By Corbin McGuire
There's confidence to shoot, and there's confidence that a pass will lead to a better shot. The latter is a philosophy, one built on patience, that K-State women's basketball head coach
Jeff Mittie has been trying to instill in his team.
It's started paying off lately.
K-State (5-2) knocked in a season-high 11-of-22 from 3-point range in a 72-61 win against Vanderbilt in Bramlage Coliseum on Sunday. The game before, the Wildcats hit 9-of-19 from deep to top Princeton by 19 in Cancun, Mexico.
Confidence, in more than one way, was the key to both shooting performances.
"Confidence also is the ability to turn down plays, knowing that you can trust that there's a better play coming back to you," Mittie said. "I think we're getting that trust. But you can only get that by turning down some plays. You can only get that by turning down what might be an average look to find a better look, and then somebody finds a great look and now, all of a sudden, it's fun to play. We had that better today. I saw us turn down shots. We made extra passes. Hopefully we can build off that."
K-State had made a meager 20 percent (17-of-85) of its 3-point attempts through its first five games. Then the Wildcats converted on 47 percent over Princeton to close the Cancun Challenge in Mexico on a high note. Then they returned to Bramlage Coliseum and made half their 3-point shots on Sunday in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
"We have good shooters, if we're taking good shots. If we're not taking good shots, then I think we still have good enough players that'll make a few of those but you're not going to make them consistently," Mittie said, as his team will host Lamar on Wednesday at 7 p.m. "I just think we're getting better looks.
"The ball's moving a little better. The ball's moving to the right player better. I think Chrissy (Carr), in particular, is not rushing things right now, letting the game come to her better."
Carr, a freshman, has been K-State's highest-volume shooter. So far this season, the Manhattan High School product has taken a team-leading 52 attempts from beyond the arc. She made 4-of-33 (12 percent) through her first five games. She hit 9-of-19 (47 percent) from 3-point range in K-State's last two wins, a microcosm of the team's improved shot selection.
"Coach Mittie's stressed to me a lot to just let the game come to me. That's one of my biggest transitions of being a scorer is going from high school and just forcing everything and hoping that it goes in, to here you don't really have that leash to be able to do that," Carr said. "He does a good job of letting me know, 'Hey, that was the right play,' or, 'That play was too early in the shot clock.' I kind of just take what he says and put it in the back of my brain."
Against Vanderbilt, Carr cashed in on 5-of-11 from beyond the arc and finished with a team-high 21 points, her second-straight 20-point performance. This represented another step forward in learning when to let it fly and when to run offense, she said.
"It even come from my teammates, too," she said of shot selection feedback. "After one of my shots today they were saying, 'You got an offensive rebound. Instead of going back up, let's use that shot clock,' so that just helps me learn from it and not have it happen again."
