skip navigation

College Film Room: JT Shumate (Fr. WF, Walsh)

By Connor Harr, 02/18/19, 3:45PM EST

Share

Breaking down Walsh freshman forward JT Shumate

CANTON, Ohio -- Last season, JT Shumate led Newark to a 21-4 record as a senior. He also collected first team all-district, OCC-Capital Player of the Year, and second team all-state honors to cap off a phenomenal career.

Now Shumate is thriving in his first year at Division II Walsh, leading the Great Midwest Athletic Conference in scoring, putting up 20.4 points per game as a freshman. The former Newark standout has made a wildly successful collegiate transition, and appears to be in store for plenty of success as one of the more dominant players in D2 basketball over the next three years.

While it obviously takes a talented player to put up Shumate’s scoring numbers and efficiency in his first year, a lot of his success can be attributed to how he is utilized within Walsh’s offense.

Great X’s and O’s coaches always put their best players in premier positions to succeed on the court. It is necessary to run actions playing to your best players’ strengths, where you can also play off the other supporting teammates. Usually, being able to execute this accomplishment takes some creativity along with a great understanding for the identity of your team and each player on your roster, which is not carried out nearly as much as it should be.

In this week’s installment of College Film Room I will be breaking down JT Shumate’s offensive game and the actions he works out of that allow him to be the most productive player in his conference.


Shumate’s Statistical Versatility

Offensive Play Type (# of Possesions) PPP NCAA % tile
Spot Up (97) 1.186 0.87
Isolation (53) 1.094 0.87
Off Screen (45) 1.333 0.9
Cut (41) 1.122 0.49
Post Up (36) 1.139 0.94
P&R Man (32) 0.781 0.26

Looking at the table above, you can get a feel for how Shumate is used in within Walsh’s offense. It’s quite rare to find players with this level on variance within their play types with six over 30 possessions. At 6-foot-7 and 207 pounds, he is incredibly versatile usually playing as a four man for his team, but holding a wing like offensive skill set. This chart also shows you his efficiency, receiving an “excellent” ranking on four of his six play types in terms of points per possession.

Early Offense / Transition Utilization

Walsh plays at one of the slower paces in Division II basketball, as the Cavaliers rank out in the bottom hundred in offensive transition possessions. Just because you do not play an up tempo style, does not mean that you should not have at least some transition offense or early offensive actions in place. No matter what pace you play at, it is always nice to get a quick good look while the opposing team is trying to transition back from offense to defense.  One of if not the most effective ball screen, is the drag ball screen in transition. It’s a great way to create an open look early in the offense, but also sets up some misdirection weakside movement off the ball.

Here the Cavaliers utilize their two leading scorers all in the same transition offensive concept against Malone. It appears that they are setting up a double drag screen in order for their guard to get a look at the rim or a pull up jumper. However, you see the first screener roll hard off the screen, and then Shumate quickly fades out to the three point line thanks to both the vertical spacing provided by the roll man and the attack off the dribble from his guard putting Shumate's man in a tough off ball position. The freshman is the team leader in three point percentage as well, shooting a scorching hot 45 percent from deep on 4.8 attempts per game. In conference play, Shumate has stepped it up even more, shooting at an insane 48.3 percent clip. As you can see the form is not exactly picture perfect, but it consistently goes in. This is a great way to get your most efficient shooter an open look and put him in an easy position to score.  

When there is not an action called for Shumate in transition he can be deadly as well. He is a solid rebounder averaging 6.2 boards per game. He has enough handling ability at his size to make him a grab and go threat. Here he takes the rebound and while you can see Shumate does not possess elite speed, he makes great use of his strides and every dribble to finish on the break with solid body control.

Shumate can be found trailing in transition more frequently than he can as a handler. It is necessary for opposing teams to detect where he is at on the court as a trailer because he can make you pay with his shooting prowess. If you elect not to pick him up before the three point line, he will make you pay like you can see in the first video.

In the second, you can see the forward get out on Shumate picking him up, but not putting a hand up which is not effective either. Even though Walsh is an extremely slow paced team, you could really get creative with Shumate’s transition value. Especially if you want to go small with him at the five, or against a team that regularly plays two bigs. You could pull the opposing teams rim protector away from the rim in transition, which would open up driving lanes for your guards. This could continue to be utilized with drag screens or spain pick and rolls.

Halfcourt Offense Utilization

With Shumate’s size and offensive skill he can create a ton of mismatches on the Division II level. One of the main ways that Walsh likes to create this mismatch is on this 1-4 downscreen that turns into a playside rub action for him. Here you can see the guard shade down after passing the ball to the wing coming down to the strong side, initially it appears that the point guard will set a downscreen, but then you can see him stop in front of Shumate’s man which creates the rub action. This set is designed to get him an easy look at the rim where it is wildly hard to defend if not switched or played properly.

Here you can see a read out of the same set in the same game against Alderson-Broaddus. With the defense anticipating the rub action, Shumate comes off the down screen and buries the open three.

Now, let’s look at an extension from this same set against Ohio Valley. As you can see the rub action is sniffed out but the guard involved in the rub action pops back out to the three point line which creates an open driving lane. Simultaneously, the weakside wing sets a cross screen on the block for Shumate, which he flares off Into the corner and as the driving guard finds the open big on the weakside wing, all he has to do is make one extra pass to find the freshman wide open in the corner for three.

This set against Malone showcases the former Newark stud’s ability to work off movement. In order to be an elite off movement scoring threat, you must possess a certain degree of shot creation so you can attack off movement with pull ups, stepbacks, etc.

Shumate is the ball handler here in the 1-4 high set, coming off a down screen and then immediately sprinting to run off a stagger screen on the weakside of the floor. Then he makes a quick hesitation into a crossover in order to bury his pull up jumper which surprisingly looks smoother than his spot up. Notice how Malone has a big matched up on him, his off movement ability in a matchup like this one is something you can really take advantage of. Most bigs are not equipped with the tools or comfortable enough chasing somebody off movement in order to have consistent success in that area.

Another way that Walsh likes to take advantage of Shumate’s shooting and handling combination at his size is on out of bounds sets. Here against Findlay, he works off a flare screen on the sideline out of bounds set.  The Cavaliers do a fantastic job of setting up the misdirection by back screening the inbounder which gives Shumate complete space when coming off the flare. His spot up shooting equity allows him to take advantage of his man sprinting hard to get a hand up and not closing out, this opens up an easy pull up opportunity that the freshman will always take advantage of. Flare screen actions should definitely be a go to action for him since we do not have a large amount of possessions of him shooting off significant movement. This action sets up great for shooters that work well spotting up, off slight movement, and have the handling coordination to attack a closeout.

The last main offensive action that Walsh runs for Shumate in the halfcourt is out of a horns set. Normally, electing to go to this set when he has a clear size advantage, here we can Shumate matched up with a guard from Cedarville. The opposite big on the set simply just shades to the right, so Shumate can isolate to the left side of the floor. The guard has no choice but to foul him here.

Here is another look out of the Horns set where Tiffin counters with a matchup that resembles Shumate much better in stature. The down screen appears like it is going to be set by the lead guard, but Shumate quickly improvises his own movement within the set taking advantage of poor positioning by his matchup which results in an easy layup.

Overall Impressions

I was very impressed with Shumate going through his film. He has a great shooting stroke and a strong IQ, even though that was not highlighted as much in the film. The Newark graduate is fantastic at improvising his own off ball movement and is growing as a low usage passer which really translates well to team value on the offensive end of the floor.

Defensively, Shumate applies his IQ exceptionally well off the ball with a great reaction time on his rotations that allow him to recover from the weakside of the floor without elite speed. Along with being able to sniff out specific team actions off the ball in order to come up with steals.

While already providing such production for a quality Division II school at his age, it’s hard to think he will not be an All-American in the near future, even if it is not this season. We look forward to seeing Shumate have tremendous collegiate success after tracking his high school career where he emerged as a top five senior in Central Ohio a year ago.

Recent News

Subscribe to 270 Hoops Mailing List!

Email Address:
Favorite High School:
First Name:
Last Name:
Subscribe