Let's talk about what we're expecting/hoping from this guy this season.
I think he's a good example of why I'm very bullish on this team and that's flexibility. Last year we just had none at all in the backcourt. The recipe for defending us was simple, guard Taylor and sag off of everyone else. That way even if Taylor got by his defender there was help and with our terrible non-Taylor three point shooting (28%) we rarely made opponents pay for this. Taylor wasn't a particularly good shooter last year but all of the other options were even worse (except for Manny, who needs to shoot more.)
Even coming off the bench at Nebraska, Wilcher not only hit threes at a high clip (39%) he got a lot of shots up. He attempted 11.1 threes per 100 possessions. That would be behind only Taylor and Hefner of guys that got significant minutes for us. Is he going to play 25 minutes a game for us? I doubt it, but I think he brings something to the table that nobody else does, and there will be a few games we win because we've got him.
The difference a team being a mid-seed and a very good one isn't much. It's a handful of games. Does having Wilcher win us games like the away Arkansas game and the home South Carolina game last year?
Against Arkansas we were 6/29 (21%) from 3 and lost by 1, against SC we were 2/17 (12%!!) and lost by 2.
You can't just flip every close loss into a win, like the Vandy game we actually shot threes fairly well) but do we win some of the games where we were just absolutely dreadful from behind the arc if we had another option to try?
On the surface he's not a huge add out of the portal when you're looking at raw stats, but I bet there's going to be a few "thank god we got that guy" moments this season.
I think he's a good example of why I'm very bullish on this team and that's flexibility. Last year we just had none at all in the backcourt. The recipe for defending us was simple, guard Taylor and sag off of everyone else. That way even if Taylor got by his defender there was help and with our terrible non-Taylor three point shooting (28%) we rarely made opponents pay for this. Taylor wasn't a particularly good shooter last year but all of the other options were even worse (except for Manny, who needs to shoot more.)
Even coming off the bench at Nebraska, Wilcher not only hit threes at a high clip (39%) he got a lot of shots up. He attempted 11.1 threes per 100 possessions. That would be behind only Taylor and Hefner of guys that got significant minutes for us. Is he going to play 25 minutes a game for us? I doubt it, but I think he brings something to the table that nobody else does, and there will be a few games we win because we've got him.
The difference a team being a mid-seed and a very good one isn't much. It's a handful of games. Does having Wilcher win us games like the away Arkansas game and the home South Carolina game last year?
Against Arkansas we were 6/29 (21%) from 3 and lost by 1, against SC we were 2/17 (12%!!) and lost by 2.
You can't just flip every close loss into a win, like the Vandy game we actually shot threes fairly well) but do we win some of the games where we were just absolutely dreadful from behind the arc if we had another option to try?
On the surface he's not a huge add out of the portal when you're looking at raw stats, but I bet there's going to be a few "thank god we got that guy" moments this season.