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Over the past few days, there's been much lamenting over Dominic Cheek and his lack of offensive production at the 76 Classic in Anaheim. While Cheek's defense and rebounding didn't really skip a beat (and he really should be commended for that), the lack of offense from him clearly was a big factor in Villanova's 1-2 finish at the tournament.
Cheek scored just 17 points across the 3 games, with his 10 points against Santa Clara a high across the 3 games. Let's take a look at his statistical breakdown in terms of shots.
| Opponent | FG | FG% | 3P FG | 3P FG% | FT | FT% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC-Riverside | 0-6 | 0% | 0-2 | 0% | 2-2 | 100% |
| Saint Louis | 2-6 | 33% | 0-4 | 0% | 1-1 | 100% |
| Santa Clara | 2-9 | 22% | 1-4 | 25% | 5-5 | 100% |
It should come as no surprise that the game in which Cheek got to the line the most, he scored the most. Cheek's been lethal at the stripe all season long and has been getting there regularly. He abandoned that gameplan throughout most of the tournament, instead settling for jumpers, many of which were contested.
I've no problem with Cheek shooting - he's clearly one of the top scorers on the team. And he's not going to get out of the slump he's in by shying away on the offensive end. But jhulax22 made a good point a few days back when he said that Cheek's shots were forced a bit.
Dom needs to get back to basics - plan A should be to attack the rim, and let your outside game come to you as a result of that. He flipped that around in Anaheim, clearly to disastrous results.
If Villanova is going to succeed, they'll need Dom to be a 12-15 ppg player this season - and preferably even higher than that. He can't have too many more stinkers like he had over the weekend. I'm confident we'll see a better effort against Penn on Saturday.
Thoughts on this guys?