Washington works, waits for shots to fall

Air Force sophomore guard Evan Washington spent a few days this past offseason at the Suwanee Sports Academy in Georgia working on his shooting.

He improved his footwork, tweaked his form and boosted his confidence.

But his statistics don't reflect it. Heading into this afternoon's game against Texas Pan-American at Clune Arena, Washington is shooting 40.4 percent from the field, down from 47.2 percent last season.

"I haven't been shooting it numerically as well as I did at the beginning of last year, but I think my confidence is higher this year," he said. "That's the thing I lacked last year when it came to shooting."

There are signs Washington could be on the verge of turning that confidence into results. In the last three games, he's made 7 of 16 shots from the floor, including 2 of 3 3-point tries - he missed all 10 of his 3-point attempts in the first five games.

"I want to play more consistently offensively," Washington said. "But I think that I'll do better as the season goes on."

While Washington hasn't been shooting the ball as well as he'd like, he's still averaging 8 points per game - fourth-best on the team and up from his 6.9 average last season. He's also been contributing in other ways - specifically by helping an undersized team with inexperienced post players on the glass. Though he stands just 6-foot-4, Washington leads the team in rebounding with 6 per game.

"It's a combination of he has good vision, he's very strong and he has the ability to beat people to the ball," coach Jeff Reynolds said. "He's done a really good job of rebounding the ball."

Washington also has a team-high five blocks, and he's been doing a good job of helping senior Anwar Johnson with ball-handling responsibilities - "Lately he's been more vocal and had more of a presence on the offensive end," Reynolds said.

After making a team-high 68 turnovers with 47 assists last season, Washington has only 14 turnovers with 23 assists (second-most on the team) this season.

"I think he's a lot better this year at kind of managing the game and managing his game," senior guard/forward Andrew Henke said. "He's not forcing things, and when the shots aren't falling he's doing a lot of other things."