“I think it’s fun and it’s a good way to play,” said senior Tom House, whose 213 attempts and 83 makes are the most in the Southwest District.
Point guard Gabe Cupps said, “I love finding guys for three. It’s my favorite thing to do.”
The Elks shot 36.1% on 610 attempts last season and won the Division I state championship. They are back in the final four and meet Cleveland St. Ignatius in the semifinals at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at UD Arena.
To increase their 3-point accuracy by over seven percentage points, the Elks shoot a lot outside of practice. They shoot before school, before practice, after practice, whenever they can to get better. And they mostly do it groups of two or three.
“Workouts have to be game situations,” said 6-foot-7 senior Rich Rolf, who is also the team’s best rebounder. “You can’t casually work out and go 50% and then expect to make shots going 100%. During workouts, we push each other.”
The five Centerville players with the green light to shoot the open three stood in a semi-circle after Monday’s practice and answered this question: When you are in the gym outside of practice, what percentage of time is spent shooting threes?
Gabe Cupps (46 of 102, 45.1%): “I have to work on my ball handling, getting to the rim and off the dribble stuff. I probably spend 50% of my time.”
Tom House (38.4%): “Like 85, 90%. It’s just good for confidence at this time of the year.”
Kyle Kenney (17 of 35, 48.6%): “Probably about the same as Tom.”
Rich Rolf (60 of 123, 48.8%): “I’d say something like 70%.”
Quinn Hafner (53 of 121, 43.8%): “I’d say like 90 to 95%.”
That’s why the 3-point shot is an asset.
“All the work that we’ve put in has allowed us to play in that freelance style,” Cupps said. “But we obviously don’t want to take bad shots. But if we get an open three, we’ve worked on it, we’ve put in the hours, so we just let it fly.”
Only Alter shoots as many threes as the Elks. The Knights, who are in the final four in Division II, have also shot 619 threes and made 37.2%. A survey of teams in the Southwest District revealed only Carroll, Indian Lake, Tippecanoe, Cincinnati Woodward, Fairfield, New Miami, Goshen and Williamsburg as teams that had taken over 500 3-pointers. The percentages ranged from New Miami’s 26.3 to Fairfield’s 37.3.
Part of Centerville’s success is that not everyone shoots 3-pointers. Ryan Keifer and Emmanuel Deng are important players in the Elks’ eight-man rotation, but neither of them attempted a three this season.
“It’s a huge credit to those guys,” Cupps said. “They could be mad about not doing the popular job. But without those guys buying into that role we wouldn’t be the team we are.”
Head coach Brook Cupps decides who gets to shoot threes and who doesn’t.
“Part of the reason we shoot a good percentage is because our guys that can shoot them, shoot them and our guys that can’t don’t,” he said. “It seems really simple, but when you look at stats for other teams that’s not always true.”
There’s more to 43.5% than shooting thousands of shots in the gym when only your teammates are watching. Coach Cupps emphasizes taking uncontested shots in the flow of the offense. The Elks move the ball well and often are in catch-and-shoot position when they ball moves from inside back to the perimeter.
“I get open a lot off a lot of movement,” House said. “Part of my role is creating offense, running the floor, screening for others, and when you’re in a lot of action you tend to get a lot of shots.”
Hafner said, “I rely on Gabe and Kyle and whoever to give me the ball when I’m open, and they rely on me to make the shot.”
Kenney says is primary role off the bench is defense, “But when I get the opportunity, I try to take the good ones.”
Rolf, Cupps and Hafner have each improved by about 10 percentage points from last year.
“I would say it’s my confidence, but also my teammates boosted my confidence,” Rolf said. “They just told me keep shooting even if it’s not going down.”
Defense, a staple of a Cupps-coached team, is also an indicator of how well the Elks are shooting.
“When we sit down and guard and have energy and communicate and are active, our pace offensively is much better, much more aggressive,” Brook Cupps said. “We talk about that the ball doesn’t just happen to go in sometimes. The ball wants to go in when you’re playing the way that you’re supposed to play. If you’re chucking bad shots, the basketball gods are, ‘Yeah, we ain’t letting you make that.’”
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