Could our physical training actually be hurting our shooting?

[Anti-shunshinepumper]

I know I might get some teasing for even asking this, but hear me out.....
I'm not saying being physical is a bad thing. I love the fact we are able to break a lot of teams with our physical play. It's been a good thing for defense and rebounding for sure, but what about the mechanics of our shot/shooting?

I read where If you do high-intensity strength training before shooting practice that fatigue may affect your shooting mechanics which can lead to poor form and decreased accuracy.
I'm not exaclty sure when we do our weightlifting/strength training and whatnot, but is it possible the carry over could be affecting our shooting practices?

I also read that over-training and/or not incorporating proper flexibility work may lead to muscle tightness, which can negatively impact your shooting motion and overall range of motion. Is it possible we are doing too much strength training and not enough of the proper flexibility work we need to do to counter our strength training?
Could uber-strength training be making us less fluid in our shots or possibly be causing us to shoot the ball too hard or something like that?

I don't know exactly what it is, but it seems to there has to be something there for so many guys this year (and years prior) to be missing so badly.
Any opinions?

 

[Anti-shunshinepumper]

• Muscle fatigue:
  Immediately after a heavy upper body workout, your arm muscles might be too fatigued to execute the delicate movements needed for a precise shot, leading to inconsistency and decreased accuracy.
• Altered muscle activation patterns: If your lifting exercises aren't specifically designed to mimic basketball shooting motions, they could temporarily change how your muscles fire during your shot, causing a slight alteration in form.
• Over-compensation: Some players might try to compensate for increased muscle mass by altering their shooting mechanics, leading to a less efficient shot.

 

[Okie]

Seems like the training and conditioning staff would/should be aware of this and planning their activities accordingly, but stranger things have happened.

 

[hUTch2002]

I know I might get some teasing for even asking this, but hear me out.....
I'm not saying being physical is a bad thing. I love the fact we are able to break a lot of teams with our physical play. It's been a good thing for defense and rebounding for sure, but what about the mechanics of our shot/shooting?

I read where If you do high-intensity strength training before shooting practice that fatigue may affect your shooting mechanics which can lead to poor form and decreased accuracy.
I'm not exaclty sure when we do our weightlifting/strength training and whatnot, but is it possible the carry over could be affecting our shooting practices?

I also read that over-training and/or not incorporating proper flexibility work may lead to muscle tightness, which can negatively impact your shooting motion and overall range of motion. Is it possible we are doing too much strength training and not enough of the proper flexibility work we need to do to counter our strength training?
Could uber-strength training be making us less fluid in our shots or possibly be causing us to shoot the ball too hard or something like that?

I don't know exactly what it is, but it seems to there has to be something there for so many guys this year (and years prior) to be missing so badly.
Any opinions?

I’m sure it’s possible. ZZ looked like a different guy after that game off. We don’t have a game midweek next week so I’ll be curious to see how we look in a very tough road game at A&M.

To me, the biggest factor is shot selection. Take that one possession in the first half against UK. Lanier brought the ball across half court, dribbled to the top of the key, no one moved so he dribbled hard right and pulled up for a jumper around the elbow. With how he elevated he was open plenty for a shooter of his caliber from 15 ft and he missed it. A lot on here would say, well, we just couldn’t hit an open shot. To me, that’s a horrible shot to take. We can get that shot anytime we want. My issue is the ball never moved, the other players on the court never moved and that’s not not good offensive basketball. When we have bad offensive stretches it’s always the same. People are standing around I seats if cutting, there’s way more dribbling than passing and the ball often doesn’t even penetrate the arc, at least not until we get very low in the shot clock and start pressing. That’s not smart offense and leads to bad shots, even if they appear to be “open”.

Edit: If you want to see truly open shots, see a lot of the first half 3s for UK. Now those were open shots.

 

[bleedingTNorange]

Top defenses and their 3pt shooting…

1. Tennessee 33.8% ranked 186
2. St. John’s 29.2% ranked 352
3. Duke 37.4% ranked 37th
4. Houston 39.4% ranked 10th
5. Kansas 34.2% ranked 160th
6. Texas A&M 31:2% ranked 314
7. Iowa State 34.1% ranked 161


So obviously Duke & Houston stand out at still being good shooters while playing good defense, Barnes probably should do a case study on Houston in the offseason. They’ve been elite defensively for years, but struggled shooting the ball, this year they’ve take a small step back on defense but are shooting it extremely well.

 

[njvols]

Top defenses and their 3pt shooting…

1. Tennessee 33.8% ranked 186
2. St. John’s 29.2% ranked 352
3. Duke 37.4% ranked 37th
4. Houston 39.4% ranked 10th
5. Kansas 34.2% ranked 160th
6. Texas A&M 31:2% ranked 314
7. Iowa State 34.1% ranked 161


So obviously Duke & Houston stand out at still being good shooters while playing good defense, Barnes probably should do a case study on Houston in the offseason. They’ve been elite defensively for years, but struggled shooting the ball, this year they’ve take a small step back on defense but are shooting it extremely well.

Plus our lack of depth doesn’t help. Really need that 10 man rotation

 

[bleedingTNorange]

Plus our lack of depth doesn’t help. Really need that 10 man rotation

Disagree on that, Duke plays 9 and Houston plays 8. Most of your best teams in March are playing 7-7.5 man rotations max.

 

[savannahfan]

I’m sure it’s possible. ZZ looked like a different guy after that game off. We don’t have a game midweek next week so I’ll be curious to see how we look in a very tough road game at A&M.

To me, the biggest factor is shot selection. Take that one possession in the first half against UK. Lanier brought the ball across half court, dribbled to the top of the key, no one moved so he dribbled hard right and pulled up for a jumper around the elbow. With how he elevated he was open plenty for a shooter of his caliber from 15 ft and he missed it. A lot on here would say, well, we just couldn’t hit an open shot. To me, that’s a horrible shot to take. We can get that shot anytime we want. My issue is the ball never moved, the other players on the court never moved and that’s not not good offensive basketball. When we have bad offensive stretches it’s always the same. People are standing around I seats if cutting, there’s way more dribbling than passing and the ball often doesn’t even penetrate the arc, at least not until we get very low in the shot clock and start pressing. That’s not smart offense and leads to bad shots, even if they appear to be “open”.

Edit: If you want to see truly open shots, see a lot of the first half 3s for UK. Now those were open shots.

I have been noticing this for over a month now. After watching maybe half of the first half of a game, if I see this situation, I leave and go watch UTUBE videos. I will check from time to time to see the score. Usually it is not good enough for me to suffer watching, so on with UTUBE.

 

[Anti-shunshinepumper]

Seems like the training and conditioning staff would/should be aware of this and planning their activities accordingly, but stranger things have happened.

I'd like to think so too, and it's why I figured some might tease me for even mentioning it.
I will say old Barnes is pretty set in his ways. If he's been doing something a particular way for a long time he might not be so open to the latest science in regards. Now, I'm not saying that is the case, just curious really. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation and all, but someone else mentioned Houston and their bad shooting in the past. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to see what they've been doing in regards. They have seemed to be shooting better. I haven't necessarily checked stats to verify they're shooting better for sure.
It's just weird guys like Dubar and Igor have seemed to shoot worse since coming here.
That definitely could be step un in competition, tho.

 

[Anti-shunshinepumper]

I’m sure it’s possible. ZZ looked like a different guy after that game off. We don’t have a game midweek next week so I’ll be curious to see how we look in a very tough road game at A&M.

To me, the biggest factor is shot selection. Take that one possession in the first half against UK. Lanier brought the ball across half court, dribbled to the top of the key, no one moved so he dribbled hard right and pulled up for a jumper around the elbow. With how he elevated he was open plenty for a shooter of his caliber from 15 ft and he missed it. A lot on here would say, well, we just couldn’t hit an open shot. To me, that’s a horrible shot to take. We can get that shot anytime we want. My issue is the ball never moved, the other players on the court never moved and that’s not not good offensive basketball. When we have bad offensive stretches it’s always the same. People are standing around I seats if cutting, there’s way more dribbling than passing and the ball often doesn’t even penetrate the arc, at least not until we get very low in the shot clock and start pressing. That’s not smart offense and leads to bad shots, even if they appear to be “open”.

Edit: If you want to see truly open shots, see a lot of the first half 3s for UK. Now those were open shots.

Him and Igor lit it up off a rest. Could be some over-training, but that also could be the fact they have to play a lot of minutes because of a very short bench. That's more of an excuse for ZZ than Igor tho.

 

[cncchris33]

I’m sure it’s possible. ZZ looked like a different guy after that game off. We don’t have a game midweek next week so I’ll be curious to see how we look in a very tough road game at A&M.

To me, the biggest factor is shot selection. Take that one possession in the first half against UK. Lanier brought the ball across half court, dribbled to the top of the key, no one moved so he dribbled hard right and pulled up for a jumper around the elbow. With how he elevated he was open plenty for a shooter of his caliber from 15 ft and he missed it. A lot on here would say, well, we just couldn’t hit an open shot. To me, that’s a horrible shot to take. We can get that shot anytime we want. My issue is the ball never moved, the other players on the court never moved and that’s not not good offensive basketball. When we have bad offensive stretches it’s always the same. People are standing around I seats if cutting, there’s way more dribbling than passing and the ball often doesn’t even penetrate the arc, at least not until we get very low in the shot clock and start pressing. That’s not smart offense and leads to bad shots, even if they appear to be “open”.

Edit: If you want to see truly open shots, see a lot of the first half 3s for UK. Now those were open shots.

Bingo.

We made UK look like a vintage Houston Cougars defense because we don't make them cover. We dribbled the ball in a stagnant offense, and allowed them to use their athletic ability to guard us, which they can do. Where other teams have burned them is moving the ball in the air, guys cutting and creating confusion, and moving the ball from one side of the court to the other. You always hear Jimmy Dykes talk about getting the ball to the third side of the court. You don't do that with ZZ, Mashack, and Okpara handling/dribbling the ball at the top of the key while Gainey and Lanier are camped in the corners. UK gets lost in switches, closeouts, and PnR situations, but we rarely made them defend any of those, instead, just allowing them to play our guys straight up. Butler and Oweh are both good 1v1 defenders, so make them guard those switches and get lost. That is how other teams ring UK up for 90 points.

Part of the issue is our lack of ballhandlers. It is still maybe the most frustrating idea for me to accept with Barnes's offensive recruiting philosophy. We have one guy that can truly break his man down off the dribble. Problem is, he's 5'9. Lanier can't do it. Gainey can barely do it and needs a lot of space to do it. Mashack looks like he's dribbling a football.

 

[b_gann]

Top defenses and their 3pt shooting…

1. Tennessee 33.8% ranked 186
2. St. John’s 29.2% ranked 352
3. Duke 37.4% ranked 37th
4. Houston 39.4% ranked 10th
5. Kansas 34.2% ranked 160th
6. Texas A&M 31:2% ranked 314
7. Iowa State 34.1% ranked 161


So obviously Duke & Houston stand out at still being good shooters while playing good defense, Barnes probably should do a case study on Houston in the offseason. They’ve been elite defensively for years, but struggled shooting the ball, this year they’ve take a small step back on defense but are shooting it extremely well.

Yep we've mirrored Houston in metrics a ton over the last few years. Seems they have a few more athletes than us.

I do think there could be "something" to the amout of stain we exert to defense and then having tired legs on the offensive end. My gut is that we're just not an overly athletic team that can create easy shots routinely.

 

[UTFanForLife]

A variable to consider too, how late in the shot clock is each team having to defend? Defending a full 30 seconds compared to 15-20 can take a toll if doing it a lot per game.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

I know I might get some teasing for even asking this, but hear me out.....
I'm not saying being physical is a bad thing. I love the fact we are able to break a lot of teams with our physical play. It's been a good thing for defense and rebounding for sure, but what about the mechanics of our shot/shooting?

I read where If you do high-intensity strength training before shooting practice that fatigue may affect your shooting mechanics which can lead to poor form and decreased accuracy.
I'm not exaclty sure when we do our weightlifting/strength training and whatnot, but is it possible the carry over could be affecting our shooting practices?

I also read that over-training and/or not incorporating proper flexibility work may lead to muscle tightness, which can negatively impact your shooting motion and overall range of motion. Is it possible we are doing too much strength training and not enough of the proper flexibility work we need to do to counter our strength training?
Could uber-strength training be making us less fluid in our shots or possibly be causing us to shoot the ball too hard or something like that?

I don't know exactly what it is, but it seems to there has to be something there for so many guys this year (and years prior) to be missing so badly.
Any opinions?

I don’t think so. Players get stronger as they grow, even if they don’t lift a lot of weights. In addition, they do most of their heavy lifting in the off season workouts. I do think that players need to work less on long workouts as the season progresses and I think we observed that with ZZ when he took a game off. I believe the biggest problem is we do not take shots early in out possessions. When we do that, we find the clock running down and we are forced into taking rushed/off balanced shots. The second biggest problem I see is we have become very sloppy in our passes which causes turnovers and/or disruptions in the shooter’s shooting motion. How many times have we seen Igor, for example, not take a wide open shot and pass to a tightly covered ZZ and Gainey. The other thing I would do is, that you have shoot a minimum or 50 free throws for every free throw missed in a game using correct form

 

[MannyD]

Unlikely. A strength coach doesn't develop the reputation ours has, let alone get a job like this, by messing up something that obvious. And in that world, separating s&c from sports training is well understood. Very slim chance it has anything to do with mismanagement of priorities.

 

[BernardKingGOAT]

Bingo.

We made UK look like a vintage Houston Cougars defense because we don't make them cover. We dribbled the ball in a stagnant offense, and allowed them to use their athletic ability to guard us, which they can do. Where other teams have burned them is moving the ball in the air, guys cutting and creating confusion, and moving the ball from one side of the court to the other. You always hear Jimmy Dykes talk about getting the ball to the third side of the court. You don't do that with ZZ, Mashack, and Okpara handling/dribbling the ball at the top of the key while Gainey and Lanier are camped in the corners. UK gets lost in switches, closeouts, and PnR situations, but we rarely made them defend any of those, instead, just allowing them to play our guys straight up. Butler and Oweh are both good 1v1 defenders, so make them guard those switches and get lost. That is how other teams ring UK up for 90 points.

Part of the issue is our lack of ballhandlers. It is still maybe the most frustrating idea for me to accept with Barnes's offensive recruiting philosophy. We have one guy that can truly break his man down off the dribble. Problem is, he's 5'9. Lanier can't do it. Gainey can barely do it and needs a lot of space to do it. Mashack looks like he's dribbling a football.

ZZ didn't run the offense efficiently. He missed several open players off the curl at the extension thus leading to a lot of incessant dribbling which took us late into the **** clock.

We did fine without ZZ against UF. Of course we need him to be a complete team. Not sure I agree with that assessment.

 

[89 VOLS grad]

Bingo.

We made UK look like a vintage Houston Cougars defense because we don't make them cover. We dribbled the ball in a stagnant offense, and allowed them to use their athletic ability to guard us, which they can do. Where other teams have burned them is moving the ball in the air, guys cutting and creating confusion, and moving the ball from one side of the court to the other. You always hear Jimmy Dykes talk about getting the ball to the third side of the court. You don't do that with ZZ, Mashack, and Okpara handling/dribbling the ball at the top of the key while Gainey and Lanier are camped in the corners. UK gets lost in switches, closeouts, and PnR situations, but we rarely made them defend any of those, instead, just allowing them to play our guys straight up. Butler and Oweh are both good 1v1 defenders, so make them guard those switches and get lost. That is how other teams ring UK up for 90 points.

Part of the issue is our lack of ballhandlers. It is still maybe the most frustrating idea for me to accept with Barnes's offensive recruiting philosophy. We have one guy that can truly break his man down off the dribble. Problem is, he's 5'9. Lanier can't do it. Gainey can barely do it and needs a lot of space to do it. Mashack looks like he's dribbling a football.

Good assessment! Yes, Mashack is also a MAJOR LIABILITY OFFENSIVELY! I would like to see ZZ, Lanier, and Gainey on the court 90% of the time!

 

[VOLLeeann]

Altered muscle activation patterns: If your lifting exercises aren't specifically designed to mimic basketball shooting motions, they could temporarily change how your muscles fire during your shot, causing a slight alteration in form.

Lawdy!

 

[njvols]

Disagree on that, Duke plays 9 and Houston plays 8. Most of your best teams in March are playing 7-7.5 man rotations max.

Then we either have good 3pt shooters who became worse 3pt shooters when they came to knoxville, or it's coaching.

Not every team plays w/ the same D vigor as Barnes, so I still think having a deeper bench w/ Estrella and Cam would have benefitted our scoring better than not having them...it is what it is though. We will do fine in the tourney...it just depends when we play that team that can shoot 50% from the field on us.

 

[Anti-shunshinepumper]

Lawdy!

Not sure if you mean that in a surprised way, or satirical way. If it's the former, that stuck out to me, too. I mean it's definitely an intuitive concept, but I could for certain see training regimes that could ignore this ( if at least in part) for quicker gains in strength/size.
I mean if you have ever worked out you know there are some exercises you do for raw strength/size/power ( like standing barbell curls), and some you do to isolate a particular muscle for a particular gain in one area ( like wrist curls for say forearm strength). Both can hit the same muscle, but one does it in a more isolated way with potentially less range of motion.
Another one might be heavy bench press
and something as simple as push-ups with various different arm positions.
I would absolutely love to see our training routine (live or video) and schedule. No matter if you feel we are doing things exactly right or possibly doing some things wrong with our physical training, I think we would have to know this for sure to form a real opinion on this topic.

I'm really just posing some questions to see if anyone may know some details or have any thoughts in respect to our strength training and possibly affecting our shooting practices and game time shots

 

[Namorto1]

I doubt our training impacts our ability to shoot/score. We see NBA players transform their bodies and continue to become more proficient. Moreso than anything we just need an appropriate balance offensively in Barnes scheme. When we had Grant Williams, we were extremely efficient on offense because we had a legit post threat and surrounded him with players who meshed well and could score in different ways (Schofield, Bone, Bowden, Turner and Alexander). Last year, DK covered up many other offensive deficiencies due to both his sheer talent and will. This year you can't trust our offense from one game to the next. Capable of beating anyone but very doubtful we can string consecutive games in a row (which is required in the tournament) to make a serious run at the Final Four. Just how it is with this group. We have too many flaws on that end of the court to be consistent.

I knew a fella who was an assistant coach at high major level years ago who said, "give me a player with offensive skills and I will teach him how to play defense". Perhaps Barnes simply needs to recruit more players out of high school or the transfer portal who have more offensive potential. Not just shooters, but guys who can break defenders down and create their own shot or create a good shot for others. That being said, we lost against Kentucky (both times) because we couldn't defend their numerous 3 pt shooters.

 

[Anti-shunshinepumper]

Top defenses and their 3pt shooting…

1. Tennessee 33.8% ranked 186
2. St. John’s 29.2% ranked 352
3. Duke 37.4% ranked 37th
4. Houston 39.4% ranked 10th
5. Kansas 34.2% ranked 160th
6. Texas A&M 31:2% ranked 314
7. Iowa State 34.1% ranked 161


So obviously Duke & Houston stand out at still being good shooters while playing good defense, Barnes probably should do a case study on Houston in the offseason. They’ve been elite defensively for years, but struggled shooting the ball, this year they’ve take a small step back on defense but are shooting it extremely well.

Thanks for pulling those stats. That's interesting, and definitely what I was looking for ( thanks to everyone who posted actually, all god points)
It's good to see we in line with other teams that necessarily have a top defense.
There's been a couple of valid points posted as to why our % is on the lower end so far, too.

I mentioned earlier in the season when Igor was struggling from 3 it could be because he wasn't used to exerting so much effort on D.
I honestly feel now I wasn't too far off, either.
As he has been more accustomed to playing the D, his percentages have went up. I think fatigue definitely was affecting his 3 point shot.
I'm not saying it was necessarily everything ( or is true for everyone else), but I feel pretty confident it had a big part. A key piece of evidence for this was the biggest game he's had was when he came off the extra rest. Guess if my suspicion with him is correct, there's a good chance he will be shooting good in the Texas A&M game being we have a week off to rest and get ready for that game.

One last thing,
Seems Duke and Houston have figured out how to strike that balance. Wouldn't surprise me at all if you see both in the final four.

 

[nomads-11]

Here's what I do know. Weightlifting the day before, or less, of active bow (compound) shooting - NOT A GOOD IDEA. In short, DO NOT do it. I did and learned the consequences. At this level there is NO EXCUSE.........period. You CANNOT enter a finesse game the day after a weight work out...it's flat our counter intuitive. Period. Barnes is his own worst enemy if he's doing that. I heard "last year", the day before the sweet 16, he had a full out practice...they went balls to the wall. WTF? Why would you ever do that...I "think" he's smarter than that but that said. "If" he did go balls to the wall a day before....WHY? It's stupid. For one he lost, fact!,...not saying he wouldn't any way............but that is just STUPID. But with respect to Barnes...yes, his azz would do something as dumb as that. If he did at all. He's that mentally "challenged".

 

[pimo1]

I know I might get some teasing for even asking this, but hear me out.....
I'm not saying being physical is a bad thing. I love the fact we are able to break a lot of teams with our physical play. It's been a good thing for defense and rebounding for sure, but what about the mechanics of our shot/shooting?

I read where If you do high-intensity strength training before shooting practice that fatigue may affect your shooting mechanics which can lead to poor form and decreased accuracy.
I'm not exaclty sure when we do our weightlifting/strength training and whatnot, but is it possible the carry over could be affecting our shooting practices?

I also read that over-training and/or not incorporating proper flexibility work may lead to muscle tightness, which can negatively impact your shooting motion and overall range of motion. Is it possible we are doing too much strength training and not enough of the proper flexibility work we need to do to counter our strength training?
Could uber-strength training be making us less fluid in our shots or possibly be causing us to shoot the ball too hard or something like that?

I don't know exactly what it is, but it seems to there has to be something there for so many guys this year (and years prior) to be missing so badly.
Any opinions?

I am pretty sure our teams' strength coaches have read those same articles and maybe even written some of them. These guys sort of do this for a living. Not only that most are specialised in specific sports.

 

[pimo1]

Disagree on that, Duke plays 9 and Houston plays 8. Most of your best teams in March are playing 7-7.5 man rotations max.

They play that because they can. That 8 and 9 man rotation for Duke and houston is not the same 8-9 guys every game.

Duke has 9 guys that average over 10 mins a game. They also have another guy that averages 9 and one that averages 5. That might not seem like a lot but its huge and they can step in for injuries.

Houston Has 9 guys averaging over 10 mins a game. Plus one averaging 9 one 6 and one 4. They are playing 8 dudes mostly but they have another 4 that come in for injuries and blowouts and give their main guys a breather.

UT has 9 guys...period... We lost 2 guys averaging over 10 mins a game to portal/injury. We play an 8 man rotation with basically Bosell in reserve in case we have an injury? All of our starters average 24-34 mins except for Okpara (24).. but Gainey averages 27 also.

UT HAS to play guys the minutes they play Duke and Houston do it by choice. If we ever have 2 or more injuries to starters for a significant period, we are playing walkons for real minutes. Given that the fact Boswell is only averaging 4.9 mins a game sort of worrying. You'd think they would be getting that guy more minutes than he is getting.