Hello and welcome to Part 1 of 2025’s Tracking A Transfer; a series that’s going to be more of a lift this year than in those prior as we’re turning over (almost – big shout out to Elijah Gertrude) basically the entire roster. I’m going to attempt to “streamline” these some by Cuts standards, but that may not mean much (spoiler – it appears it was a little, but not much). Historically, these were all YouTube links which wasn’t the best for mobile devices and, sadly, has caused most of the prior iterations to no longer have working video since the host sites were taken down. Now and moving forward, I’ve recorded the content to embed directly… which should help with some bandwidth issues on phones and, most dearly to me, will allow these to live on unscathed for the future. We’ll see how it goes!
The first incoming player through the portal I’ll be covering this year is our first non-VCU transfer, and the one who broke the levee; Sam Lewis from Toledo. Lewis was the leading scorer for the Rockets, averaging 16.2ppg on 31.5 minutes on 44.4% (!) shooting from three on 133 attempts. A 6’6″ 200lb true Small Forward style of player, Lewis can be very smooth with the physical gifts to do some really nice things. He’s not an other-worldly athlete; but he is gifted in that area, and there are times where he just kind of has that presence on the floor in the way that he moves and plays. It makes a lot of sense with him as a (hopeful, you never know in the portal area anymore) potential two-year player; because I think there’s a lot of untapped potential in Lewis where he can be a really, really good, and complete player. With many of the players coming in with one remaining year of eligibility, I think it’s pretty clear what we can expect. I don’t think that’s the case with Lewis. He’s one that I think could really surprise positively over the next year or two… or go the other way.
Of course, the reason I stress “potential,” and you’ll probably see me write things like “upside” later in this piece, is because, as productive as he was for Toledo in the points column, he has decidedly not put it all together yet. Lewis is a talented player who actually has the potential to take over a game when he’s on, but he has a lot of mental development to do in order to consistently achieve that. He lacks awareness at times (especially on defense) and, at others, urgency. He often looks like he’s moving in slow motion; jogging, walking, turning and watching a play unfold rather than always acting as though he is a part of it – such that when he goes full speed it’s eye catching. On offense he had some really impressive flashes, but others where he didn’t play as aggressively as I would have expected, or wanted, on a team like Toledo. He’d alternate from playing incredibly passively to looking like he was trying to completely take over a game. I will say that as the season progressed, many of these issues did improve (although it was also against worse competition). But he absolutely was a bigger point of emphasis for his team by the end of the year and was playing more confidently on both ends (but the more dramatic change was on the defensive side).
I’m excited to evaluate Lewis because I think there’s a wide (maybe the widest) range of outcomes that could potentially happen for him this year; from a player who struggles to play with the motor a Ryan Odom team needs, and becomes a more rarely used shooting option – to one who is the clear 6th man, possibly even pushing for starter minutes who has put the pieces together during the offseason and is well-rounded on both ends. I will say, I don’t think he will play 31.5 minutes per game this year, almost no matter how he’s doing. Odom likes to keep a deep bench and rotation and has a lot of talent, so I do think that will help with Lewis’s ability to go full throttle more often.
Normally, I review tape and then use four full “showcase” games to break down for players for these segments. In this one, I’ve pulled from 5 different games; mostly due to the nature of how those games went and the opponents. I normally try to use the best competition a team plays, as well as post-season play, to see how that player holds up. We’re going to be looking at the Rockets @ national runner-up Houston, @Purdue, vs. Oakland, vs. UC San Diego (neutral site), and vs. Ohio in the MAC Quarterfinal. As stated, I thought Lewis was fairly consistent offensively most of the season and his defense pretty significantly improved, though still with much to be desired (something you’ll see against Ohio vs. the other games). That being said, he did close the season with 4 consecutive 20+ point games and Toledo looked to him more intentionally down the final stretch AND his defense was so bad at times earlier in the year that it’s hard to fully trust improvement.
Okay, let’s get into it, but…
First A Word About Toledo
The Toledo Rockets were a pretty solid (84th in the country if you like KenPom) offensive basketball team and an absolutely atrocious defensive one. We’re talking 7th worst in the entire country bad. I thought they were poorly coached, didn’t always play with effort, and often didn’t make the best or most alert decisions on either end of the basketball court. They had some talent, but didn’t have much size (tallest starter was 6’7″ and player was 6’9″). Too often it settled for bad shots on offense and, way more often, just didn’t show up on defense. They played Lewis in that true SF position most of the time, with some ball handling/Guard opportunities, but not having that be a primary responsibility of his.
Offensively, it was a lot of dribble handoffs, pick and rolls, and isolation. There was some action away from the ball, but it was mostly putting the ball into someone’s hands and letting them try to hunt their shot or get a kick out. Lewis was often stationed in the corner; rotating sometimes up to the wing for spot up opportunities, at which he was absolutely elite. He did handle the ball on the perimeter quite a bit, but it mostly resulted in him either keeping the ball moving around the perimeter or in him attempting to score himself. He wasn’t much of a distributor, averaging only 1.2 assists per game (against 1.3 turnovers). Earlier in the season, Toledo tended to prefer to put the ball in the hands of some of their other creators, but Lewis’s opportunities increased as the season progressed, and he became one of their more go-to guys in hopes he could get them a bucket. More to come on that, but all-in-all I thought Lewis was let down by his team a little bit on that end. They missed him on a lot of juicy kickout opportunities as they’d often get their heads down on the drive, focused on getting their own shot up. I thought Lewis was one of the least selfish of his teammates, sometimes to the team’s detriment.
Defensively, Toledo “played man-to-man” I suppose… but it was a rough scene. Blown assignments, bad and late rotations, lack of awareness on cutters, often poor rebounding, sometimes a lack of general effort. Lewis was not above all of this, as we’ll see. I will say that, while typically Lewis was off of the ball due to his matchups, Toledo would often switch him on to the other team’s primary ball-handler when they were having success to try to switch it up/have him play stopper. That had mixed results; but there were some flashes there – the consistency was not. Perhaps this was a cultural thing (as it appeared to be across the board) for the Rockets. Poor team defensive performance can be contagious; and most of Lewis’s defensive struggles appeared to be mental. But, while there were moments that you did see the potential, there were still many where his lapse was the culprit. Rarely, he’d guard the PF, but that was much less common.
Alright – let’s get into it!
Offense
Catch And Shoot
This is the area in which Sam Lewis was absolutely elite, and what I think means that he will have at least a specific role this team unless he really can’t improve the mental side of his game on defense (we’ll get to that). He was in the 100th percentile of all players last season in this category per our friend transfer portal highlights, and had deep range as well (8 threes made from beyond 25 feet). And yes, you can look at the quality of opponent closing out on his shots to differentiate him from some Power Conference players, but the fact remains that he literally was among the best at executing this skill last year.
Now, this is purely from a spotting up standpoint. He didn’t have the best three-point shooting % in the country (about 4% off) and his volume (which we’ll talk about later) wasn’t that high (133 attempted). But when he took a pass and did let it rip, no one did it better. Let’s take a few looks.
Here he is sneaking baseline against the Oakland zone and making the corner three look comfortable.
Here he is kind of skulking around the perimeter and then moving to space after the offensive rebound and confidently knocking it down over a frantic close out:
It’s not the quickest release in the world but the shot is pretty compact and the release point is high so he does a pretty good job of shooting over close outs (as his percentage would indicate).
Here he is on a nice relocation after getting to the elbow and realizing his man is playing deep help defense, popping back outside setting off of momentum initially carrying him away from the hoop, and confidently drilling the shot despite the potentially distracting contest coming from his right side:
Here’s another look, this time in his conference tournament he hesitates for a moment on the catch, but after assessing the closeout is low and in a defensive crouch, he has no issue just rising up over the defender and knocking down the three, despite the defender being there in his space:
And finally, here, you see him in Overtime of this game against Ohio, with under two minutes left and down 1 point. That’s 6’8″ Aidan Hadaway covering him there, and he just isn’t respecting the shot because Lewis is pretty far beyond the arc. Lewis has no issues just pulling up from there, forcing defenders to have to stretch to guard him and punishing him if they don’t.
This shot gave Toledo the lead in this game and then, after Ohio tied it, he made a three-point play that we’ll see later to give them the lead for good. So, I love that he was hunting his own shot in the most important moments of the Rocket’s season and that they were looking toward him to do so. There was a lot of confidence displayed here.
Now, his three-pointer off of the bounce wasn’t really a thing. He made one here only because of the shot clock and because the bank was open:
But when he did attempt to free himself up from long range, it wasn’t nearly as successful, nor did it look nearly as comfortable (which is probably why he didn’t attempt it much):
But his ability to catch and shoot was a significant weapon and one that I’m sure will get him time on the floor for us. Specifically, I outlined in my piece on Ryan Odom’s offenses how there are often those two players, usually in each corner, primarily focused on spotting up and waiting for kick outs. That has Sam Lewis written all over it!
What I will say is this – for a player as great at a specific skillset as he was last season, he sure didn’t play like he was aware of it. We return to the fact that he only took 133 threes on the season. That’s almost 90 fewer than Jacari White, for example, over 100 fewer than Isaac McKneely, and only 30 more than Dallin Hall – who was BYU’s backup PG and didn’t make at nearly the same clip.
You won’t find him on ESPN’s list of 3-point shooting % leaders because he didn’t make enough on a per-game basis to qualify for their list. And that’s the biggest criticism that I have for this section is that, too often, he passed up open opportunities from deep either to keep the ball moving or to attempt to put the ball on the deck and take a worse shot (my words, probably not his thoughts).
Here’s a great example against UC San Diego, below. It may be early in the shot clock here, but at 5 seconds into this Cut, he gets a kick out with his man just above the free-throw line and with him deep (but well-within his range). Instead, he just puts it in triple-threat position and the opportunity escapes.
I think Odom will encourage most of his guards to shoot that shot, in general, but I especially want Sam Lewis to pull the trigger.
Here’s another look against Ohio where Toledo gets a defensive switch when Lewis sets the back screen and pops out to the three-point line. I get the thought to feed the mismatch in the post, but the Ohio big (Hadaway again) is too focused on getting down there and helping and isn’t respecting Lewis’s shot enough. When he gets that first kick out at 13 seconds on the shot clock, the catch wasn’t ideal, but I still want him to take this shot! His defender is on the FT line and he’s got space. Instead, he dribbles into the close out just to re-establish the entry pass into the post again.
Now, Toledo did draw the foul here, but Ohio was playing this very aggressively to deter the inside move. All of their guys were sagging deep. This is the perfect opportunity for Lewis to take advantage of his skillset when he gets that kick out when everyone is playing so low. In fact, that’s also one of the main benefits of drawing the switch is the open three opportunity when the defense over-corrects.
One more look, same game, at the end of regulation. Now this play works out in the end on the back of a quality offensive rebound and a good, quick pass from Lewis over to the open man who finishes a drive, but at 13 seconds on the shot clock left, again, Lewis takes a kick out on the wing with his man back at the elbow. When he’s here, I want him taking this shot! He ends up driving the space into three players and taking a really awkward fadeaway, midrange jumper that misses badly.
Lewis’s decision was bailed out here by the offensive rebound – but they’re down two and he’s a great shooter on the catch. He chose to pass up the opportunity to put his team up 1 with an open look, to take a much harder shot that would have only tied the game. Of course, he didn’t know exactly that’s the shot he was going to get when he put the ball on the deck, but I think it’s a good example of how he should shift his thinking to prioritize his three-ball as a much higher priority out of his bag. Which brings me to…
Mid-Range Jumper
This is probably rarely a controversial thing to say in most instances, but I thought Lewis took too many mid-range jumpers. He either got run (or ran himself) off of the line too often, like we just saw above, or he settled for the pull up off of the bounce rather than getting all the way in there.
He wasn’t bad at it.
For example, here’s a clip I liked that was quite good against the best defensive team in the country. This is just very good strength. Guarded by 6’3″ Emmanuel Sharp (#21), he wasn’t going to blow by him off of the bounce, but instead he got Sharp on his heels, used his off arm to drive the contact (may have gotten away with a push off but there wasn’t much extension there so it wouldn’t likely get called often), and full-on staggered Sharp on his heels. From there, Lewis put on the brakes and hit the jumper.
I really liked that one from the ability to stand up to physicality, create space through strength, and to take the open shot when such a gulf is created.
I liked this next one, too, against Purdue. It’s good spatial awareness and body control. He has an advantage coming off of the DHO but Purdue drops the coverage and there isn’t much space in the lane. Lewis waits for his original defender to try to get back into the play, lures the over-aggression, and draws the contact on the shot. If you pause at 6 seconds in, you can see how he takes the dribble angle into the path of recovery to ensure there’s contact.
So, it’s not like there aren’t elements of this that are solid and that he should still apply. In fact, when thinking about Lewis’s upside, his ability to get to the midrange jumper and knock it down is a positive in his tool belt that it’s good to have.
I’d just like to see him do two things – move that range farther out so that he can take the three confidently off of the bounce when the opportunity presents:
Like here, against Ohio where he does well to take advantage of the ball screen and Ohio coverage, and to hit the shot – but it would be nicer if he took this wider and pulled up from deep.
And the other element I’d like to see him improve on is not settling rather than trying to get all the way to the rim to draw contact.
In this next clip, below, against Houston’s L.J. Cryer (#4), Toledo runs a set play from the baseline that gets the ball to Lewis with Cryer trailing. One the catch, Lewis pivots back toward the lane, knowing that’s where the space will be, and gets Cryer fully on his hip. There’s an opportunity to either attack that side of the lane and try to force some contact at the rim, or to do something similar to the above and try to draw some contact. Cryer is 6’1″, so not a huge threat to get back in this play and actually block the shot, but instead, Lewis carries out the mid-range jumper drifting to the right of the hoop, as if it’s what he pre-planned and wasn’t really situationally aware of what was happening.
That whole thing was just an exercise in getting an advantage on a smaller defender and then letting him off the hook by taking a harder shot than you needed to.
From the same game, here’s another opportunity where Lewis completely loses Sharp on a cut from the paint out toward the weakside wing. You want Lewis carrying that cut out past the three-point line and catching with the intention of shooting. There was plenty of space there, Sharp was caught off guard. Instead, Lewis turns immediately toward the hoop on the catch, actually dribbles into the closeout, making Sharp’s recovery easier, and then rather than taking the open path into the hoop, instead pulls up to shoot the contested mid-range jumper.
I think this shot happened because he was unaware of how much space he’d earned himself and because he’d made the decision in his mind what he wanted to do with the ball when he got it before he read what his opportunity was on the catch. So, this tells me that he’s still a little sped-up (and, to be fair, who isn’t against Houston down 20-5), but also that he’s more comfortable getting to this midrange pull up than trying to turn and shoot the three or feeling confident that he can beat this defense all the way to the bucket.
Here’s just an isolation attempt that misses. His defender is 6’3″ Elijah Elliot (#6) on this play and he is sagging a little bit on his defense.
I can see why you might be tempted to pull this if you were Lewis given that the contest wasn’t likely to be good due to the depth and reach of your opponent – but that’s still just such a tough and not great quality shot. It feels like there was an opportunity to use his size advantage and get the ball deeper, given the clear-out, and either score or find an open teammate. It’s just not really seizing a quality opportunity.
And this next one, in my opinion, is a combination of this problem with that of the section above. If he was ready to shoot, I think he could have just launched that three here. Instead, he allows himself to be run off the line. When the help comes, he pulls up and fires a deep two that’s just as contested as his three would have been. This despite the fact that the defender is running at him while he has momentum going toward the hoop.
You’d really like Sam to either take the three or more aggressively attack the closeout here in hopes of getting something at the rim or drawing a foul; especially because #13 on that close out isn’t a Center or anything – it’s 6’5″ 195lb Tyler McGhie. Lewis would have actually had the length/weight advantage on him had he chosen to be aggressive.
So yeah, a little too much reluctance to initiate contact or force the issue on drives, combined with a little too much reluctance to aggressively hunt his outside shot caused too many of these suboptimal midrange jumpers. It’s certainly a shot he can make – but he’s too comfortable going to it and prefers it too much.
Some of that root cause is…
Off The Bounce
Lewis is more of a slasher than someone who is going to beat his man off of the bounce from parity. You saw in the section above how he too often settled for the midrange jumper – and I think that’s because he doesn’t always have the confidence that he can sustain that dribble all the way into the hoop. What he is more adept at is making one quick move prior to establishing his dribble, using that to get an advantage on his man and then capitalizing on that.
Like here, for example (and this is also another example of him not being effective off the bounce from deep), he attempts to take Sharp twice in isolation. But, unlike that clip above where got going downhill and was able to use his frame/strength to create some separation, here he’s just not able to get around the tenacious defender. All of his time spent dribbling here feels unthreatening and he settles for a step back three that misses pretty badly after finding no success.
It’s just not a quick enough change of direction nor tightness with the handle to create any advantage while his dribble is continuous.
Here are two more clear instances, below, of him attempting to attack with the dribble in isolation and not being able to muster any headway. The first attempt after the cross-court pass looked promising as he made up his mind to attack the closeout on the catch and had an advantage, but looked like he decided to attempt to cross back into the midrange, bobbled the ball, and had to abandon ship. Not long after, he takes yet another cross-court pass back and this time has a decently fancy handle that doesn’t really go anywhere or do anything. The result is a very tough, bad, and deep shot for his teammate again at the end of the shot clock against a hard contest.
Just in case you weren’t following the Tritons last year, UC San Diego did have the 30th best defense in the country, so it’s not like this was against a terrible defense. Still, he didn’t have a ton of success breaking his man down off of the bounce across the board.
That being said, when he had a head of steam or made a quick move prior to the dribble and exploded, he was much more effective. Slashing, if you will.
I liked this look against Houston who, again, was the best defensive team in the country. This time, Lewis catches the pass in the corner, hits the 6’4″ Milos Uzan (#7) with the quick jab step toward the baseline and then explodes by him with the left hand with the nifty adjustment back to the right with the clean layup.
That’s much better! And it’s because he wasn’t trying to use the bounce to initially get by his man, he made a quick move before putting the ball on the floor and then had already created his advantage when he drove. It was really smooth and looked comfortable; even more impressive because you don’t often get those kinds of easy finishes against Houston. It speaks to his athleticism to get cleanly around such an athletic player and his ability to finish when he feels like he gets enough of an advantage.
Here, again, much more what I’ve been asking for. It’s that same jab step right and explosion left and, once again, he gets all the way to the hoop with it. More help comes and he doesn’t finish, but he does draw the foul and earn the trip to the line.
It reinforces my earlier thoughts about settling for the midrange too often, I believe. Because you can see now that it’s not like he doesn’t have the ability to get downhill and is athletic enough to do so. He covers a good amount of ground with those strides and is fluid.
For example, this is very similar to that UC San Diego play where he pulls up early, allowing himself to get run off of the three-point line, but here he decides to continue his dribble and makes a difficult layup finish over the helping defender.
The angle of the help side defender is a little worse here, but if Lewis convinces himself to attack more like this, of which he’s very capable, that will be a much better thing for the progression of his game.
Here he gets going downhill with some legit momentum on a wrap around. The DHO screen forces the switch allowing Lewis to get halfway down the paint before the defense can body him. With this head of steam, he’s willing to jam it into traffic there and draw the foul.
I mentioned that his offense was mostly consistent across the season but that he did seem to peak a little more at the very end of the year. This take, below, is the kind of thing he grew into, and I’d love if Sam Lewis brought this with him from Toledo. He doesn’t settle for the mid-range, he isn’t deterred when his drive angle initially gets cut off, instead he keeps his dribble, uses his body to defend the ball, and then uses his size advantage to overpower his defender while drawing that foul by shooting over him.
This was the bucket I was talking about earlier that ended up in a three-point play and ended up being the winning points. It stood out to me because it was a step beyond his normal more tepid attempts off of the bounce that I showed from earlier. It was a determined and physical bucket at the end of OT where he used his own physical prowess to his advantage. Good stuff!
To piggy back off of this…
Finishing
There’s not a lot to elaborate on here that wasn’t already covered in the “Off The Bounce” section above – but just to reiterate that it’s not always related to his ability to put the ball on the deck. Lewis would alternate from making some pretty strong finishes, like here:
He takes that pass in the short corner and there’s no hint of shying away from contact. It’s a dribble, a jump stop into the defender, drawing contact and then freeing him up to finish the layup. That’s decisive and strong.
And then here, his ability to hang and reposition the ball while in the air draws him a shooting foul rather than getting blocked.
That’s just good spatial awareness and, frankly, against a team with the shot blocking prowess of the Cougars, is impressive.
But at other times, he gets way too cute and doesn’t seem to trust himself. Like in this clip, below, against Houston, he gets free on the cut and could have just finished with a right-handed scoop layup. Instead, I guess worried about the shot blockers, he tries to take it to the other side of the rim for a reverse left-handed layup and misses.
Over-thinking and trying to be too evasive.
It’s similar to this one, below, where he just kind of rushes and attempts to go up as soon as he touches the ball under the hoop, resulting in an awkward and acrobatic layup attempt as opposed to gathering and exploding up from a set position.
I think he just needs to trust himself more in these situations. Trust that he can draw a foul or make the shot. Believe, all of the time, that he doesn’t have to get sped up to finish around the hoop.
Pick and Roll/Passing
It probably stands to reason that Lewis wasn’t a common choice as the primary ball handler in the pick and roll, given the discussion above. He’s more valuable for his spot up ability and, in NFL terms, is more of a one-cut back.
He’s a little loose with his handle to be relied on regularly for this:
His assist rate was 1.2 per game which, for perspective, was lower than both Taine Murray and Blake Buchanan last season despite Toledo having almost 10 possessions more per game than our Hoos and Lewis playing about 10 minutes more per game than the average of both.
Basically, when he got the ball, he was normally keeping it moving or getting a shot up. He was not commonly making the play and creating for others. He certainly wasn’t a selfish player. In fact, I mentioned earlier that I thought he passed up some opportunities he could have taken, and he did do a nice job of keeping the ball from sticking; but he also just wasn’t often going to be the one who drew the defense and found someone else.
Here’s kind of a comical example of that where he runs the pick and roll and Houston blitzes him after the screen (as they are wont to do). Lewis does a nice job with the read and also with his size is able to get a pass over the double team; but he still puts too much air under it and Houston’s help rotation deflects the pass away…. Right back to Lewis, who gathers, takes a couple of dribbles in, and knocks down the jumper.
Even when he’s facilitating he ends up scoring!
I will say, though, that even though this was an incredibly under-utilized part of his game, I did think he was a solid passer in general. His height allowed him to have solid vision in the face of the defense (solid delivery with more pace here over the top on the slipped screen):
And this one, below, is where I actually think the most useful element of this part of his game could translate. He uses his body, with his back to the play while maintaining his dribble at one point, to shield the defender while keeping his eye open for cutters and does a nice job picking out his teammate cutting baseline and delivering the pass quickly over top of his defender to the cutter for the layup.
At UVa, I don’t expect him to be helming the pick and roll offense that much, nor will facilitation likely be a strength of his game that gets much volume. I do think it’s an area he can improve, though, with a talented team with many options around him.
Transition Offense
Now this is the other area where I think Sam Lewis is going to thrive in Ryan Odom’s system.
Lewis averaged only .9 offensive rebounds per game. He didn’t really pressure that side of the glass as much as I think he could have given his length. Some of it appeared to be motor, and some of it just that he was often outside of the three-point line when a teammate’s shot went up. Nevertheless, not a huge impact. That being said, he did average almost 5 total rebounds per game and was third on the team in that category. I’ll take a look at this shortly a little later, because I didn’t think he was universally good at helping to secure the defensive side of the glass, either, and sometimes angles and/or effort got the better of him. When he did crash down on the defensive glass successfully, though, Toledo often would encourage a rebounding guard to push the ball up the floor, much like Odom would.
I thought Lewis was very effective at this. You could see his ability to stride and tap into his athleticism, often being able to get coast-to-coast; and he was probably at his most effective as a passer in the open floor as well.
Here’s a first look @Purdue. This isn’t something where he beats everyone down the floor; he grabs the board, keeps his head up while pushing the ball against a mostly set defense, but he uses a screen at midcourt which gets him by his defender and allows him to get a full head of steam running down hill. He freezes the help defense and uses his stride/speed to get all the way to the rack for the jam.
That’s really nice patience and navigation in transition and then explosion to the hoop.
Like, this next one below is just really nice. It’s a good rebound, followed by a very quick decision to break out in a dribble to keep the, now defender, behind him. He uses nice speed with the ball here keeping the man in chase behind him the entire way and freezing the defender attempting to backpedal at the logo, blowing by him. And then, finally, very good body control coming off of the full sprint to slow into the Euro-Step for the layup.
Of note in that play above, the man chasing is 6’6″ 239lb Tuburu Naivalurua. He almost gets to the shot to block it at the end. If Lewis had conceded any pace throughout this break out ahead of the slow-step finish, Naivalurua probably would have been able to get back into the play.
He’s fast when he chooses to be and pure speed, not just quickness, most comes into effect in the open floor. He has great body control and can maintain pace with his dribble very well. When I’m evaluating players I typically like to look for them in their natural habitat – where they appear most comfortable on the court. You’d think for Lewis it would be his spot up, given his success with it, but it’s actually running the open floor trying to get a bucket.
How’s this for athleticism and coordination? On the deflected pass, Lewis deflects the ball again out in front of him, then from a starting position of directly behind him, out-races and reaches Ohio’s Shereef Mitchell (#4) to the ball, gets ahead of him and keeps him on his hip, holds him there with his drive-angle and size, and only brakes pace to regain control for the finish at the end.
You’re going to hear me talk about motor and effort sometimes in the defensive section – but it goes both ways. Sometimes he would really bring it on both ends, and this is what it would look like when he would go fully uncaged.
This next one is very similar in that he swoops in for the board and immediately starts looking to break out; but he’s more measured with this one and shows off some nice touch with a little floater in transition:
How often did he look this comfortable off of the bounce in the half-court clips? Maybe the one clip against Houston from the baseline after the jab step? Basically, never.
You’d like to see him finish this next one, but he does draw the foul and get to the line. It’s a nice read and steal away from the ball, though, and as soon as he gets the steal Lewis puts the pressure on; never letting the defender transition from sprinting back to defending.
It’s worth pointing out on the past few of these that he has an intuitive weave on his break; not making it obvious to the defender which side of the hoop he’s going to target and keeping them off guard.
The last thing I wanted to showcase here is a simple thing, but it’s one Toledo didn’t often do. Typically, when one of their guards grabbed a board, they would attempt to go coast-to-coast and try to set up the offense if that wasn’t open. Lewis, on the other hand, has his head up in this clip below and throws a nice outlet pass to his teammate, giving them an open three (which they miss).
This is tailor-made Odom system stuff. He loves that long outlet after a miss to try to get a quick three-pointer. Lewis should absolutely be able to have success in all elements of Odom’s offensive transition prioritization.
One more against Houston – a quality rebound, high-pointing the ball over two Houston offensive players, then immediately turning the ball up the floor, exploiting the advantage of the fallen player (he would have anyway). This is a really nice display of offensive understanding and pacing. He’s under control coming up the floor, dribbles to his left to draw that specific defender so that he can slip a quick pass through to his teammate who eventually finishes the layup.
This is another reason why I say that his development into being a successful passer has some potential. He’s just not going to be relied on to facilitate on offense as much because manipulating a defense with his dribble in the half court isn’t a strength. That being said – you might be able to see it more often in the open floor for us because Lewis is a willing passer and is so strong (and under control) pushing the ball.
Okay – that about sums up the offensive section for Sam Lewis. There weren’t many other elements of that side of his game worth focusing on. I think there’s a lot of potential here in terms of strength-overlap with what Ryan Odom likes to do. He’s very effective grabbing a rebound (or getting a steal) and instinctively pushing in transition. He’s an absolutely lethal shooter when he has an open look. He’s capable with the ball in his hands, especially when he’s able to build some momentum toward the basket – most effective as a slasher or in transition rather than making the initial move off of the bounce. He has a solid midrange jumper that he can get to off of the dribble, but goes to it too often.
On the flip side – there’s a lot more potential here. He could improve his outside shot on the move, his handle/ability to shake someone, and his willingness to attack the rim. He could reduce his reliance on the midrange jumper by improving both of those things. He has the ability to improve as a facilitator (especially with a talented team around him) – even more in that connector role. He could become more consistent at going up strong and drawing contact inside rather than adjusting and taking harder shots to avoid contact – because he is good at that when he does it! I think he should (and with fewer minutes per game hopefully will) become a more willing offensive rebounder.
Above all, I’d like to see him be more aggressive about taking his outside shot on the catch. In his mind, he still doesn’t view that as the most lethal part of his game… and it is! Don’t hesitate, take the open looks.
The potential with his already great shot, his frame, his body control, his athleticism is high upside here, though. I think he’s in a situation where he can already contribute on this side of the ball in ways that align with what Odom is trying to do while also still having so much room for improvement.
Defense
Now this is where things are less rosy for Lewis. Toledo was just such a terrible defensive team that it’s hard to always stay locked in when no one is elevating that standard. Lewis showed flashes of being a capable defender. In fact, he was probably their best on-ball defender and would often be pulled onto players who were having success. That being said, that was just the best part of his defensive game and he was the best on this team – but I would say he was inconsistent. It was off the ball, though, where I thought he struggled the most. Lapses of concentration and effort. Lapses in awareness. Passively on-looking rather than getting in better positions to make plays.
I also don’t think (not a stretch given their performance) that the coaching on team defensive concepts was very good nor the ability to motivate the players on that side of the floor.
So, this is the area Lewis is really going to have to make some strides if he’s going to be a plus player for us this coming season. I do think he can. The physical tools are there if he can just sustain his urgency. His minutes should decrease from his time at Toledo regardless, so he shouldn’t need to conserve as much when he’s on the floor from a conditioning standpoint. But, let’s take a look at what I’m talking about:
Off Ball (Awareness)
Watching Lewis, it feels like sometimes he just loses concentration or forgets he’s the protagonist of the film. One thing that’s hard to do when evaluating tape is to prescribe motive, but motive does matter. Is it a lack of coaching demanding constant effort? Is it a lack of motivation? Is it a struggle to maintain concentration? Is it a team cultural thing? Is it fatigue? The answers to those questions will determine how correctible the issue is.
Without teasing it any longer, here’s a great example. They’re against Houston and he’s just kind of jogging away from the ball, keeping his eyes on the play much more than on his man. At about 7 minutes into the clip, his man quickly cuts back door off of him, recognizing that Lewis’s back is entirely to him. Worse, Lewis realizes this but this urgency to recover is muted. He just kind of walks into the back of all of the bigs already under the hoop rather than trying to get back in front of his cover. The shot goes up and, sure enough, his man secures the offensive rebound and kicks it back out for the three.
A shocking lack of awareness on the initial cut, he does tend to get caught play-watching, and then just not enough effort to get back into a relevant position.
Here’s one where he’s one of the last to get back, is very casual in his approach to finding a cover, and then immediately loses him to another cut to the hoop for the comfortable put back jam.
You know it’s an issue when this is where my most content is and I have to really focus on editing down. This next one, he just kind of turns and spectates as soon as the pass leaves his man and goes into the post. He turns his back to his man and doesn’t notice the relocate to the corner for a comfortable three.
Of note, Lewis kind of plays this like he needs to guard two people but he really doesn’t – just needs to stay with his guy.
And here’s an interesting one where he’s fronting Braden Smith (#3) on Purdue. Toledo started with Lewis away from the ball in this one but Smith went off to the tune of 34 points against their defense, so one adjustment they made was to put Lewis on him. It was generally slightly more successful, but only slightly. Here, Lewis is just so focused on denying Smith the ball back he has his back to and loses sight of the ball handler going right by him for an easy layup.
Just no pretense or even ability to offer any help here because he’s just not looking.
Those are some good examples of just a complete lack of awareness with his back to the play. But when he saw the play developing, he often still struggled to either recognize the danger soon enough or to be aggressive enough in stopping it.
Here he is in solid enough position to make an impact help side when the play defense falls down opposite court. But, rather than sticking his nose in there and trying to knock the ball away… or even just jumping to contest the shot, instead he just kind of passively continues dropping and backs away from the shooter.
It’s not like he was in foul trouble at that point – he didn’t have any when this play happened.
This one makes me think he’s one-track-minded at times. He’s very focused in being in “on the line, up the line” ball denial technique to his man – trying to keep that pass from being easy to the corner. In doing so, he actually is in solid position to slide into the lane and help with the pass to the rolling ball screener. Instead, he just doesn’t really react to it and instead takes a false step out toward his man on the wing – just watching the cutter go by.
He’s too focused on his man and not either focused or good enough at assessing a play and then determining where he needs to be to help. Lewis should have dropped down and slid into the paint there to cut off the diving angle of the Oakland big.
Here, below, just look how slow he is to recognize that lob opportunity from the back side! The offensive big is trying to seal for a lob for a good 5 Mississippis and Lewis doesn’t even react on the pass, he really doesn’t start his motion over until the Oakland player has already secured the ball in the air.
Here, below, he is closing out on a shooter and, rather than getting in front of him, he attempts to cheat the passing lane for the steal, gets his ankles broken, and allows a red carped down the middle of the lane.
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Now, I will say that by the end of the year, especially in the postseason, he was considerably better about this. Does that marked sustained improvement? I don’t know, I’m still concerned about the result from the bulk of the season. To be frank, you really didn’t see many of these kinds of plays below early in the season in games where they were getting trounced. It did show capability to make an impact, though.
Here’s much better activity away from the ball, swiping at it to bother players he wasn’t covering, getting some deflections, playing good on-ball defense, then identifying and proactively switching off of his man to almost steal a pass and eventually block the player’s shot out of bounds (this was a clean and convincing block by Lewis on replay).
That doesn’t look like the player from the above clips at all, does it? Much more ownership and activity. A willingness to try to actually impact the play himself!
Here, he comes all the way over from his quality help sag from the man he got switched onto in the corner and straight up blocks the shot of the slipped screener.
Contrast this one with the clip above where he ignores the diver – huge difference!
Here, below, again he’s much more active and engaged. He switches a couple of screens early in the possession, actually leaves his man to proactively double team at the free throw line, recovers on the scramble, slides down all the way from the wing to help on a baseline drive, and then stays home to alertly contest the shot on the drive/help support the blocked shot:
So, he certainly can play team defense. Can Odom get him to play like this consistently is the question.
Off Ball (Screen Navigation)
Another area that I wanted to call out separately was that he was not great at navigating off ball screens. He often lost his man and also took bad recovery angles that kept him from getting where he needed to be.
Here, you see a great look at this where he proactively switches a defender, but then loses track of his man trying to anticipate getting over a screen. His cover darts out the other way, Lewis is slow to recognize, and then late getting over top of the other screen to contest the shot.
This one is must more of that losing track of his man element, again, cropping up in a different way.
This next one, maybe he could have tried to pop through the elevator screen. It’s not really so much the angle as the urgency. It just doesn’t feel like he’s giving his all to stay attached here.
In this next one against Purdue, you’ll see Lewis take an extreme under angle on a screen at 5 seconds into the clip. He’s playing so far off of his man that he thinks he can’t get over (he should still try) but ends up burying himself down by the foul line while his cover takes an open look.
That’s just an incredibly extreme distance away from your man to be going under screens!
One more look at this, below. It’s kind of all of the above. He is attentive to his responsibility on the dive to the opposite block, but it causes him to be really late recognizing his man popping out off of a pin down strong side. Rather than go over the screen set by Purdue’s Caleb Furst (#1), and either contest the shot or chase Fletcher Loyer (#2) baseline, where he has help; Lewis instead makes an odd cut to try to go low, gets hung up on the screen entirely, and gives up the drive to the middle of the court.
Although Loyer misses the shot, Lewis is still in bad rebounding position, washed under the hoop, and Purdue cleans up.
So, yeah. Building on a lot of the themes above – this is really what CTB used to describe as being “continuous.” Is a player always locked in and giving full physical effort and mental concentration on the defensive side of the ball? That has been a vulnerability for Lewis, especially off the ball.
Post Defense
This didn’t come up a lot, so we’ll just briefly touch on it. Sometimes Lewis would get switched onto a big in Toledo’s switching defense. I imagine this will happen some under Odom at UVa, as well.
I thought Lewis did an admirable job fighting to make sure his man didn’t get the ball in these situations; as his size and length allowed him to do so and he was willing to play more physically than I imagined.
Here’s a look at him guarding L.J. Cryer (#4), who only had two points in this game which is a testament to how Lewis can contribute to a positive defensive impact (though he didn’t guard him all game). But here, Lewis gets switched onto 6’8″ 230lb Joseph Tugler (#11). Lewis does a nice job fronting him from there, fighting through some grabs and arm bars, and then actually navigating back into good rebounding position when the shot goes up.
It’s like he took the challenge here, which I appreciated.
Here, he gets switched onto another big, fronts well, eventually plays through the post, sets up the double team coming from the weak side, and uses his good reach to deflect the dribble and force a turnover.
I think there’s solid value in having him able to switch onto a post to navigate ball screens; able to deny a post entry and then be effective with his length at being disruptive with a double team.
I’ve seen some occasional theorization that Lewis could be a good small ball PF, at times. Never say never, but I doubt that’s a great use of our roster. Left alone in the post with a big, he doesn’t hold up well:
It’s an asset from a Guard position, but a vulnerability from a Forward position.
Rebounding
We’ve seen some of these clips throughout, but I did want to touch on this. Lewis was not a great offensive rebounder, as I discussed earlier. He was a better defensive rebounder, especially crashing down from the outside and then looking to push in transition. I don’t think he’s a very natural or instinctive rebounder, though. He often just kind of walks himself into a bad position or behind other players. He gets most of the rebounds that come to him or that he can easily go and get; his positioning on shots and effort to get into good spots isn’t great, though.
I have two key examples on this. The first comes below. We see Lewis off the ball for the whole possession. When the shot goes up at about 15 seconds into the clip, Lewis is in prime rebounding position. The shot comes from the nearside wing so we know, as rebounders, that the most likely way for it to come off the rim is on the far side – carrying the momentum of the ball. Of course, sometimes there are wacky bounces, but most quality rebounders are going to set up knowing where the ball will most commonly go. Lewis is right there, all he would have to do is maybe fan out a little wider to his right, actually. Instead, he walks himself in farther and takes away his angle to the outside, drifting right in front of the hoop. The ball is very rarely going to come off straight when shot from the side – far side or near side being much more common in that order. Lewis worsens the quality of his position with his drifting. Sure enough, the shot goes off the opposite side, as one would expect, and Oakland is able to track down the ball because Lewis lost his angle and his depth.
That’s just kind of not heady ball.
Here, it’s just really poor hustle getting back on defense and giving up the offensive rebound as a result. Watch him jog slowly the whole way here, despite seeing Oakland’s Naivalurua (#12) ahead of him, doesn’t get back into the play in time, and the rebound goes right there for the comfortable put back.
He just really needs to improve his urgency when he’s away from the play. Believe that he can be the one to make the play and that it will come to him.
Speaking of that weakness…
Effort
I don’t normally have a full call-out section like this and I alluded to it in some earlier clips, but sometimes the effort just isn’t there; especially in the full court.
Whenever I’m thinking about this piece as a whole, the clip below quickly comes to mind when thinking about negatives. Here Purdue’s Gicarri Harris (#24) grabs the rebound and starts pushing it up the floor. Lewis starts out well ahead of him, a good two steps at least. Despite that, Harris, with the ball mind you, beats him down the court, actually gets fully by him, and draws the foul and goaltend at the rim.
Lewis is faster than that. It was either he didn’t have much left in the tank or that he just didn’t expect Harris to try to push it all the way and under-estimated how much he was going to have to sprint to get back. Given we’ve seen him turn it on in certain moments, I suspect it was the latter.
And here, this is just resignation. He’s the only man who would even have a chance to stop this basket and he jogs slowly and makes no attempt to stop the dunk whatsoever. He actually backs away (which is smart not to draw the foul given how far behind he was – but very discouraging given if he’d started sprinting upon seeing the turnover, he likely could have at least forced free throws.
To me, these plays make sense in the broader context of what we’ve seen from his motor and also how Toledo defended last year.
On Ball
This is, generally, the positive part of the defensive section, though. Lewis’s on ball defense certainly wasn’t perfect, as we’ll see, but it was the best part of his defensive game. He slid pretty well and was able to use his length to contest shots and be disruptive. His change of direction, especially stepping back and lunging forward was a little slower. Probably his biggest struggle in this area was getting over ball screens and then getting back in the play. Generally speaking, though, teams didn’t prioritize attacking him and he would hold up better than the rest of the squad, when leveraged. It’s like when his man had the ball, he took on the challenge and was able to elevate his effort/utilize his talent.
Here’s an initial look against Milos Uzan (#7) on Houston. Lewis plays peek-a-boo with the ball screen a little and then slides to defend the left-handed drive. He slips a little when initially starting, but is still able to stay close and force a running left-handed layup attempt fairly distanced from the hoop.
I’d like to see him get his left arm up to contest that shot, but he did subtly have it in Uzan’s body, throwing off his control a little but subtly enough not to get the foul called. Certainly, Uzan could have made this shot; but I thought Lewis did admirably to make it more difficult despite the slip.
Here, he’s switched onto the 6’3″ DQ Cole (#10) who had 22 points in this game mostly on others. Lewis does a nice job of staying skinny through the attempted ball screen, cutting off the baseline, and then giving a good contest on the shot.
Bonus points for his release running the floor after the rebound is secured, as well. His teammate doesn’t take advantage of this year, but that long outlet is something you’ll probably see from Odom’s squad and I think Sam could often be the beneficiary.
This next one he doesn’t really have to work that hard, but has a quick drop reaction to cut off the drive. In include it because you can see him, once again, bothering the opponent’s dribble with his long reach. He’s able to poke the ball away from behind without fouling here, which disrupts the flow of the offense and leads to a bad shot out of flow.
Here he is toward the end of regulation in that same game. You can tell his defensive intensity has picked up over the clips above – which, once again, makes me think the competitiveness of the games does play a significant factor in his effort. Here, he’s right there on the catch, harasses his man through the ball swipe, and has a very intrusive contest on the shot (might have been AS intrusive as one can be without drawing the whistle).
It’s good to see him ratchet up the intensity in situations like this, though, even though you’d prefer to have him always play with it.
This next one, I think was a rough call, once again covering Braden Smith (#3). He slips around the ball screen, stays on Smith’s hip (would like to see him be able to shut down this angle) but he rides it for what could have easily been called a good shot block.
I want to be clear, I’m not saying this is an example of great defense. He doesn’t fully get around the screen, he’s chasing from slightly behind, and he does give the foul. But, the point being, this could just as easily have gone the other way where he inhales the shot. There are many times where he’s there or not far away from being able to play really quality defense on a good player such as this one.
Here’s one where he actually concedes the jumper, but we get a look at his strengths and weaknesses when covering the ball. Firstly, this is kind of wild because he’s guarding Shereef Mitchell (#4) initially here, who shot over 40% from deep on the season, but he’s camped under the ball screen, seemingly daring him to take the deep three, which he doesn’t. So, that’s likely either knowledge of Shereef’s game/preferences or the game situation, or anticipating that he’ll prefer to drive. You can see that Lewis is quick on his slide on the Mitchell drive and then switches on to Jackson Paveletzke (#13). On this one, you can see his biggest weakness on the ball; when he’s retreating, it takes him a moment to gather and change his direction back out on the step back. He still gets a decent contest here and Paveletzke makes a nice play/shot.
I think that clip probably best summarizes Lewis’s on ball defense. It’s pretty good in most cases, but not great. He’ll be able to get a good contest on the ball, use his length to disrupt a dribble here and there, and will slide pretty well… but where he’ll struggle is with quick change of direction, especially back/forward.
The other element of on ball defense where he actually did struggle the most is defending the ball screen. Some of this just comes back to the motor and determination to get back in the play, IMO. Like watch here, below, where he gets caught on the screen, the switch happens, and then he just makes no effort to get back into the play; either to chase down his man or to run with the roller to make the pass back difficult/contest a rebound. He really just stands around the foul line and watches!
And here, below, this is much better effort than the clip prior. Once he gets screened off he does attempt to hustle to get back into defensive position for the roller – but he’s still a step late.
I’ll close this section with one other play that probably illustrates decently what you get from him as an on-ball defender. Toledo switched him onto Braden Smith (#3) when he was going off against them at Purdue. When you’re the 7th worst defensive team in the country, it’s not a huge ringing endorsement that you’re viewed as the best potential stopper on the team – but it does still say something that they would be willing to go off matchup preference size-wise to put him on those players because they viewed him as their best option. When Toledo didn’t do this, teams rarely tested him on-ball (we saw how they would take advantage off-ball, though). When they did do this, you’d get some possessions like the below. This is still too clean of a jumper for Smith; but it is a midrange jumper he takes on the move, he does miss, and Lewis is able to come down to secure the glass.
At times against lesser players, he could be pretty smothering on the ball as we saw in some of the clips earlier. But against high quality players, he was certainly not some lock down player, he was just the better option for Toledo. He was a bigger speed bump than what they were offering.
Now, this could all certainly change for us and he could be better, especially with better defenders around him. I wouldn’t expect him to play this primary on-ball defender when he’s in the game, though. I’d more expect us to play him at SF most of the time and defend either a bigger guard or the other team’s least skilled guard (not always the latter, though, he could be tagged as the primary matchup on some larger PGs with less quickness and more strength/length).
In Conclusion
There are potentially a very wide range of outcomes and roles for Sam Lewis in the Blue and Orange next season. He’s the kind of player who, the things he does well, he does them very well. He’s also the kind of player who has the tools to do everything well if he continues to develop his game and, most importantly, put the mental element of the game together.
His offensive ability as a spot up shooter and to push the ball up and down in transition should get him a significant role no matter what. He needs to believe a little more in that outside shot because it’s very good – he should be more hungry to shoot it. If he can tighten up that handle a little and work on trying to draw more contact rather than settling for the pull up jumper, he could be a more complete offensive player than expected (and than I actually expect) as soon as next season.
It’s his defense that will keep him off the floor if anything does. If there’s one thing consistent about Odom-coached teams is that you get effort and tenacity from them to a man. There’s usually very good team defensive awareness and, at the very least, there’s heaping spoonfuls of hustle to make up for any mental lapses. As a result, I’m hopeful that Lewis will adapt to the culture and that we’ll see him play with the effort we saw at the end of close games for Toledo, all of the time for us. The thing is, we just haven’t seen it reliably yet so it’s a question mark. Sometimes it’s not just a “want to” element with these things; sometimes there’s more to the equation that’s holding the player back. That being said, I imagine his playing time will drop by somewhere between 5-10 minutes at least (based on the fact that he likely won’t start over Jacari White or Malik Thomas and that Odom plays a deeper rotation), so it might be easier to sustain that spark.
I don’t think you’re going to see just a one-dimensional offensive player from Sam Lewis this year, even though his best strength is as that stationary shooter. I do think his primary role will be that guy who spots up in the corner for Odom’s offenses – but I also expect you’ll see a lot of him rotating up and that we’ll find creative ways to get him moving downhill with the ball because he is effective when he can build up that momentum. I also think you’re going to see him really thrive in transition. His teammates are going to be looking for that outlet pass ahead rather than trying to push everything coast-to-coast. He’s also a very good outlet passer himself. He’s very good with the ball in his hands in the open floor. I think you’re going to see an exciting player who the team doesn’t need to rely on for points (and sometimes has really quiet games where he doesn’t feel like he’s making much of an impact), but who sometimes just goes off.
I do think he’ll be a better defensive player this year just due to the system and coach. How that translates is the biggest question mark for me. If he’s denying passing lanes (which is the one off-the-ball element he does pretty well), getting steals that turn into run outs, looking to push off of rebounds, etc., then he there’s the possibility that he could be a highly impactful 6th man-type of player who can influence the game in virtually every way. But if he’s falling asleep on defense, conceding uncontested baskets, and not displaying a consistent motor/hustle, there’s a real chance you just don’t see a ton of him and/or that he’s playing games more situationally.
What I do know is that there’s just so much potential with Lewis. Developmental players with his frame and athleticism often have to build out their offensive skills while other elements of the game come more naturally. He’s already a great shooter (statistically among the very best at the catch and shoot) and, yes, he can work on that handle but he’s is already very good doing one of the things this system loves doing – pushing the ball. The fact that he has so many other elements of his game upon which he can improve that aren’t related to pure ball skill could be a cause for a concern – but it could also be a sign that there’s huge upside here and we could look back at Sam Lewis as being one of the steals of the transfer portal.
The fact that he started coming on so strongly to close the season makes me err more on the side of him as a significantly contributing bench player this season – 6-7th man who has the potential to lead you in scoring on the occasional night (he won’t lead the team, I don’t think he’ll play enough and there are too many other candidates like that – Malik Thomas probably being the no brainer there). I think some are expecting a shooting specialist given his three-point % – but, if anything, I think we should hope he moves more in that direction and takes a higher volume of looks. He won’t be a one-dimensional player in that way, though.
All-in-all, I think we should hope that Sam Lewis gets a lot of playing time next year. If he is, then I think it will mean he’s figured out a lot of those questions and we’ll be benefitting from his immense potential.
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Okay! Thanks for reading the first installment of Tracking A Transfer! The next installment will be in two weeks or so (not on a tight schedule but will keep you updated on socials) and will be on Jacari White. Until then!
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