Falcons need bigs to hit from long range

In the opening 4 minutes of Air Force’s game at Utah on Saturday, freshman forward/center Taylor Broekhuis missed a pair of open 3-point shots.

During the next 7 minutes, senior center Mike McLain misfired on two open 3s. And in the second half, another 3 by McLain and a pair by senior forward/center Grant Parker all failed to find the bottom of the net.

“It’s very frustrating,” McLain said. “Because they’re shots that we’re making 8-of-10 times, 9-of-10 times in practice. They’re shots we know we can make, but they’re not falling.”

To be fair, it’s not just the Falcons’ big men who are struggling from behind the 3-point arc. Air Force, which faces UNLV on Tuesday night in Las Vegas, has made just 25-of-95 3s (26.3 percent) during Mountain West Conference play – the worst mark in the league by 7 percentage points.

But Air Force’s offense works best when its post players hit from long distance and pull opposing big men away from the basket to guard them. 

“It opens up the inside, it opens up back-door cuts, it opens up lanes,” McLain said. “It’s a crucial part of the offense.”

McLain said the Falcons’ big men have to continue shooting 3s with confidence and trust that “eventually they’re going to start falling.”

That’s more likely to happen now that Parker is back in the lineup. While he went 0-for-2 in his return to action against the Utes, he was shooting 40.6 percent from 3 before a pelvic injury caused him to miss 10 games.

That kind of production from the Falcons’ post players “would be big for us,” Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds said.

“It would cause a lot of other things to open up for us and cause the offense to run more efficiently.”