City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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When Cleon Roberts puts the ball up lately, there’s almost no need to watch -- it’s almost certainly going through the hoop.

A 2013 transfer from Georgia Southern, Roberts showed in his one season with the Eagles that he was a capable 3-point shooter, knocking down 38.5 percent (42-of-109) from beyond the arc as a true freshman. Through his first two seasons at La Salle, playing an average of over 30 minutes per game, he was connecting at a 34.8 percent clip (112-for-322) -- respectable, for sure, though not exactly “sharpshooter” status.

But this year, Roberts has been near-unconscious from deep.

In helping his team to an 89-78 win over Drexel on Sunday afternoon, Roberts made his first six 3-point attempts before finally drawing iron on a triple from the corner with just over seven minutes remaining. That snapped a string of 10 straight made triples, dating back to a 4-for-4 performance against Texas Southern the previous Saturday.

For the season, he’s at 12-for-15 (.800), second in the country amongst players who’ve taken at least three 3s per game.

“I was aware of it,” he said of the streak, “but I knew I just had to keep playing, don’t force anything, just keep playing basketball.”

Had he ever made 10 in a row before?

“Probably in practice, or working out,” Roberts said. “It was basically my teammates, they’re catch-and-shoot 3s, so they found me, they got me open, and I just finish it off.”

There’s no doubt that on a much deeper La Salle squad from a year ago, Roberts is benefitting from much-increased talent around him, and is therefore able to take advantage of some wide-open opportunities.

With transfers Pookie Powell (Memphis) and B.J. Johnson (Syracuse) now getting big minutes on the perimeter, Roberts has gone from a player the Explorers needed to play second fiddle to Jordan Price to just another bucket-getting option. But it’s a role he’s more than happy to make on a team that’s trying to get away from last year’s nine-win experience as quickly as possible.

“We got more players, more depth, and everybody loves each other, we’re all brothers on the court, so we’ve got to show that love on the court, just share the ball,” Roberts said. “We’ve got a good system going, we’ve got the ball moving more.”

Roberts had only nine at halftime, one of six players on La Salle to score five or more points over the opening 20 minutes as the Explorers held a 44-27 lead at the break. Two more 3-pointers just out of the half helped push the lead to as big as 23 before the Dragons able to find some energy.

Drexel freshman point guard Kurk Lee had 17 of his 21 in the second half as his team closed the gap to as little as 11 before La Salle was able to find enough energy to close out the game.

Roberts’ outing was part of the Explorers’ best shooting performance of the season. They’d made exactly nine triples in their first three games, shooting a respectable but not impressive 35.5 percent from deep, good enough for 160th in Division I; against Drexel, they were 13-of-21, a 61.9 percent clip, hitting shots no matter what type of defense the Dragons threw at them.

Even redshirt junior Amar Stukes, a career 26.8 percent 3-point shooter, knocked down both of his long-range attempts en route to his season-high 14 points.

“Anytime a team goes 13-for-21, you’re going to be on the bottom side of the scoreboard,” Drexel coach Zach Spiker said. “Whether it was man or zone, I didn’t think we did a great job of contesting shots early. They found their rhythm, and any good basketball team, they get their rhythm, they get confidence and they’re able to execute.”

La Salle coach John Giannini knows it’s a team capable of showings like this on a more regular basis, especially with shooters like Roberts, Price (18 points), Johnson (12) and Powell (12) and the rest of a strong perimeter group.

“I was hoping we would see a little bit more of this a little sooner,” he said after the game. “I think our guys work hard on their shoot and we play a lot of guards so we should be making 3s.

“We play four guards and sometimes with foul trouble we have to put B.J. out there as our biggest player in a small lineup, so we have three to five shooters out there at any time,” he continued. “So hopefully we continue to make these.”