re: Projected 2020-2021 basketball lineup

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We shot almost 55% from 2 and over 54% of our scoring came from 2. By comparison only 20.5% of our scoring came from the FT line, which was 99th in the country. So I'll let you decide what was a much bigger impact.

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Lol, you are acting like 2pt FGs making up a higher percentage of a teams scoring than FT% is rare. That is hard to take seriously. Thank you, captain obvious


LSU was a poor 3pt shooting team. In order for them to be a competitive team, that had to be supplemented somewhere, and that came with FT shooting.


So yea, outside of stating the obvious of making 2pt FG is important(lol), FT shooting was super important for the team that played in a ton of close games.

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big reason for why LSU is a good offensive team when part of Wade's offensive philosophy (which he admits) is getting to the line. So we are going to fault them for executing the team philosophy of driving to the rim and doing what they can to draw fouls and get to the line where they know they can score points? That's just dumb if you do.

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Let me ask you this


Can LSU be the program you think they can be solely by being a high percentage shooting team on 2pt FGs?


In other words, can they shoot poorly agai from 3(32%) & have a downtick in FT shooting efficiency and still win games?


2019 was a down year for college basketball, and LSU was a few plays away from being a 14 or 15 win team. The margin was that small.


Sorry, but that is NOT A winning formula long term. If they aren't going to be good from 3pt, they have to make up for it somewhere. And yes, shooting a high % from 2 is always important. FT shooting has to make up the rest of that margin.

Yep, exactly. Better defense, less turnovers.

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Lol, you are acting like 2pt FGs making up a higher percentage of a teams scoring than FT% is rare.

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No, I am showing you on our FTA/FGA rate, our scoring distribution was fairly just OK from the line.

Here's another shocker - a 2 point made shot is worth twice as much as a 1 point made shot. We made 512 FTs in 31 games, which is 16.5 points per game. We made 675 2 point shots in 31 games, which is 43.5 points per game. IT shouldn't shock you to know a significant uptick in the percentage you make from 2 is going to have a bigger affect than a significant uptick in the percentage you make at the line.

Let's take this example:

Auburn was one of the best teams in the country getting to the line. Having 43.8 FTA/FGA, 4th in the country. They made in total the 6th most FTs of any team in the country last year at 551 in 31 games, however they were one of the WORST FT shooting teams in the country at just 67.4%. Let's apply our FT shooting % which was one of the best in the country to their super high FT rate and see what we get, instead of 551 makes, they go up to 629 makes in 881 attempts. So taking one of the highest volume FT teams in the country, and making them go from one of the worst to one of the best teams in FT%, adds them a whopping 78 points in 31 games, or about 2.5 points a game. That's again, taking one of the highest FTA teams in the country from one of the worst to one of the best FT% teams.

Compare that with taking a decent volume 2 point team from one of the worst, to one of the best 2 point FG teams in the country:

Pittsburgh shot an abysmal 45.5% from 2 point range last season (among worst in country), but took 1,275 2 pointers in 33 games (38.6/game), not that terribly far off from our 1,235 in 31 games (39.8/game). Pittsburgh made 580 of their 1,275 2's at the 45.5%. Give them our 54.7% from 2, and now are making 697 2's. That's 234 more points on the season, or SEVEN more points per game.

2.5 points per game added taking one of the highest volume FT shooting team from one of worst to one of best FT% teams in the country

vs.

7 points per game added taking a decently high volume 2 point shooting team from one of the worst to one of the best 2pt% teams in the country

So yeah, maybe now you understand why the 2 point offense was the much bigger contributor than the FT shooting was. The expected points added shooting much higher from 2 than from the line, again on higher volume from 2 than the line adds way more points.

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In other words, can they shoot poorly agai from 3(32%) & have a downtick in FT shooting efficiency and still win games?

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I'm pretty sure we'd have no problem winning games if we dropped by like 1-1.5 points a game from the line. Again, you're overestimating the value of great FT shooting.

Also I dont think it's some slam dunk we get much worse from the line, we are bringing in some very good shooters in Cook, Gaines and Thomas, who naturally should also be pretty good from the line. Our 3 point percentage seems like it should only get better. Days had a huge dropoff last year from 3, I wouldn't expect that to hold true this upcoming season. Watford was pretty terrible from 3 and would expect that gets a little better for him in year 2 as well.

The perimeter defense may be some of the worst I’ve ever seen.

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LSU is going to have to change their overall approach on the defensive end.

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I'm interested to see what this will look like.

According to Wade they have already made the decision as a staff to change their defensive philosophy and has stated that they will begin to use more of the principles they used at VCU, which was that of a match-up zone.

A match-up zone can be tough when ran properly, I'm just concerned how good they can be in year 1 of doing it. Becoming more of a zone team is a major philosophical shift, one that takes a few years to really have ingrained with the players. I'm curious to see if he would actually have a few talks with Nikki Fargas to pick her brain. Say what you will of Fargas as an overall program leading coach; but the woman knows how to coach defense and she is known for her match-up zone that she uses.

The only other thing that concerns me about going a little more zone heavy is that rebounding out of a zone can sometimes be an adventure. While defensive rebounding has improved some year over year, I still wouldn't say it is a major strength of the team unlike our offensive rebounding.