I want to preface this by saying I was never expecting a superstar out of this D3 player. I know he's not good. I did not expect that he would be anything close to an offensive force -- in fact my preseason expectations were that he'd be darn close to a neutral presence on the court and it wouldn't have shocked me if he was a slight liability.

The point of this thread isn't (really) to complain. I'm hoping that the veteran and/or more mathematically inclined coaches can help me in figuring out if I'm the victim of a small sample size or if I need to give this guy the immediate red light when it comes to shooting the rock.

James Huebner started amazingly cold for me and I thought it would be a sample size issue. As a junior starter he shot 37.7% from threes and 44.9% from the field. He wasn't anything close to being a main scoring option but he held his own as a junior.

Well that cold start hasn't shown much sign of thawing. Right now he is shooting 15.8% from threes and 32.6% from the field. That includes a nice game against the -5 defense. Throw that game out of the mix and in the other 13 games he is shooting 9.1% from threes and 30.5% from the field.

Right now in the D3 world, he's the worst perimeter shooter. And that's by going through the entire world and looking for the terrible shooters. I'm not exaggerating that he's the worst right now. (There are three other players who match his numbers but they are Sim AI players who have perimeter ratings of 17 or worse; I'm not counting those.)

I'm well aware that his 38 perimeter rating should not lead to a good shooter. But I just didn't expect one this bad. There are dozens of guards with similar ratings who are shooting quite well. And very few of those have the speed, athleticism, and ball handling of my player. There are a lot of 40 speed, 40 perimeter, 40 ball handling guards that are shooting twice as well as my player.

In my mind the sample size is getting way too high to justify him shooting the ball still. At the same time I'm really struggling with a bunch of way inferior players shooting the ball perfectly fine. And if I have him stop shooting it obviously makes my team a lot easier to gameplan against.

Thoughts? Am I making way too much out of a small sample size? Or are the results of 14 games too much to ignore?

Rating-wise, I would say he is far from terrible relative to the typical D3 SG. In regard to his FG% I would say 89 FG attempts is not that small of a sample size. I mean, you are already half-way through your season. Some players, I had one last year, just never pan out. They have descent to solid ratings but for whatever reason don't live up to expectations.

As for what you should do with him, for the remainder of the season, maybe try using him off the bench. I have used this strategy to some degree of success (as far as improving individual performance) in the past. Maybe he will be able to outclass the bench of your opponents. GL.

he should be allowed to shoot, just not 3s... set him to -1 or -2 on 3s, and let him use his speed and BH to get to the hole.

wron, he knows that, that wasn't his question...whats up kj...miss you in the ol' ODAC...

I have found in the past that high perimeter doesn't always mean 'three point shooter' I have several high perimeter shooters I've set to minus one and they become deadly marksmen and their shooting percentage skyrockets. Now he won't neccesarily skyrocket, but. . . forty percent of his shots being threes seems a bit extreme.


Incidentally, what do you have him set at?

He is not a bad player at all. Give him 10+ more in BH/passing and slightly more speed and I'd love him on my div II team. Set him to -1 and he'll be just fine. There is no reason for him to have shot 38 threes already.

Quote: Originally posted by furry_nipps on 11/15/2009He is not a bad player at all. Give him 10+ more in BH/passing and slightly more speed and I'd love him on my div II team. Set him to -1 and he'll be just fine. There is no reason for him to have shot 38 threes already.

exactly its killing his shooting

+1 for what furry and tmac said. He's shooting 23 of 51 from inside the arc. Not exactly an All-American, but I'd take it.

Might want to check the distro too. A guy with BH and PASSING like that at DIII should be able to dish out more than 2.9 assists a game.

-1 or -2 on 3's and a slightly lower distro and he should start to come around.

i would focus on the distro mainly. with his weak ATH and PER he will never be an efficient scorer. Lower the distro and his percentages should rebound nicely. He is an elite div 3 PG with those ratings.

Thanks for the response guys.

I haven't intentionally been forcing this guy to shoot 3's. But I hadn't turned it off because I don't want the -5 to be an obvious strategy against me. Trying to keep defenses honest and unfortunately I don't have the personnel to do it.

Of my starters he's 4th in distribution. (My SF is terrible.) And his +/- setting is to 0 against the press and 2-3 zone, -1 against man, and -2 against the 3-2. But he's taken a high number of shots and of those a few more 3's than I'd expect. I do chalk those numbers up to small sample size -- my highest distribution goes to a post player that is currently taking less shots than a backup guard is.

Just tweaked the settings per the recommendations. Thanks again.

Let us know how it turns out.

Quote: Originally posted by mbalding on 11/15/2009i would focus on the distro mainly. with his weak ATH and PER he will never be an efficient scorer. Lower the distro and his percentages should rebound nicely. He is an elite div 3 PG with those ratings.

I disagree. I have a guard with 58 ath, 87 speed, 30 per, 52 bh, 85 passing. He is at -1 with 19 distro (the highest) and is shooting 52% from the field while scoring 16.4 PPG. This is also vrs the 15 SOS, so its not inflated stats. I love the high speed, low per guys because -1 or -2 on guards makes them shoots lights out.

I agree with nipps the spd and a - 3 setting and he will be killer. Dont be afraid to up his distro sometimes a player will struggle with it to low or to high

Lol, no, a player doesn't "struggle" with too low a distro. It may be that it's keeping his sample size down and thus more likely to produce variant results, but simply having less distro can not cause a player to "struggle".

Quote: Originally Posted By dalter on 11/16/2009Lol, no, a player doesn't "struggle" with too low a distro. It may be that it's keeping his sample size down and thus more likely to produce variant results, but simply having less distro can not cause a player to "struggle".

Watch out dalt, in a few moments you'll have tmac in here trying to convince everyone that players have personalities...