After another rough shooting night (5-16 from the floor) against Tulas, everyone is starting to ask…is Jon Scheyer, after playing nearly 37 minutes per game, starting to get tired?
It’s a fair question, especially when you look at his shooting percentage over his last five games.
Overall, he’s just 25-82 from the floor (that’s 30% for those of you without a calculator). That’s unacceptable and the fact is, an un-biased person (that’s not me) would probably have to move Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez ahead of Scheyer for ACC player of the year honors (although next week’s game between Maryland & Duke will probably decide that).
So is he tiring out? Are those legs starting to give out after 37+ minutes per game? I’m going to go out on a limb and say, NO. Don’t sweat me, I got the stats to prove it.
When the legs go, the jumper is the first to go with it. For Scheyer, jumper mean three’s. Yet, that hasn’t really been that much of a problem.
Over the last five games, he’s shooting 17-39 from three-point range. That’s a solid 44%. The problem Jon’s having is inside the arc…from two-point land, he’s only 8-43. That’s a horrid 19% and let’s just be honest, that sucks.
Scheyer’s problem hasn’t been tired legs, the issue is simple, he’s taking bad shots inside the paint. Too often Scheyer has drove the ball way too deep inside, got caught among the trees and thrown up a ton of bad shots/lay ups. That’s it. Instead of shooting smart like a senior, he’s shooting dump like a sophomore.
Now early in the season, Scheyer was able to get a lot of fouls called his way, but for whatever reason, those calls have dried up.
In fact, he has failed to take more than five free throws in seven of his last 13 games. In the ten games prior to that, he took 6+ free throw attempts in eight of ten games. Against Tulsa, he took only two free throws. For a guy who hits nearly 90% of his free throws, this is also unacceptable.
Now, depsite the shooting issues, Scheyer is still playing solid ball. He’s getting his teammates involved, he’s not turning the ball over much (he still leads the ACC in assist-to-turnover ratio) and his D is getting it done.
However, if Scheyer wants to break this mini-slump, he will need to start shooting smarter. Our suggestion, do what Nolan Smith does. Pull up. Scheyer is usually bigger than his defender, so pull up at the free throw line and drain a mid-range shot.
There’s no better way to cure a shooting slump.
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