Something I've Never Seen Before

Heckuva game between Texas and Oklahoma tonight. Blake Griffin being knocked out of the game early with an apparent concussion was undoubtedly the key to the Longhorns' win, but it was fun to watch freshman Willie Warren step up in his place and go toe-to-toe down the stretch with Texas' A.J. Abrams. (Though as individual performances from Saturday go, both Warren and Abrams were outdone by Maryland's Greivis Vasquez, who put up 35/11/10 in Maryland's stunning overtime win over North Carolina.)

So, anyway, the thing I've never seen before. Warren is having a fantastic season; along with Memphis' Tyreke Evans, he's one of the favorites for national freshman of the year honors. But he's received some deserved criticism from those who think he, to put it politely, is a bit impetuous with his shot selection. To put it impolitely, he's a chucker.

With his Sooners up two and about five-and-a-half minutes remaining, Warren committed a turnover and appeared to injure his ankle (it turned out to be a leg cramp). Texas rushed upcourt and missed a layup while Warren hobbled around, never crossing midcourt. Oklahoma now having numbers, the Sooners embarked on a break of their own, and Warren, still around the three-point line, called for the ball, caught it and went up for a deep three, almost in the same motion. This was pure heat check, and as the ball dropped through the net for his sixth three-pointer and 25th, 26th, and 27th points of the night, Warren landed on his non-injured leg while signaling for a timeout so he could get treatment.

You gotta love his confidence and his fight, but there's gotta be a better shot available than a deep three from a guy with a bum wheel.

Kyle McAlarney

Sitting here after watching North Carolina pick apart a very good Notre Dame team 102-87 in the championship game of the Maui Invitational, I'm very tempted to write a post predicting that the Heels will go undefeated on their way to the national championship. I'm going to refrain from doing so, because I haven't seen Connecticut, Louisville, or Pittsburgh yet -- nor have I seen Michigan State, the one remaining non-conference opponent on Carolina's schedule with a realistic shot at beating them. Honestly, though, I can't see these guys losing this year.

Instead, I want to focus for a few moments on Notre Dame shooting guard Kyle McAlarney. The senior had himself one hell of a Maui, hitting 21 of 38 three-point attempts during the three games, scoring 39 points on 10-of-18 from deep in Wednesday night's finale. McAlarney has almost unlimited range and an incredibly quick release.

These things typically bode well for a player's NBA prospects. I'm not so sure with McAlarney. At the very least, if I were an NBA scout, I'd want to see him hit more threes coming off of screens.

Pure shooters like McAlarney make their living in the NBA by running off of screens on the baseline, curling out to the wing and draining threes. (Think former Indiana Pacer Reggie Miller, or perhaps Detroit's Rip Hamilton, though Hamilton usually steps inside the three-point-line). Notre Dame runs plenty of these sets for McAlarney, and he's very good at using the screens to get open, as well as reading the defender and deciding whether to curl towards the ball or fade to the corner.

The problem is that he doesn't necessarily shoot that well coming off of these screens. At least he didn't in Maui. I noticed it after he clanged a few in Monday night's game against Indiana, and tracked it closely in Tuesday's win over Texas and tonight against Carolina. Of the 15 trifectas he hit in those latter two games, only one came off a screen. And even that one wasn't the play I just described -- with the ball on the left wing, he passed to a teammate at the top of the key, then ran around behind the teammate for a quick handoff and shot.

Hitting a shot like this essentially requires that the shooter square his body as part of his shooting motion, and I didn't see McAlarney do it once successfully. Any time he hit a three coming off of a screen, he had time -- he doesn't need much -- to square himself before he caught the pass. If you watch guys like Texas' A.J. Abrams or Davidson's Stephen Curry, however, you'll see something different -- it looks like they are squaring their bodies to the rim while in the air.

I certainly don't mean to knock him, but this is a skill he's going to need.