The Wears: Selfish Ball Hogs?

by PauleyDog on Feb 22, 2012 5:00 AM PST

The evidence is overwhelming.

Since minutes were recorded as an official stat in 1977, Travis Wear has the lowest rate of assists per minute of any Bruin forward. Just by accident one could average more than one assist every 69 minutes of playing time. You would think that he would at least pass to his brother, but believe it or not, he only has one assist to David all year (and they've played together plenty of minutes). David is not much better, ranking right around some who were not exactly known for giving the ball up, Kenny Fields and TJ Cummings.

Is this the result of teammates not getting open or just not making shots after a rare Wear pass? Just to check, I tracked their possessions in the game I happened to be watching today, the last few minutes of the first half and entire second half against Cal. The Wears touched the ball 11 times inside the 3-point arc and shot the ball . . . 11 times!

Now the Wears shooting the ball isn't exactly a bad thing. Their shooting percentage is rather good (over 50% between them). The team assists on 55% of its baskets, just about average for a college team. And the offensive efficiency is pretty good (#52 by Pomeroy). But one has to wonder whether this has some effect on the overall attitudes of the other players. Maybe considering the Wear's good shooting, the guards don't pass the ball to them enough, since most likely they know they won't get it back. Maybe that's why our guards take so many bad shots.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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don't know the stats

but from the games I’ve watched, I don’t like the Wears on the floor. Especially both at the same time… I don’t think they’re a net positive to the team.

by bruinbunz on Feb 21, 2012 4:33 PM PST reply actions

Can't fault them until you know what CBH is telling them.

He’s the one who has been telling Zeek to shoot more.

They may be under instructions to shoot when they have a shot.

And, with their percentages, who would should be shooting instead of them.

Ideally, our game would be an inside game to Josh who would be dunking until stopped — or passing out. But, he’s rarely on the floor, no fault of CBH.

This entire situation is not good.

sjh

by Class of 66 on Feb 21, 2012 6:06 PM PST reply actions

which is the expected higher value possession:

1) a Wear with a jumpshot inside the arc
2) Josh at the line shooting 2?

Turns out it’s Josh, but not by much…

But I agree, for our team to be good, ‘good Josh’ needs to be the first option IMHO, because he will get good position, draw double-teams and draw fouls on bigs. ‘bad Josh’ on the other hand will give away offensive fouls, or fall down and leave us defending 4-on-5 for 15 seconds, neither of which are typical Wear failings…

by VeniceBruin on Feb 21, 2012 6:14 PM PST up reply actions

I've always seen the Wears as

role players. One Wear at a time would be a good thing on a squad actually starting 3 big men and 2 guards, and the 2 other big men could actually defend and rebound.

by chrissorr on Feb 22, 2012 8:02 AM PST reply actions

I think the Wears can really contribute to this team down the road

However, the Wears have a problem in that they play a lot smaller than they are.

Howland uses them like they are both Nelson-like power forwards when in reality they are 6’10" small forwards or even shooting guards. A guy like Monty when he was at Stanford knew how to utilize both the Lopez girls and the Collins kids to their abilities, and he generally favored one over the other with greater playing time.

Unfortunately, neither of the Wears is much better than the other, neither can handle the rock as a small forward needs to, neither has the strength in the paint to block out or rebound or simply defend as power forwards.

I mentioned recently that they are like Kevin Walker clones. An average high school coach would see this and adjust accordingly, but Stubborn Ben will not and he continues to fail.

by charnaw on Feb 24, 2012 3:26 PM PST reply actions

do you have easily accessible stats on 'shot-attempts-per-assist'?

I imagine that would be even more damning. On first reading your post, I thought it might be a bit unfair – e.g., given TWear has played a lot at the 5 maybe it would be reasonable to include players like Lorenzo Mata-Real in the comparison set, maybe not just forwards – but it quickly occurred to me that players like LM-R didn’t have nearly as much play in the offense as TWear does. I’m guessing TWear’s shot-attempts-per-assist is off the charts.

by VeniceBruin on Feb 26, 2012 6:20 PM PST reply actions

The problem is that if the Wears don't shoot, then who will?

The alleged offense seems to me to be to pass the ball around the perimeter 4 or 5 times, then take a look inside, decide there’s nothing there, and by now, there’s ten seconds left on the shot clock.

It seems to me that if the Wears don’t shoot, we’re going to be looking at scores in the 40s.

That’s another strike against Coach Howland. We haven’t had anyone who was a threat to score in a long time.

by Fox 71 on Feb 26, 2012 9:24 PM PST up reply actions