ATLANTA — Since torching Missouri for 29 points on 8 of 15 shooting from three, Marshall Henderson has struggled shooting the ball. In the last eight games, he’s shooting 30.1 percent on threes.
For the season, Henderson has made 35.1 percent of his threes. His game average is 4.3 made three pointers on 12.2 attempts.
And in the last two games, a loss at Arkansas and a win over Vanderbilt, it has been even worse. He’s made just 5 of his 24 threes.
To correct this downward trend Henderson has been getting a lot of shots up.
“Just shot a lot of shots. Got in there the last couple days and put about 400 to 500 a day, makes, not counting the misses,” Henderson said. “Just trying to get it to where the ball is just going right on in.”
Even if Henderson is making 50 percent of his threes, he’s still been shooting at least 800 to 1,000 shots per day.
But what has been an issue for Henderson – and Jarvis Summers – is that the Ole Miss frontcourt has struggled so much that defenses are willing to abandon them in order to double Henderson and push him farther out.
“(Our opponents) can read stats and when they see that you’re not very productive at least to a percentage up front, they’re going to really, really load his side,” Kennedy said.
So Henderson has had to put up more contested shots and shots from farther and farther away. Very rarely does he get an open look with his feet right on the three-point line.
To get an open look against Arkansas, Henderson had to step way back.
Agianst Vanderbilt, he got a s hot off closer to the basket, but it was heavily contested.
“I’ve tried to be as creative as humanly possible in getting Marshall open. It’s easier said than done when everybody in the country realizes what we’re trying to do,” Kennedy said.
As far as creativity, Ole Miss has used a variety of screens to get Henderson open.
Summers coming off the pick-and-roll with Henderson in the corner.
Dribble hand off and elevator screens.
Double screens for Summers and Henderson.
Summers using a Henderson ball screen.
Most of Ole Miss’ offense involves Summers looking to attack the basket, and finding whatever hole that creates in the defense.
“Jarvis has alleviated some of that pressure with his ability to make plays off the dribble, and
we have tried to be creative in putting those two together,” Kennedy said. “Very similar to what we tried to do last year when we had Murphy and Marshall on the same side, simply because people won’t help off Marshall. We have tried to use him in screening actions.”
But for Ole Miss to rekindle any of the magic from last year’s SEC Tournament Championship run, it will come down to a jump shooting team making jump shots, especially, the lead shooter.
“At the end of the day, Marshall’s got to make hard shots,” Kennedy said.
