Understanding Shooting Gravity Through the Lens of South Carolina’s Bree Hall

The South Carolina Gamecocks are dominant in the year of our lord 2024, the lone remaining undefeated team in Division 1 basketball. They still win with overwhelming defense, the most stifling team in the country.

SC was much better than advertised as an offensive team last year, immaculate in their high low game and attacking the basket through the post. That hasn't changed this year as the Gamecocks still run largely the same offense with difference in personnel. Carolina is shooting 40.3% from deep on the season, the third highest mark in the country, as compared to 31% last year which ranked 173rd.

While the percentages and efficiency are important, what goes into those numbers and play makes the most crucial difference. As a team, we aren't seeing the Gamecocks get that many more attempts from deep up, 16.3 per game this season as opposed to 14.2 in 2023. Again though, the impact is different.

Why? Movement.

Last season, the team had shooting, although largely stationary, aka straight up catch and shoot jumpers. Zia Cooke would pull-up and occasionally shoot off of screens, but that wasn't what I would consider her bread and butter.

Te-Hina Paopao has shot the leather off the ball in her first season in Columbia, pulling up in transition, nailing her spot-ups, and dazzling with her self-created side-steps, step-backs, and absurd ability to remain on balance. Freshman Tessa Johnson has brought similar impact as an off-ball threat and spacer. Junior Bree Hall is averaging 9.7 points per game, but she has the impact of a 20-point scorer most nights.

Her floor game is tremendous, a fantastic perimeter defender on and off the ball, and an effective slasher who can make reads on the move to keep offense flowing. The flow aspect is so vital here when discussing Hall.

It's rare to find a player as fluid as Hall with her stature. She's long and tall, but agile in a way that few who aren't a guard typically are. She gets skinny over screens on defense and flies off of them with minimal space needed on the other end, which is huge in creating and expanding pockets in the defense. Her ability to move laterally and cover ground is phenomenal.

That makes her a wildly enticing prospect for the pros, but also a rarity at the college level when considering how effective she is.

She has a really great innate sense of how to move, why to move, and picks up what's happening quickly with the ball, always in a constant state of motion; rarely do you see her feet set... unless she's shooting the ball!

Hall has grown greatly in confidence as a shooter this season as well as continuing to get stronger, helping to polish out her shot preparation (how she gathers and is ready for the ball before it gets to her).

That's unlocked other aspects of her game further attacking the basket, which has in turn made her shot hit that much harder. She can get her shot up and off cleanly, able to get set in a moment's notice even after covering half the court on relocation.

Whether or not Hall is 4 of 5 from three or 0 of 7, defenses guard Hall the same, because in a moment's noice, she can change the course of a game with a quick-trigger three when she gets loose off a flare or leaks to the corner.

Movement shooting on volume is perhaps the most misunderstood and equally important part of an offense. It strains defensive help, occupying the weakside of a defense. Hall's growth and consistency has made her an even more valuable player, and South Carolina an even more potent offensive team in the halfcourt.