Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

How Langston Galloway reinvented his game

Screen Shot 2014-02-26 at 1.14.00 AM

Despite Langston Galloway’s scoring average (nearly 14 points per game) and perimeter scoring (39 percent from three) a year ago, the guard from Saint Joseph’s had an underwhelming junior season. His efficiency rating -- 110.9 -- was the lowest it had been during his three seasons on Hawk Hill, and with a large percentage of returning minutes remaining in 2014, there was an expectation of a bounce back senior season for Galloway.

So far, the guard hasn’t disappointed. He only scored seven points in SJU’s rout of Dayton tonight, but overall this season, Galloway has shouldered a larger role in the Hawks’ offense -- his efficiency rating rivals that of his sophomore (and breakout) season -- and his three-point shooting has reached a career-best percentage (44 percent). It was unclear what sort of season Galloway would have without Carl ‘Tay’ Jones, a guard who was proficient at breaking down and drawing help defenders before assisting Galloway on the perimeter, but the guard has completely retooled his game for his final year.

According to Synergy Sports Technology, Galloway has become a better spot-up shooter, scoring 1.4 points per spot up (as compared to 1.00 in 2013), and his perimeter accuracy has helped strengthen his overall game, specifically in pick and roll action. More than 20 percent of Galloway’s possession finish with a P&R possession, an significant uptick from his junior year (12 percent), and his decision making once he clears the pick is much improved, scoring more than one point when he dribbles into a jump shot. For much of his St. Joe’s career, Galloway was simply a shooter -- a really good shooter, but somewhat of a one-dimensional player -- but the guard transitioned this offseason into a scorer, the type of player who can score off the catch and the bounce. Galloway’s revised game is why the Hawks are one of the Atlantic 10’s best teams, and a squad that has enough resume padding to dance in the coming weeks.