Larry Eustachy among top coaches in nation at player development

Larry Eustachy has received some heat for his coaching style over the years. His approach to the game is unique, but offensively and defensively, CSU has seen a lot of success under the experienced coach.

His ability to develop players and improve their offensive production led CSU to being one of the highest scoring teams in the Mountain West last season and the fifth-year head coach ranks fourth when it comes to in-season development and optimal deployment, according to Sports Illustrated’s Dan Hanner and Luke Winn.

The five-part article discusses a variety of topics, including the various rankings of college basketball across the country. One of which is in-season development and optimal deployment, which “measures how much a coach’s players outpace Sports Illustrated’s preseason efficiency projections on a year-to-year basis, and how well a coach maximizes the impact of his best players by putting them in position to take the most shots.”

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Ultimately, this means Eustachy has been able to adjust his offense based on the skill-set of the players and effectively put his players in position to score. This has been evident in LE’s time at CSU.

For instance, the 2014-15 CSU team finished the season with a 27-7 overall record, scoring 72.2 points per-game. The team’s most efficient players, out of the guys that took at least 100 field goal attempts on the season, were Tiel Daniels (.629), J.J. Avila (.552) and Stanton Kidd (.402). Those three players took a combined 127 three-point attempts. The team made 245-699 3-point attempts (.351).

What does this mean? This means that the team was primarily doing most of their damage in the paint, and within the 3-point arc. The team’s three most efficient scorers all primarily scored within 20 feet of the basket, although Kidd and Avila did have the ability to make the occasional long-ball.

Moving forward to last season, CSU took a record 896 3-point attempts, making 326 of them (.364). Although only slightly better of a percentage, considering the team took nearly 200 more attempts in 2015-16, the result is impressive.

Also, impressively four scorers that took at least 100 attempts shot over 40 percent from the field, with Gian Clavell (.455), Antwan Scott (.428), Emmanuel Omogbo (.458), and Tiel Daniels (.619) in that group.

From beyond the arc, Scott, Clavell, Joe De Ciman and Prentiss Nixon all shot at least 35 percent, an astounding number. Though the team’s scoring was done primarily from beyond the arc, the result was a slight increase to 79.9 points-per contest, but still right around the same area, as the previous year.

The biggest difference was a lack of defense, with CSU giving up 13 more points per-game in 2015. The offense however continued to produce on a nightly basis, a common trend throughout Eustachy’s tenure.

With the loss of assistant coaches Ross Hodge and Leonard Perry this week, the outlook on CSU basketball has been somewhat gloomy. To this I say: Relax. Eustachy, although unorthodox, produces at a high level on a yearly basis.

The Rams will likely return many key players in 2016-17, and those young men will be another year older, and therefore more adapted to the Eustachy style of play. Players like Daniel Bejarano, John Gillon and Joe De Ciman showed/have showed leaps and bounds of improvement with their time under Eustachy. Nixon, Omogbo and J.D. Paige have the same opportunity moving forward. Things are not are dark as it seems.