Will the Cats Make Shots?

If you ask any Davidson basketball fan why last season went so awry, they are bound to answer: the three-point shooting. Yes, the defense was bad, but it was bad throughout the season. It was the fall off in three-point shooting that dovetailed with the team's disastrous 2025. In case you are a glutton for pain, the Cats had the 54th best offense in the country during the non-con when they shot 36.5% from 3. In A10 play Davidson's offense cratered to 156th, in large part because the team's three-point percentage fall off a cliff to 32.1%. As much as Matt McKillop tried to scheme around this deficiency, Davidson simply needs to be able to take and make 3s if it wants to make it's system work. This all leads to one important question, will the Cats make shots this season?

When trying to answer that question, the first thing you need to do is look at the roster turnover. Of the 5 departures who played major minutes, 3 shot under 30% from 3 during A10 play (Zach Laput, Connor Kochera, and Mike Loughnane), 1 shot 31% (Bobby Durkin), and 1 shot 39% (Reed Bailey) but on only .5 makes per game. Of the 3 players who played major minutes in A10 play and are returning, Roberts Blums, Hunter Adam, and Manie Joses, each shot ~36% or better from 3 but on very limited volume. This more or less tells me that the Cats are starting from 0 as it pertains to three-point shooting. This isn't the worst thing, as multiple guys coming in have shot the 3 well in their career. Sam Brown and Parker Friedrichsen are the head of this. Sam is a career 38.7% shooter from 3 on almost 6 attempts/game, while Parker shot 36.5% from 3 as a freshman in 2023/24 on 4 attempts/game before Wake Forest (his previous team) cratered offensively last season. Behind them, the Cats are adding RJ Greer and Devin Brown from the high school ranks, both of whom are considered plus 3-pt shooters. The Cats also bring back Nick Coval, who will be coming off a redshirt year and was considered an elite shooter and scorer in high school. Other additions, Ian Platteeuw, Josh Scovens, and JQ Roberts, are not considered to be plus shooters but have shown flashes of a long-range jumper.

On paper, the Cats certainly have less "noted above average shooters" than they did last season. Heading into last season, the scouting reports for Connor Kochera, Reed Bailey, Bobby Durkin, Mike Loughnane, and Zach Laput all had them as good shooters, and in A10 play none were outside of Reed on limited attempts. This season, the Cats only have 3 or 4 non-freshman with the same on paper reputation as good 3-pt shooters (Sam Brown, Parker Friedrichsen, Nick Coval, and Roberts Blums). All that is to say, I really cannot tell you with any sort of certainty whether or not the Cats will be able to shoot the 3. My best guess, backed up with the evidence we have, is that Matt McKillop will de-emphasize the 3 yet again and on limited volume I do feel a bit more confident that Sam Brown and Parker Friedrichsen (and hopefully Blums and Coval) will hit enough shots that the 3pt FG% is not in the bottom 100 of the nation again. Shooting around 34% from 3 on about 20 attempts/game would be a huge success. Betting that the Cats will shoot that few 3s per game is probably a bad bet though, as a Davidson Men's Basketball Team hasn't shot that few 3s since 2012.

If the answer to whether the Cats can shoot 3s is so unclear, is there hope for a good offense regardless? Unfortunately, the answer is again murky... Last season, the Cats primarily relied upon a "big three": Reed Bailey, Bobby Durkin, and Connor Kochera. Those three were Davidson's only players to average double figures in scoring and accounted for almost ⅔ of the team's scoring. That worked in the non-con against lesser teams but when A10 play rolled around the Cat's offensive numbers plummeted as Durkin and Kochera's efficiency numbers took a hit. The Cat's 4th and 5th leading scorers, Zach Laput and Mike Loughnane, are also gone. These departures are coupled by the fact that none of the returners are seemingly candidates to take massive steps forward on offense and lead the team. Manie Joses is far more likely to do that on defense, Hunter Adam's offensive profile fits much better as a complimentary piece, Roberts Blums struggled tremendously with efficiency (as most freshman guards do), and Nick Coval has no collegiate experience (and see previous note about freshman guards struggling with efficiency). This again leaves it to the newcomers.

The most known of the unknowns is Sam Brown, the point guard transfer from Penn. Brown has two seasons of experience as a high usage player and has produced substantially in that role. In fact, his offensive rating, or O-Rating, per KenPom has never been lower than 110 in a season and he was a first team all-Ivy player last season. For context, an O-Rating 110 or above is considered excellent, 100 is average, and anything below that is of course below average. His conference season numbers from last season are particularly absurd, as he averaged 19/3/3 on 50% shooting, 43% from 3 on over 6 attempts/game, good for a 124 O-Rating. His numbers dip against Top 50 opponents of course, but are still well above average according to KenPom: in 2024/25 his O-Rating was nearly 110 against Top 50 opponents and was 112 in 2023/24 against those same quality opponents. Sam is about as sure of a bet as there is on this roster and should contend for all-A10 honors. He's also Davidson's most well-rounded point guard since Jón Axel Guðmundsson and should be able to captain Davidson's offense better than any other point guard Matt McKillop has had since Foster Loyer (who did so with a very limited supporting cast).

Behind Sam though, there are carying levels of unknowns. Parker Friedrichsen, the transfer from Wake Forest, and Josh Scovens, the transfer from Army, are the most likely candidates to fill big minutes, high usage roles. Like Sam Brown, Scovens has two years of experience as a high usage guy on a small-major program. Different from Sam though, Scovens was below average in 2023/24 with an O-Rating of 95 (100 is basically average) but broke out in a major way in 24/25 when his O-Rating spiked to 105.2, 106.7 in Patriot League play. His offensive play carried over against quality opponents too, as he sported a 106.4 O-Rating against Top 100 opponents last season (although against just 2 opponents). If, and this is a major if, Scovens' breakout is real and carries over to the A10 (as the small sample size against top 100 opponents last season suggests it can) he will be a very serviceable secondary option for the Cats. Best case scenario, he can take another another step altogether and be in the 3rd team all-A10 conversation. Unlike the two aforementioned transfers, Parker Friedrichsen has never been a high usage guy in college. In fact, his usage rate at Wake never passed 13.5%. This doesn't mean he hasn't produced offensively though. In 2023/24 his O-Rating was 119.7 and 120.9 against Top 100 opponents. Even in a trying 2024/25 season he still managed to put up a 108.3 O-Rating in ACC play. These statistics are very promising and the former 4-star from Oklahoma has the skillset to suggest that he is capable of taking on a higher usage role as well, as he is more of a combo guard than just a spot-up shooter. There is also the hope that dropping down a level will allow him to thrive, just as it did for Foster Loyer and countless other college basketball players.

Beyond these three, the most intriguing candidate to be a high usage piece for the Cats on offense is Ian Platteeuw. Ian has captured the imaginations of Davidson fans and A10 commentators this offseason, and for good reason. Not only is he a skilled 7' with a skillset that reminds you of Luka Brajkovic, he also has a wealth of international performances to point to, including a 10/7/3.5 performance this summer at the U18 Euros that won him MVP honors and a Spanish championship. Evan Miya's advanced analytics site agrees with the hype and has Ian in the same tier as Scovens and Parker on the Davidson roster as secondary contributors on offense behind Sam Brown. I'm excited about Ian's upside, his playmaking from the Center position could be a game changer, but I do think we all need to remember that he is a freshman after all. I expect to see some sparks from the young Spaniard, but even expecting a repeat of Luka's own freshman season when he averaged 11/6/4 on a much better Davidson team could be putting undue pressure on the teenager. Expect to see sparks but stay realistic.

One last wildcard to mention is Roberts Blums. I already told you why not to expect him to blow up into a primary option, but he certainly has the talent to make a dent. In fact, Blums has Champion's League experience and was the MVP of a U18 Euros himself when he exploded for 20 points/game and led Latvia to a Division B title in 2023. He has the talent and shotmaking to take center stage, and T-Rank thinks he'll average double figures, but he needs to clean up his efficiency significantly first.

Overall, it does not appear that the Cats have the pieces to return to their glory days of shooting 25 3s per game and making nearly 40% of them. That is fine though, because it does look like they have just enough firepower to make a solid % if they are smart with the shots they do take. If they can do that, and a few key guys step up as primary scorers behind Sam Brown the Cats have a deep enough roster to field a quality offense. Maybe this means that this team has a lower ceiling than some of those in the past, but hopefully it also means that the floor is higher than in years past when the Cats' offense cratered in A10 play.