‘His motor runs’: How basketball transfer could bring efficient offense to Shockers
The most efficient shot in basketball is a free throw, something the Wichita State men’s basketball team hardly shot and hardly made last season.
The Shockers ranked No. 338 in the country in free throw rate, which measures how many free throws a team shoots compared to field goals, and No. 292 in the country in free throw percentage at a paltry 69.3%.
Help should be on the way this season with Saint Peter’s transfer Corey Washington, a 6-foot-5 forward who specializes in drawing fouls and made 77.3% of his free throws last season.
“It’s really just about putting pressure on the rim and being aggressive,” Washington said. “I’ve used that to my advantage and I like using shot fakes to get people in the air and that’s really worked out for me.”
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To put Washington’s foul-drawing ability in context, his rate of 5.8 fouls drawn per 40 minutes last season would have been the highest rate for a WSU player since Jamar Howard in the 2004-05 season. Washington also made 4.46 free throws per game last season, which again would have been the most by a WSU player since Howard.
After averaging 15.9 points and blossoming into a star in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, which was rated the 25th-best conference by KenPom.com last season, Washington will have to prove himself all over again in the American Athletic Conference, judged by KenPom as the ninth-best conference.
But anytime a player has the knack for generating the most efficient shot in the game and the ability to knock it down at the line, there’s a good chance their production will translate to a higher level. That has certainly been the case so far in the ramp-up to the season, which continues Sunday with a 6:30 p.m. exhibition against Emporia State at Koch Arena.
“Corey is just relentless, man,” WSU senior guard Xavier Bell said. “He’s so good at hitting the glass, getting downhill and just getting to his spots. He’s a great player who brings the right energy each and every day and competes. I think his ability to get to the line is definitely going to translate here and it’s going to be very beneficial to our offense, especially down the stretch of close games.”
Washington makes up for the lack of ideal height for a power forward with a tenacious hunger when rebounding. He has good instincts for collecting misses off the rim and is a box-out nightmare for opponents because of his constant movement and desire to retrieve loose balls.
WSU head coach Paul Mills raved about Washington’s energy on the court earlier in the month, as the Little Rock, Ark. native had registered the highest “care factor,” which rewards hustle players in practices, for four of the first nine practices.
“We have connects that give us data on a player’s energy, so we have an idea of their load management and heart rates every single day and his activity is pretty high,” Mills said. “Now we’ve got to get him better at shot selection, but I think players like that, you really try to work through their instincts without taking away their aggressiveness. He’s naturally aggressive and his motor runs.”
But offensive rebounds are only a sliver of what makes Washington a foul magnet.
His aggressive nature means he applies a ton of rim pressure, meaning a high percentage of his shots come around the basket. While he is experimenting by launching more 3s at WSU (he shot 24-for-78 beyond the arc last season), Washington’s bread-and-butter is when he is attacking the basket.
He scored 1.39 points per possession and ranked in the 80th percentile nationally in scoring off cuts, per Synergy’s tracking data. That should make him a natural in Mills’ offense, starting in the corner or the wing and cutting off ball handlers for easy baskets. Washington is also armed with a deadly pump fake and head-bob move, which help him generate so many foul calls.
If Washington can become a little more picky with his jump shooting, he could be an efficient source of scoring for an offense that desperately needs to improve its efficiency.
“I take pride in my effort and I think that shows on the court,” Washington said. “When it comes to trying to fit in, I’m just trying to do it around our culture here. The things we do, the plays we run, the situations I’m going to be in a game, I figure I might as well work on them now to get ready for the games.”
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