Texas Tech basketball: Brandone Francis must improve for Red Raiders

The Texas Tech basketball team’s hopes of winning a Big 12 title may rest on whether or not senior guard Brandone Francis can improve his play on both ends of the floor.

Winning a Big 12 title and finally being the team that dethrones Kansas is going to be no easy task for the Texas Tech basketball team (or any other team). Despite the fact that Kansas has been hurt by the loss of center Udoka Azubuike, they are still the favorites to win the conference regardless of what the talking heads on television say.

And if the Red Raiders are going to take home their first conference title since 1996, they will need more from players not named Jarrett Culver. That is especially true of senior Brandone Francis.

Thus far, it would be fair to say that Francis’ senior year has been a bit of a disappointment. After establishing himself as a key contributor during his junior season, he was expected to be far more prominent this season considering the fact that Texas Tech lost four guards from last year’s team.

But so far, the former 4-star recruit and top-100 high school player has not been able to give the Red Raiders as much as they have needed out of him. Despite the fact that he is playing eight minutes more per game, his scoring is virtually the same (5.3 ppg this year vs. 5.1 last year) and he is shooting far worse from the floor, especially from 3-point range.

He has only three double-digit games and has not had one since December 1st against Memphis. Last year, he has three 10-point or more games in Big 12 play alone including a season high 17 against No. 2 West Virginia.

And has been discussed quite a bit, it has been his 3-point shot that has let him down. Last year, he shot a fantastic 43.6% from behind the arc but this year, that number has dropped to just 30.8%. But that has not prevented him from attempting more 3’s per game.

Letting it fly from deep 3.1 times per game (as opposed to 2.3 last year), he is on pace to attempt 96 3’s in the regular season which would far eclipse the 71 he shot in the 2017-18 regular season. Right now, he’s actually on pace to hit fewer 3’s per game this year (0.8) than last year (0.9).

Opposing teams are aware of this are have been content to let him pull the trigger as they shift their defensive focus towards more dangerous scorers like Culver, Davide Moretti and Matt Mooney. At some point, it might be better for Francis to consider driving to the basket even when presented with an open jumper.

Francis has not attempted more 2-point field goal attempts than 3-point attempts in a game since Texas Tech opened Big 12 play against West Virginia. In the four games since, he’s shot 17 3’s and only seven 2-pointers, which is not always the best strategy when one is mired in a prolonged shooting slump.

He must continue to play with confidence and be assertive within the flow of the offense but he has to understand that if he is open from long-range, it means he likely also has an opportunity to attack the rim off the dribble. Perhaps if he were able to have a game where he hit a handful of shots in or around the paint, just seeing the ball go in with some regularity might help alleviate the pressure of his shooting slump.

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And because of that slump, he has become one of the biggest offensive liabilities on the roster. In fact, the team’s advanced offensive statistics are not kind to Brandone Francis.

He ranks 10th on the team in offensive rating, which is an estimate of points a player scores or produces for his teammates per 100 possessions. His 87.9 ranks last of all regular rotation pieces and is actually worse than players at the end of the bench such as Parker Hicks and Andrew Sorrells. For comparison sake, Jarrett Culver leads the team with 119.7.

Taking it a step further, his offensive box plus/minus, which measures how many points he creates versus what is deemed to be an league-average player is -1.8. Again, Culver leads the way in that category at +8.2.

On the other end of the court, Francis is also struggling. His defensive rating, a measure of points allowed per 100 possessions is ninth on the team at 84.2. That is 8.2 more points per game allowed than team leader Norense Odiase. And he is allowing 4.5 fewer points per 100 possessions than the average player, which is good but considering that Tech’s elite defense helps inflate every player on the roster’s defensive stats, it is not quite as impressive. Francis is seventh on the team in that stat trailing team leader Tariq Owens by a full seven points.

The point here is not to bash Brandone Francis. His personal transformation since coming to Lubbock has been a great story and he is the type of person that we can be proud to see representing our university.

But he simply must play better basketball. He is fourth on the team in minutes played at 23.5 per game and that is because he is versatile enough to guard multiple positions. What’s more, he is the only upperclassman Chris Beard has on the bench and the recent calf strain suffered by DeShawn Corprew will put Francis on the floor even more.

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Francis has to keep grinding away on the practice court, especially with his shot because he will continue to have open looks and Tech is desperate for another player to knock down some baskets in crunch time. We have seen better from him so we know what he is capable of. And if he can return to the form that he showed last year, his improvement just might be the key that puts the Red Raiders over the top in what is going to be a very tight Big 12 race.

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