It was a little over seven minutes into UCLA’s Sunday night blowout of Long Beach State, and the fast-paced Bruins – as they rarely have in this young season – had whittled down half the shot clock without probing the defense.
The ball was in the hands of freshman point guard Lonzo Ball just outside the 3-point line on the right wing. Senior guard Bryce Alford was on the weak side, moving toward the baseline off a screen from junior center Thomas Welsh, presumably ready to curl into the corner near Ball – only to run into sophomore guard Aaron Holiday.
So Alford turned around, swung around a down screen from Welsh, caught a pin-point left-handed pass from Ball behind the arc and drilled the first of his five 3-pointers on the night.
Four games into his senior season, Alford looks as comfortable as ever in his new role as an off-ball shooting threat. He’s second on the Bruins in scoring, with 18.8 points a game, and might end up leading them in that department, but the pressure on him is not near what it was in previous campaigns.
“There’s so much less pressure on me as an offensive player,” Alford said after the win over Long Beach State. “I can do what I do best, run off screens and shoot the basketball – really focus in on that.”
Alford’s usage percentage, which was 22.4 percent last season and 22.6 percent the previous year, is down to 19.3 percent.
The result is a dramatic uptick in efficiency: he’s converted on over 58 percent of his 3-point attempts, after never reaching 40 percent in any season prior, and his true shooting percentage is an unreal 72.8 percent.
Those numbers will regress – UCLA has yet to play top-tier competition – but Alford’s lessened and more suitable role lends some legitimacy to the statistics.
“It’s incredible to be able to run the wing with (Ball) running it,” Alford said after the win over Long Beach State. “That’s why I think my efficiency will go up, and my percentage will go up, because he finds me when I’m open, and I don’t have to take as many tough shots as I did in years past.”
With the ball in his hand so much less often, Alford has seen his assist numbers drop – he’s averaging just 3.3 per game, after averaging 5.0 over the last two seasons – but he’s a very capable and willing piece of the Bruins’ ball movement-oriented system, and his shooting prowess can bend defenses into unfavorable situations.
Three minutes before Alford hit his first three of the night, UCLA ran an inbound play in which the senior curled around screens from Ball and freshman forward TJ Leaf to receive the ball at the top of the arc.
As Alford caught the ball, he saw that the 49ers, out of position and afraid of giving him an open triple, had two defenders on him. The guard rose up and whipped a pass to a wide-open Leaf under the basket for an easy dunk.
“It’s all about ball movement,” Alford said.