Burton made huge strides as a sophomore
Most players make their biggest gains as a sophomore and that was true for Burton as well. In a number of key areas, he was able to turn some of his weaknesses from his freshman season into strengths as a sophomore.
Most notably was his 3-point shooting. When he was a freshman, he shot just 26.3% from deep. What’s more, he was a reluctant shooter who only attempted one three per game. That allowed teams to sag way off of him and dare him to beat them from outside.
But as a sophomore, he proved capable of burning teams that left him open. He improved his 3-point shooting to 38.1% as he hit 24 of 63 attempts.
Ten times this past season he attempted at least three shots from behind the arc in a game. In half of them, he hit at least two of those attempts. His best game in that regard was when he hit 4 of 5 shots from deep against UT-Martin on his way to a career-high 18 points. He also hit 3 of 7 shots against Memphis on a night when he had 13 points and set a career-high for 3-point attempts in one game.
Largely because of his improved outside shot, his scoring rose 4.3 points per game this year to 10.3 p.p.g. That was despite the fact that his minutes played rose only three minutes per contest.
What’s more, his free throw attempts increased by 13 this year despite the fact that he played seven fewer games. That’s an extremely important number to look at when evaluating a point guard or primary ball handler.
It appears as if his game took a step forward this past season because his confidence rose in his second year on campus. We’ve seen Red Raiders such as Davide Moretti and Jarrett Culver make huge strides as sophomores and the people in Wichita might say the same of Burton after the way he improved the biggest hole in his game this year.