Wisconsin lost by shooting 33% from three, with Dekker and Broson - two of their best shooters combining for 1-9 behind the arc. 5 point game. If those two shoot their normal percentage Wiscy wins.

The best teams had inside outside games (uk, duke, wisky). We should strive for both if we want to go all the way ever.

 

[WTSooner]

"Post scoring" is a bit misleading. What you have to have are guys that are a threat to score if left open. Inside. Outside. Doesn't matter. You can't have two posts that the opposing team doesn't have to worry much about on the offensive end of the court, and lately that is exactly what we have. If Spangler is hitting shots, that helps, but I don't think he'll do that consistently the rest of the year. Lattin? Doesn't have the offensive game yet.

Hopefully Lon works on some wrinkles to help a) get some easy shots, and b) free up our guards a bit. There is no easy answer. This is who we are as a bball team this year.

 

[Soonerinkc]

"Post scoring" is a bit misleading. What you have to have are guys that are a threat to score if left open. Inside. Outside. Doesn't matter. You can't have two posts that the opposing team doesn't have to worry much about on the offensive end of the court, and lately that is exactly what we have. If Spangler is hitting shots, that helps, but I don't think he'll do that consistently the rest of the year. Lattin? Doesn't have the offensive game yet.

Hopefully Lon works on some wrinkles to help a) get some easy shots, and b) free up our guards a bit. There is no easy answer. This is who we are as a bball team this year.

EXACTLY...at this point, and several national guys who make a living watching, coaching, playing, analyzing basketball have said as much. In our game against...was it ksu or ut..? We were playing 5/4 maybe 5/3 ...and it had NOTHING to do with the refs.

I'd say Lucas and Ellis are a lot more off threats than Spang and Lattin at this point.

Love the Sooners, I follow and cheer for them in all sports...IMHO, we lack some things in the post. Are we doomed, no, but it'll be tougher because other teams now have seen for 3 games how to slow our shooters down. Ya think the fact the guards are shooting poorer has anything to do with the defense? If not, love to have what you're smoking.

 

[j2d2]

Post offense may not win a ball game but post defense may prevent a loss. I'm really tired of anybody who chooses to try can penetrate to the basket on us and score.

 

[WTSooner]

Post offense may not win a ball game but post defense may prevent a loss. I'm really tired of anybody who chooses to try can penetrate to the basket on us and score.

Agreed. I put that more on the guards at this point than the bigs. None of our guards are really all that good at keeping their man in front of them without fouling.

 

[Soonerinkc]

Post offense may not win a ball game but post defense may prevent a loss. I'm really tired of anybody who chooses to try can penetrate to the basket on us and score.

I thought this thread was about "post scoring"..?...lol!

just flippin ya chit...that's the way posts go!

 

[DenverSooner]

Basketball has changed. Having a great post scorer is a thing of the past. Take and make a good percentage of threes, drive all the way to the basket for layups and use your bigs to stretch the floor and open up driving lanes.

I tend to agree with you; however, if a team like OU or ISU had a low post scoring threat they would be amazing.

 

[SilliSooner]

Excuse me? Who won the NCAA tourney last year? I think it was Duke with a beast inside named Jahlil Okafor.

He had 10 points in the finals and played 22 minutes. And Okafor's don't grow on trees. And your GS argument is "silli". Do you watch the games? They play outside in more than any team I have ever seen. Agree Barnes has a good turnaround jumper but it's not a post move at all. He is 17+ feet from the basket when he lets it go.

Basketball is changing. BTW in the title game last year, Wisconsin lost by shooting 33% from three, with Dekker and Broson - two of their best shooters combining for 1-9 behind the arc. 5 point game. If those two shoot their normal percentage Wiscy wins.

Your premise is still invalid. Okafor got in foul trouble and didn't score a lot, so what? Teams still had to game plan for him. He had a lot of big games during the season and his backup, Plumblee, was adequate enough to still keep the defenses honest.

As far as your Wisconsin example, the Badgers wouldn't have been in the game if it weren't for Kaminsky doing some work inside.

Next to Buddy, Lattin is the second most athletic guy on the team and his hand-eye coordination might be the best on the team. We need to use him. He needs to touch the ball a lot more than he is doing. It's not so much our three point shooting which is stagnant, it's our dribble drives. We're going ISO too much rather than zipping the ball in and out and around the perimeter. I like Lattin's jumper and think we need to use it more instead of forcing up shots from the outside.

I've watched Golden State a lot. Sure, they've got the best shooting backcourt to ever play. But, they also do a lot of back door cuts and often create plays to find their power forward or center wide open for easy dunks.

 

[OklahomaLibertarian]

The key thing missing from the original post is how Kansas' inside presence on offense gave them numerous wide open shots from three, while our guys were mostly smothered because of our lack of an inside threat/presence. He mentioned that we kept going under the screen but there was a reason for that - we were worried about their penetration and bigs getting going.

^ That's pretty much it..

 

[usedtobe1]

Next to Buddy, Lattin is the second most athletic guy on the team and his hand-eye coordination might be the best on the team. We need to use him. He needs to touch the ball a lot more than he is doing. It's not so much our three point shooting which is stagnant, it's our dribble drives. We're going ISO too much rather than zipping the ball in and out and around the perimeter. I like Lattin's jumper and think we need to use it more instead of forcing up shots from the outside.

Wow! You have a lot more confidence in Lattin than I do..... I just want him to block out and rebound better. Spangler needs help on the boards. As far as offense, he hasn't overwhelmed me with his jump shot.

 

[Larry72]

Inside Scoring not post scoring is critical. IT does not matter who does it, but it is necessary. We need a lot more.