Is Tre Jones Ready To Score?

Duke’s brilliant defender needs to expand his game

We’ve been watching basketball for a long time and last season Tre Jones impressed us as much as anyone has as a defender. He was brilliant. He seemed to have the ability to kick his defense into a higher gear at will.

Offense was a different story though. He had a couple of really good offensive games but his shooting was a liability.

This article from NBCSports.com thinks that Duke needs a big offensive performance from him this year:

“The secret was out before the season started... Duke did not have nearly enough shooting on their roster,..As a team, the Blue Devils shot just 30.8 percent from three last season, the lowest number in Coach K’s Duke tenure. It was so bad that Zion was actually the second-best three-point shooter on the roster.

“UCF took that scouting report to the extreme for long stretches of the second half. They had Fall “guard” Jones, but instead of actually playing defense on the point guard, Fall was parked in front of the rim to act as Zion repellent. He completely ignored Jones defensively. They dared him to shoot. “

At times though he did shoot well so clearly he’s capable of improving. And if he does, things change, and possibly a lot.