Associate head coach Vonn Read wants his team to get a shot off on every possession. It could be a layup in the paint, a 3-pointer from the corner or even a backward heave from half court. He doesn’t care which.

“If it gets up on the rim and we get a chance to rebound it,” Read said, “we’d rather have that than a good looking turnover.”

It’s because Syracuse’s playing style is based on points per possession. More shots, more rebounds and fewer turnovers maximize points on the offensive end. Forcing turnovers minimize points allowed on the defensive end. Traditionally, performance is measured by shooting percentage, but a plan hatched by Read is giving Syracuse (18-6, 8-3 Atlantic Coast) a way to win games despite “awful” shooting performances that make head coach Quentin Hillsman “kind of cringe.”

“When most coaches look at field-goal percentage, they’re not getting the whole picture,” Read said. “If they want to focus on how well we shoot from the field or not, I think they have the wrong picture.”

Each game, Syracuse wants to take 20 more shots than its opponents and make at least 10 3-pointers. The increased shots are generated by positive turnover and offensive rebounding margins. The made 3s are a product of more taken.

Shooting percentage hardly matters.

Last season, Hillsman’s team was the second-worst team ACC team in field-goal percentage but managed to win 22 games. Read proposed to not worry about improving the team’s shooting percentage. Just increase the amount of shots, instead.

“It just became evident that’s what we needed to do” Hillsman said, “so we just built a system together really to maximize that.”

Read always had the style in his mind as the way he wanted to play, so he started implementing it last season and threw in more schemes while coaching the team on its European tour in August.

Players, especially the freshmen, had to adjust their conditioning because the team presses the entire game, even on missed shots, senior guard Brianna Butler said. The time with Read as the primary coach during the summer gave the players time to learn the system, too.

“We like it …,” Butler said. “We’ve been able to do a lot of damage with it.”

When SU shoots poorly, it gets a chance to “win the game twice” on its forced turnovers, shots and rebounds, Read said. Syracuse is last in the ACC and 311th of 344 teams in the nation with a 35.6 percent shooting percentage, but received votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll on Monday. Its 28.3 3-point conversion rate ranks 267th in the country and 12th in the conference, but the Orange sits in first place in the conference for total 3s made.

SU collects 19.2 offensive rebounds per game, ranking first in the ACC and third in the nation giving the Orange extra possessions even when it misses so many shots.

Syracuse traveled to Miami on Feb. 1 and shot 28.6 percent overall and 14.8 percent from 3 against the No. 16 team in the country. It won.

“You just don’t do that in ACC play,” Read said.

When the Orange hit 50 percent of its shots against No. 12 Duke on Jan. 3, the result was a 36-point blowout victory.

Read was skeptical about whether or not SU could force turnovers in conference play, but more than two-thirds of the way through its ACC schedule, the Orange still has the best turnover margin in the NCAA. Its opponent turnover rate of 30 percent is the best in the nation, according to WBBstate.com.

In each of its last four games, Syracuse has shot a worse percentage than its opponent but still come away with a win. Read has devised a system of play and evaluation that disregards his team’s poor shooting performances and has resulted in unconventional wins.

“If you want to use field-goal percentage, then I’ll say keep using that …” Read said. “But if you want to look at points per possession, you get a truer value of how you’re executing offensively and defensively.”

Published on February 8, 2016 at 10:23 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus