Iman Shumpert feels growing pressure to carry Georgia Tech's offense, because, outside of Glen Rice, his teammates aren't scoring.
In Thursday night's loss to Florida State, three starters didn't supply a point. One didn't get off a shot. The others combined to miss their six attempts.
Coach Paul Hewitt, who can see signs of his players maturing, said they've still got to find a way to help more on offense. Shumpert and Rice are Tech's leading scorers, combining for 30.7 points, or 44.4 percent of Tech's 69-point season average. They take more than 41 percent of the team's shots. Shumpert said he wants to see his teammates shoot more. Hewitt said as much following a loss to Clemson.
"When we are slumping, guys who don't normally take shots feel like they shouldn't take the next shot if we are in the slump," the coach said. "Sometimes that shot is the best shot. As long as it's under 25 seconds they've got to knock that shot down."
Brian Oliver, Tech's third-leading scorer (10.9 points per game), is sidelined for 2-3 weeks with a broken thumb. No one else was willing to shoot against the Seminoles, leaving Shumpert and Rice to launch 51 of the team's 77 shots. They accounted for 49 points, or 77.7 percent of the team's total. Jason Morris was the team's third-leading scorer with seven points.
Teammates need Shumpert and Rice to shoot because it gets them going. They defer when the offense needs them to be patient.
"Sometimes we are down there begging for the ball and they see that we aren't open," Shumpert said. "We have to trust in them to run the offense and reverse the ball."
Tech has had to come from behind even when it wins. Virginia Tech led the Yellow Jackets by seven with less than 12 minutes remaining when Tech's jump shots finally started to fall.
After the loss to Florida State, Hewitt said the Jackets needed to get more shots closer to the basket. Tech's players haven't supplied much of a post game this season; the motion offense Tech runs isn't conducive to an inside game and the two most natural post players, center Daniel Miller and forward Kammeon Holsey, are both inexperienced redshirt freshmen.
That brings the offense back to Shumpert. At 6-foot-5, he is tall enough to post up many of the guards who defend him. Isolated in the post in recent games, he shoots a fallaway or step-back jumper if he gets the ball deep enough. However, teams know Tech has had trouble hitting jump shots and 3-pointers. Tech is last in the ACC in shooting (40.6 percent), and last in 3-point shooting percentage (28.5).
On Sunday, the Jackets (10-13, 3-7 ACC) face Virginia Tech (15-7, 5-4) , which is encouraging. The last time these teams met, Shumpert posted the fourth triple-double in Tech's history with 22 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists.
"I feel like we just have to make more shots," Shumpert said. "People are playing off because we had the rep early of not shooting ball well. When we start knocking down shots, people will loosen up and we'll be able to drive the ball."
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