Mid-Season Risers: Jalen Hood-Schifino
The Indiana point guard has been one of the hidden gems in this one-and-done crop of freshmen
We’re right around the halfway point in the college basketball season. It’s mid-January, conference play has begun, and the small sample size arguments for most players and teams are getting minimized. We have a decent feel for most prospects: what aspects of their game are strengths, which need to improve, and how close they are to matching the typical output/ upside seen out of draftable players.
Patience is always key. It’s easy to jump to conclusions after only a few games, to have implicit biases based on who is seen first and how a player performs right out of the gates. I always like to wait until a few games into the conference schedule to start really feeling comfortable placing players into different buckets — top-5, lottery, first round, not draftable, etc. Conference play tends to reveal much about how players are defended with a focus on their tendencies, the level of competition tends to be more even, and as a result, we get a clearer view of prospects in hypercompetitive environments.
Now, we’re starting to give more concrete takes on where prospects might belong based on the cumulation of film through the season. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be looking at several mid-season risers, the prospects who are very much in the public discussion over being a first-rounder despite little preseason buzz of getting them in that territory. Our goal is to figure out how legitimate that label is, as well as project out the strengths and improvement areas of their game.
After coming into his freshman year in college labeled a non-shooter, Jalen Hood-Schifino has put in a great deal of work to turn that jumper into a positive. A 6’4”, strong-bodied point guard, Jalen came to Indiana with a lot of buzz about his potential as a one-and-done prospect. His game — much more ‘ground-and-pound’ than electric in style, is one filled with cerebral moments. JHS, as he’s known, doesn’t play above the rim much, but he’s a tremendous manipulator in the pick-and-roll with legitimate flashes of becoming a high-usage player at the next level.
There are still severe questions about his 3-point shooting, both off the dribble and the catch. As a non-explosive athlete, shooting tends to be the key to sticking in the NBA, and even though there are aesthetically pleasing aspects of his form, the shot ultimately does have to fall.
What we are seeing, though, is a really good mid-range scorer with strong playmaking feel out of ball screens and good point-of-attack defense prove to be a winning piece. The numbers aren’t always great and there are clear categories where growth is needed. But full watches of Indiana’s games, and the heady dissection of opponent ball screen coverages on a consistent basis, give a lot of optimism that Hood-Schifino can be a high-level guard at the NBA level.
Offense
Hood-Schifino is a tremendous passer. Because of his size, Hood-Schifino can see over the top of most defenses that will play more aggressive coverages against him. That enables Jalen to throw corner skips, hit corner raise shooters, and find the roll man on short rolls when he’s blitzed. The physical capability to make all those reads stands out as a great canvas on which the artistry of PNR playmaking can be displayed.
As mentioned above, Jalen has a great feel for what opponents are trying to accomplish in their pick-and-roll coverages and knows how to counter it. The game against Northwestern on January 8th saw an aggressive pick-and-roll defense, with defenders showing high at the level and occasionally soft-trapping Hood-Schifino. Jalen struggled a lot with being pressured by their scrappy guards, showing a lack of burst and separation from smaller, pesty guys. But when he played poise and didn’t try to drive around them, he was really good on offense, dinking-and-dunking like a quarterback throwing screen passes all afternoon.
He threw anticipatory pocket passes to the short roll, continually hitting Trayce Jackson-Davis or other bigs over the top. Hood-Schifino finished the game with 3 assists and 6 turnovers, a few of which were on him. But he didn’t over-penetrate or force too much, instead continually trusting the team’s way to break that pressure: bait the Wildcats high, hit the short roll, and play 4-on-3 elsewhere. The lack of assists from that game does not accurately show how Jalen started the domino effect that led to quality looks.
A few games later against Wisconsin, Hood-Schifino was dominant. 16 points, 4 assists, and only 2 turnovers while getting to pick apart the Badgers’ Drop coverage. Steven Crowl, their seven-footer, was playing tighter to the basket, leading to an increase in mid-range opportunities for JHS to thrive. The Hoosiers did a nice job getting him going to his strong hand within their offense, and Hood-Schifino drilled mid-range pull-up after mid-range pull-up. He was 8-13 inside the arc on the day and continually picked apart the defense from Wisconsin that never adapted to him.
In the NBA, we see a lot more Drop coverage than true blitzes or hard hedges, although this season we’re starting to see more teams play up at the level. That’s a trend that I think will continue, especially as teams get more length to protect the rim from the weak-side at the 3 and 4 positions. But against Drop coverages, Hood-Schifino is a true scoring threat with awesome mid-range touch.
The finishing is a bit of a concern, to be honest. He rarely elevates off the ground, and while his change of pace is excellent with the ball in his hands to exploit openings to drive, he doesn’t do enough to finish in traffic. Too often he’s avoiding contact instead of seeking it out with his rugged frame. Being big is helpful as a point guard for both passing and scoring advantages. Maybe increased NBA spacing helps mitigate some of those concerns, but thus far he’s 12-23 at the rim in the half-court. Not helping matters is the fact that Hood-Schifino rarely gets to the free throw line either.
Being a high-volume pick-and-roll creator requires being a threat to score on multiple levels. The mid-range is a clear area of strength for him, and while the basket has not proven to be that yet, he has a lot to work with that could help him evolve into a helpful interior scorer. The third level — behind the 3-point arc — has been one of maddening inconsistency this year.
Hood-Schifino came into the season not known as a very good 3-point shooter. This was the weakness in his game that he sought to fix. Through 16 games, I have no idea whether he’s made progress, is on a cold streak, had an out-of-the-ordinary hot streak in the middle of the season, or what to expect. His splits over the first few segments of the season are astonishing:
3-point shooting inconsistency:
First 6 games: 4-16 (25%)
Next 6 games: 17-28 (60.7%)
4 Games since: 1-9 (11.1%)
Efficiency is a major buzzword in draft circles. The higher volume you take up and can handle, the less efficiency is tightly held as a barometer for success. That’s a fancy way of saying that if you are asked to do more, you have a longer leash. Hood-Schifino is one of the only guards who can create his own shot on the Hoosiers, and the offense isn’t exactly brimming with spot-up shooters. That impacts his assist totals, the amount of room he has when driving to the bucket, and other key areas that drag down his efficiency.
Excuses aside, Hood-Schifino does have to take better care of the basketball. He turns it over too much with errant post-entry passes, inaccurate lobs, and a real struggle with guards who get into him above the 3-point line. His handle is okay, though it could get tighter. It does feel like he’s always driving into traffic, though. NBA spacing could be what helps him solve some of the turnover and scoring issues.
That said, the inconsistent shooting makes it really hard to project how he’ll play off-ball. Being a ball-dominant NBA player without the scoring package is tricky and rare. Hood-Schifino doesn’t have a deep bag or a level of one-on-one shiftiness that could lead him to score a ton in isolations. He’s just a really good ball screen player within the right team context. That typically will work better as a second-unit player than a first, at least until he can prove adequate as a spot-up shooter.
Defense
Here is Hood-Schifino’s saving grace. He’s a really, really good on-ball defender. He does well against smaller guards or bigger ones. He has textbook guarding form, is always engaged, and beats one-on-one scorers to spots. Put him in isolation against some of the better scoring guards in the NBA and he will produce some really quality possessions. He pressures away from the basket and has super quick hands for deflections and steals.
What is most impactful about Hood-Schifino’s defense, though, is how difficult he is to screen. He’s great at fighting over the top of picks without losing the lateral ability to move his feet. That’s tough at his size when keeping up with smaller, quicker guys. He can do the same going under, weaving through tight spaces on his toes and not getting clipped by savvy bigs trying to get him hung up underneath.
His natural size and length helps him at the point of attack and is why he can contest shots from behind. Switching on ball screens shouldn’t be a major issue for him, especially as he continues to mature and add strength. There’s a lot of versatility on defense with Hood-Schifino.
Will Hood-Schifino come into the NBA and ever be an All-Defense guy? Probably not. His level of athleticism and activity isn’t quite there to become a lockdown guy or an elite defender, though he’s incredibly solid in a meaningful way. Being solid — even if it doesn’t result in creating turnovers — while having some scheme versatility is incredibly helpful to raising the floor of contributions for JHS.
Overall
The entirety of the conversation for Hood-Schifino revolves around now around the question of whether he should be a one-and-done. I’ve had conversations with several other scouts about him and his game, and they tend to believe that he’s trending in that direction. I do too.
Every time I watch Hood-Schifino play a full game, I’m impressed with his impact. He’s cerebral, he is smart enough to change how he tries to beat teams (as a scorer or a passer) based on how he’s played, and he doesn’t seem to have off nights on defense.
Then I look at the totality of his play — the lack of consistent rim pressure, the lack of certainty in his jump shot, the high-turnover nights — and I remind myself that there’s a ton of work to be done. Getting closer to the lottery discussion will be dependent on some quick changes to the patterns in those identifiable areas, and changes that show lasting growth.
But I do feel fairly safe in thinking that he’s good enough to be a top-30 guy in this class for me. I love his feel for the game and desperately want to see him in an offense where the lane is more open than the one we currently see with the Hoosiers. He might not be the most ready-to-play rookie out there, but he’s too talented as a big creating guard to fall outside the purview of being a first-round selection.