victory<\/a> over the No. 4 University of Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe Bears must double down on their regular-season strengths to put together a strong playoff run. This season, WashU has been especially dominant on the boards, averaging nearly 10 more rebounds per game than their opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bears are led by senior guard Yogi Oliff and sophomore forward Connor May in rebounding with 7.2 and 7.0 a game, respectively. Both players are top 10 in the conference in rebounding and have shown to push the fast break after defensive boards, a vital part of WashU\u2019s offensive strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything else I just learned from Yogi [Oliff] and the coaches, it\u2019s amazing,\u201d first-year guard Josh Kim said. \u201c[We\u2019re] really excited, man, that pressure, pressure creates diamonds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting out in transition has helped the Bears\u2019 offensive efficiency. WashU is second in the UAA in both field goal and 3-point percentage and has outshot its opponents by more than 4% from the field overall this season. The Bears\u2019 outside shooting has been led by sharpshooter junior guard Ryan Cohen, whose team-high 6.4 3-pointers a game goes along with an impressive 42% shooting clip from behind the arc. WashU has also been consistently able to find the open man this season, averaging over 15 assists per game as a team, nearly five more than their opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe execute our game plan well,\u201d Kim said. \u201cWe trust our process, knowing we got hoopers, so we just got to share the ball and do what\u2019s best for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The strategy of outrebounding the opponent, finding good looks, and maintaining a strong perimeter presence has allowed the Bears to achieve the success they\u2019ve had in the second half of UAA play. But to make a deep tournament run, they\u2019ll need to address their biggest weakness: taking care of the ball.<\/p>\n
The Bears average 12 turnovers a game, over two whole turnovers more than they force from their opponents. The Bears have trailed their opponents this year in points off turnovers, which has led to a few heartbreaking finishes. The team is 0-5 in games decided by less than 5 points, and they\u2019ll need to take care of the ball more down the stretch to close out games against the best defenses D-III has to offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve lost some [games], some tough ones where we had leads late, maybe turned it over versus press,\u201d said Juckem. \u201cYou know, you\u2019ve got to finish it right. And that\u2019s just toughness and guys learning and growing in it. We\u2019ve been there before, and there is belief in ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0WashU will face Transylvania on March 6 at 7:35 p.m. in the WashU Field House.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophomore Connor May drives past a UChicago defender. With an average of 17.2 points per game, May is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-516674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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