New Mexico Basketball: Lobos should be excited about Jaelen House

House is already a step ahead of the game

Prior to the start of the 2020-21 season, I took it upon myself to write an article titled “5 guards who need to take the next step(s) in 2020-21”, and House was one of the guards that I elected to include in the piece. Going into the year, I knew that he needed to showcase some sort of improvement offensively if he was going to move closer to reaching his full potential as a player.

One issue that I highlighted had to do with House’s failure to be flexible whenever the ball wound up in his hands.

"“I think that House’s problem right now offensively is his lack of confidence in his ability to make a second move (after he finds himself in the same spot after making his first move), and still get to where he wants to go on the floor. There were too many times last season where House would make an initial move (pushing the ball behind his back for example), get cut off, and quickly swing the ball over to one of his teammates.”"

I also felt the need to say that “Now, sometimes House made the right decision by not allowing the ball to stick to his hands, but because he did this so often, he never really gave himself a chance to succeed offensively. Last season, House basically made it so that his first move had to work perfectly, or he would rarely have any opportunities to score (which wasn’t really fair to himself).”

After Arizona State’s disappointing 2020-21 season came to a close following their 91-73 loss to Oregon in the Pac-12 Tournament, I took some time to reflect on House’s sophomore campaign and came to the conclusion that the guard made respectable strides as an offensive player. What made me come to this conclusion?

Well, although House didn’t start his 2nd season of college basketball as strong as he started his first offensively, his comfort level as a ball-handler increased with time and it was clear that he was more confident in his ability to go with the flow when things didn’t go his way initially.

There were many times where I saw House make a move off the dribble, fall a little short of achieving his ultimate goal (which was to create separation from his defender), and make an additional move in hopes of shaking free from his defender. The thing that I really appreciated about House’s 2020-21 offensive display was the fact that he didn’t complicate things for himself.

It wasn’t unusual for me to watch House get to his strong hand (his right), go between his legs/wrap the ball behind his back (because his defender was able to keep his body in front of him), perform a useful left-to-right crossover, and forcefully attack the basket at full speed. I think that House now understands that making sharp, straightforward moves (as opposed to putting together insane dribble combinations) will help create countless scoring opportunities for him on the offensive end.

He also showed that he is taking steps forward as a catch-and-shoot three-point shooter after several ball reversals and paint touches, as he drastically improved his three-point shooting percentage in 2020-21 (he made a 12.3% leap from his freshman year to his sophomore year).

You see, if House had transferred to New Mexico after his freshman season because he felt dissatisfied with his role on Bobby Hurley’s team, he probably wouldn’t have been as effective as the Lobos wanted him to be in his first season in Albuquerque, since he would’ve needed a year to figure out how he should go about fine-tuning his game offensively.

However, House should be able to get down to business immediately at New Mexico because of his decision to return to Arizona State for his sophomore season and move in the right direction as an offensive player. In other words, House is a step ahead of the game because he can now use what he learned in two years at Arizona State, apply it right away in 2021-22, and make a huge impact on a New Mexico team that won just 6 games a season ago.