With a quick first step and a dash of natural athleticism, A.J. Storr has become a highlight reel of transition dunks and plays around the rim.
He’s learning that can only take him so far during his first season at the University of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin coaches and players have heaped praise on the 6-foot-7 sophomore wing for how he’s added a different dimension to an offense that mostly spun its tires last season. As the Badgers enter the final week of February, Storr leads the Badgers in scoring (16.3 ppg) and has scored in double figures in 22 straight games.
But Storr’s heavy minutes down the stretch will be determined if he can grow defensively, a trait that separates teams in the postseason and one that has flummoxed the Badgers (18-9, 10-6 Big Ten) most of the season.
He enters tonight’s game against Indiana (14-13, 6-10 Big Ten) at Assembly Hall with a 0.72 defensive Bayesian performance rating. His number represents an equation used by Evanmiya.com to reflect the defensive value a player brings to his team when he is on the court, interpreted as the number of defensive points per 100 possessions better than or below the D1 average expected to be allowed by the player’s team if the player were on the court with 9 other average players.
Storr’s number is the lowest among UW’s five starters and is tied for 941st in the country among all Division-1 players.
“I think he could be a really good defender,” Gard said, “but we’re not there yet.”
Defense - especially with Wisconsin – is largely about off-the-ball awareness. More than knowing when to rotate between assignments and on-floor positioning, defenders need to know when to plug gaps in driving lanes and when to block rollers heading to the rim.
Storr got lost chasing Iowa’s Josh Dix through a handful of screens and was late on closeouts, allowing the sophomore to hit critical buckets in the second half. Against Maryland Tuesday, Storr sat for most of the final 3 minutes, 20 seconds despite the Badgers holding only a five-point lead, as Gard opted to go with freshman guard John Blackwell instead.
“We talk a lot about fighting for your vision, to maintain it so you can keep the ball in one eye and your man in the other,” Gard said. “We’ve tried to help install that and maintain that. He’s picked up on some of it, but it’s trying to entrench good habits. He’s a very willing learner. A lot of this is brand new for him. It’s the first time he’s gone through it at this tempo.”
The encouraging thing is Storr has embraced the coaching he’s received and has grown other aspects of his game. It started with the staff wanting him to play more off two feet, allowing him to be more controlled as he attacked the rim. Storr has improved his shooting percentage, especially after the team scuffled in that area in the season’s early weeks.
In Wisconsin’s 62-54 win over Ohio State, Storr tied his career high with 12 rebounds. He has been instructed repeatedly to crash the glass on a shot attempt instead of getting ready to fall back on defense, and his willingness to do that led to a career-high six offensive rebounds.
Eight of Storr’s 14 points against the Buckeyes were the result of second-chance opportunities, including snatching a miss one-handed and finishing with a layup and another sequence where he missed a dunk and a layup but stayed active to ultimately get rewarded with a layup.
“Most of the time it's probably going to be a long shot (off the rim),” said Storr, who attempted a conference season low one three-point shot. “So just fill in those gaps and just be there to get the rebound.”
Storr is a mismatch when it comes to rebounding, using a strong vertical to outstretch guards and quick feet to get the positioning on bigger forwards. It’s why the staff has implored him to crash the glass. In UW’s first 24 games, Storr had 19 total offensive rebounds. Over the last three games, Storr has 10.
“He was aggressively in the right position (against Ohio State),” Gard said. “We have a saying ‘don’t chase rabbits,’ meaning if you’re 25 feet away, if it distorts us in transition defensively, you can’t go chase something and be outnumbered. For the most part, he stayed after it.”
Wisconsin entered the last offseason knowing it had to get more athletic in the frontcourt. Gard recalled there was a lot to love about Storr, who passed the eye test with his athleticism and size. History had shown Gard that an adjustment period is needed with most transfers considering the unknowns of what they were taught at their previous stop.
That was especially true with Storr, considering he has played at five different schools in five different schemes in the last five years.
It’s part of the reason why growth has been slow, and why his ceiling is so exponentially high.
“From one school to the next, it could be completely A to Z in terms of what was different,” Gard said. “For him to be able to be in a place that is sustainable and consistent and every day this is what we’re working on, he sees it now. He understands things that back in October he didn’t comprehend. He’s at least visually a little bit better. Now it has to become a habit.”
_________________________________________________
*Chat about this article in The Badgers' Den
*Check out our videos, interviews, and Q&As on our YouTube channel
*Subscribe and listen to the BadgerBlitz.com podcast (as seen on Apple, Google, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts)
*Follow us on Twitter: @McNamaraRivals, @TheBadgerNation, @RaulV45, @seamus_rohrer, @DonnieSlusher_
*Like us on Facebook
