The last we saw of the Arizona’ men’s basketball team it was clanging its way out of the NCAA Tournament.
A miss here, a miss there. Every where a miss. It wasn’t fun to watch and clearly wasn’t pretty that day in southern California in the Sweet 16 as Arizona went 5 for 28 from beyond the 3-point line and, of course, out of the NCAAs.
(Um, sorry to bring up such a bad memory, but)
It all leads to this: Arizona has a bunch of shooters this year. And, well, maybe a few makers, too. It’s something that has plagued Arizona for a number of years in the more recent past.
And let’s remember that Salim Stoudamire isn’t walking out of Arizona’s locker room anytime soon.
But, this year – or so it appears – it looks like Arizona does, indeed, have more shooters to help the likes of Caleb Love get some relief on the perimeter.
OK, OK, Monday night’s 117-54 win over visiting Eastern New Mexico shouldn’t be a great sample size, but when looking for promising situations it’s a bite size of goodness.
Arizona made 14 of 26 3-pointers in the exhibition game at McKale Center.
The obvious question to me was: Do you think you have more shooters than you’ve had since you’ve coached here?
“Yeah, It looked like it today,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. “Henri (Veesaar) has been consistent shooting the ball. Trey (Townsend) has made a lot of progress. Tobe (Awaka) has made a lot of progress as well.”
Then there was Anthony Dell’Orso who went 3 for 5 from 3.
Veessaar was 2 for 3 and Conrad Martinez who was 2 for 2. That’s all from the 3-point line for all of them.
That doesn’t include UA’s tried-and-true shooter Caleb Love, who was 2 for 6. And KJ Lewis and Jaden Bradley can shoot it.
“It’s something we spend a lot of time on,” Lloyd said. “I evaluated the team in the offseason and looked for potential weaknesses and thought our overall shooting might be.
“It doesn’t bother me (but) you have to have an awareness. We spend a lot of time on shooting. They shot the ball well tonight but it’s not something that we’re expecting on a nightly basis.”
Temper all that with ENMU being a much smaller team and getting off shots and clean looks may have been easier than usual. Still, it’s something to be positive about.
The biggest surprise came from Townsend, the solid-as-a-rock transfer from Oakland (Mich.) who hit his first four 3s and finished with 24 total points.
“If he hits four out of 5 for us every night that’s going to be really good for us,” Lloyd joked.
Then he got serious. “He’s really worked hard on his shot.”
Indeed. Figure that last year while at Oakland, he made just 12 overall from beyond the arc. That’s not a typo.
“I’ve always felt that I was a capable 3-point shooter, it just wasn’t my main role at Oakland University,” Townsend said.
Lloyd said it maybe a change of scenery or perhaps a role change that has done it. Or maybe he’s worked a heck of a lot on it, which is likely too.
“Here it was also something I wanted to work on to get back into confidently and mentally, to be that great shooter,” he said.
Townsend, along with Veesaar and Lloyd said they attribute assistant Ken Nakagawa for being instrumental on the team being better from the floor. Lloyd called him the “behind the scenes guy” in helping.
“He’s beenmy guy this entire time, since I’ve got here in June,” Townsend said. “To see this happen on the court … hopefully he’s just as happy as I am, because he’s put a lot of work into me.”
