RyGuyBilliken

He’s not “selfish”. Hes doing exactly what Schertz wants him to do. The days of John Stockton are gone, and just prove how unique Yuri really was. Schertz does not recruit pass-first guards. He just doesn’t. That’s not how his offense works. This won’t be the last season in Schertz’ tenure at SLU where we don’t have a true pass-first point guard. You might as well start preparing for it now. I’d also suggest subscribing to Stu’s Substack where he’s repeatedly discussed how much McCottry has improved with his drive-and-kick game and how Schertz has called McCottry “the key to reaching our ceiling this season”. All of this information’s out there and readily available for you. I didn’t just make it up for fun

https://www.batterypower.com/atlanta-braves-player-analysis/122194/2025-atlanta-braves-prospect-reviews-patrick-clohisy#comments

And it depends on the matchup. SEMO didn’t have any defenders who could stop McCottry from getting to the rim. We will eventually play teams that excel at protecting the rim, and McCottry will need to be able to pass out of those drives. Reports suggest that that’s something he’s been working on all offseason and actually become quite good at. But if a team is giving him a free bucket, I don’t want him passing out of it.

You didn’t address anything I actually responded with though. You just confirmed the biases you have against 2 of our more productive players. If they’re shooting 80% on the shots they’re taking, I don’t want them passing out of those shots…ever.

To be fair, the refs let them play in the 1st half, then called literally everything in the 2nd half. Not the easiest adjustment in the world.

You’re basing all of this on one game. I mean…seriously? You’re calling them ball hogs after one game…when McCottry went 7-8 from the field and Brown went 5-7 from the field? They literally shot 80% from the field combined and you’re complaining that they took those shots. Okay…I really don’t know what else to say.

Both probably. It just felt to me like McCottry could get to the rim at will, almost like Jordair could. I’m gonna stop short of making that comparison until I see him do it against legit competition, but I feel like that’s McCottry’s ceiling. And if he reaches that potential, hoooooo man, that’s fun to think about.

Schertz’ offense is based off of high efficiency shots. McCottry driving was the highest efficiency shot we took last night outside of free throws. It was almost automatic. I don’t want McCottry ever giving up free points. But the situation also requires context. SEMO is one of the best teams in the country at taking away the 3. But I also would argue that we took plenty of 3’s last night too. 29 of 67 FG attempts were 3’s. A bigger issue is that we only made 9 of them, but most of them were wide open looks. My guess is that there will be plenty of “drive and kicks” as the season progresses and we play teams that protect the rim better than SEMO did. But I’ll take an (almost) automatic layup everyday and twice on Sunday.

In one of Stu’s recent pieces on his Substack, he wrote that Schertz rarely recruits prototypical point guards. For Instance, Schertz probably wouldn’t bring in a Yuri Collins. He recruits guys who can handle the ball, but wants them to either be able to slash to get to the rim reliably like McCottry, or be shooters like Green. He wants the passing to come from the flow of offensive sets, often with a big actually facilitating, versus a prototypical PG like Yuri getting 10 assists every night. I’m not saying 1 is better than the other. Just explaining that Schertz doesn’t expect those guys to fill the role of a typical PG. they’re slashers who just so happen to bring the ball up more often than not, if that makes sense.

Wiz, could it be argued that even our 3P% is a bit misleading. I feel like it was hovering right between 35-40% until garbage time. Jax Kerr missed a couple. Hutson missed at least 1. But they were good wide open shots made by players making their college debut, that we probably won’t be relying upon for huge minutes this season

It should also be stated that SEMO has been one of the best in the country at guarding the 3 as well. That’s something they hang their hat on. I expect a lot of the sloppiness to just be 1st game nerves. Because most of those mistakes were simply from being over aggressive and trying to do too much. Once guys settle in, some of that will correct themselves. If it’s still an issue against Grand Canyon, I’ll start to get more concerned

Same. They let em play in the 1st half. Didn’t have ahh issues with officiating. Then in the 2nd half they called every little ticky-tack foul they could. I thought the defense looked significantly better. Better hedges, better help. The rebounding was tremendous.

McCottry had several good kick outs last night. At least 1 to Robbie. Jones was fine, but unspectacular to me.