2011 Basketball Preview: William Buford

With Basketball season fast approaching JoeD, JoeL, and I wanted to take an opportunity to properly preview the team.  To that end, we will take a look at each player in turn, with approximately two per week until the November 6th exhibition matchup with NAIA team the Walsh University Cavaliers.

Up first in our player profile features is none other than William Buford, one of the key cogs of last year’s team.  Buford is going to be an important piece of the puzzle again this season, and he will be one of those weapons around which the offense will operate.  Let’s take a look at him a little closer.

Home Town: Toledo, Ohio
High School: Toledo Libbey.
Position: Guard (3/2)*
Year: Senior
Height: 6-6
Weight: 220

High-School Awards:

• As a Junior, earned first team all-state honors.
• Earned 2008 MaxPreps third-team All-America and Parade All-America honors.
• Selected as a McDonald’s and Jordan Brand All-American.
• Earned three consecutive Toledo City League Player of the Year honors.
• Named Mr. Ohio Basketball and Division 2 Co-Player of the Year (2008).

Collegiate Honors:

• 2009 Big Ten Player of the Week, 1/19/09
• 2009 Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (Coaches)
• 2009 Big Ten All-Freshman Team (Coaches)
• 2009 Big Ten Freshman of the Year (Coaches/Media)
• 2010 Third Team All-Big Ten (Coaches/Media)
• 2011 Second Team All-Big Ten (Coaches/Media)

William Buford is an electrifying player with a super smooth jumpshot.  There are few basketball players who make shooting the basketball look graceful, and Buford is the master at it.  He’s also a devoted team player who has dramatically improved his decision making over his career, often passing the ball to an open teammate rather than take a poor shot as he would have done earlier in his career.

Career Stats:

Stats courtesy of Buckeyes Beat, the OSU part of a  fantastic automated basketball stats blog.

Strengths:

A mentioned, Buford is a shooter of the purest form.  He’s particularly adept at the outside and mid-range jumpshots, often penetrating the defense slightly and stepping back to create space from the defender before taking a quick 18 footer.  Amazingly, those 18 footer’s always seem to find the bottom of the net.  It is by far and away his favorite shot, and he’ll go to it whenever he thinks it’s available – which it often is.

Buford has immensely improved his shooting percentages, hitting 44.7% of shots with his feet set and an only slightly worse 44.1% off the dribble.  It’s astounding to see a player be that good shooting the ball regardless of how they start out their shooting motion.

Buford has also drastically improved his defensive game, and is quite adept at fighting through screens and playing within the team defensive concept.

Weaknesses:

While Buford has improved his defensive capabilities, he still struggles with his man-to-man defense.  With the Buckeyes switching over to more of a man defense last season, his weaknesses were on full display.  He needs to work on his lateral swiftness and his shuffle-slide while remaining in his stance.

He also struggles with his shot consistency.  While it has improved dramatically over the years, Buford still suffers temperature fluctuations like no-one else in the business.  There are some games where he is hotter than the corona of the sun, and others where he is colder than liquid helium-4.  The elephant in the room, of course, is the game that caused him to return – the Sweet 16 matchup with Kentucky that saw him shooting 2-16 for the entire game.  It’s worth noting the other side of the coin as well, such as Buford’s 10-18 shooting at Wisconsin, and his 9-11 shooting against Tennessee-Martin.

Role for the team:

The Kentucky game, while motivating him to return to Ohio State for his senior season, has also driven him even harder to work on his game.  He has retooled his jumper with Chris Jent – OSU’s new assistant coach, and one of the best shooting coaches in the country at all levels.  Not only that, he has conditioned himself to be in the best shape of his life.  Be ready for a new and improved Buford on the court this season.

Buford’s role is fairly obvious considering his skill set.  Where last year he was slotted to be pseudo-point guard to replace Evan Turner, that’s not exactly what his skill-set allows for.  Buford is better served moving without the ball for an open shot, or making space for himself.

During the season, expect to see Buford playing the 3 spot.  He will benefit greatly from the talents of both Aaron Craft and Shannon Scott, who will be able to get him the ball in good position to make a play.

This is Buford’s final shot in the scarlet and gray, and being a key part of the equation for this team he is going to be making a lot happen all over the court.  It should be an exciting year for Buford, and it’s going to be fun to see him making teams pay for not respecting his shooting abilities.

* Note: The positions on the court are labeled by numbers 1-5, with 1 being the Point Guard and 5 being the Center.  For the positions in these articles, we will list whether they are a Guard, Forward or Center, and then what spots in the offense they are likely to play.

Note that the 3 spot, while often being a Small Forward position, can be occupied by Guards as well depending on the offensive strategy you employ.