Top Performance Series: Jalen Hood-Schifino

Breaking down the Indiana freshman’s scoring outburst in a February game vs Purdue.

The idea behind the top performance series is to go back and watch the best, or one of the best, box score games of each prospect's season to see how they looked when they were performing at their highest individual level and what that might show us about their ceiling as a prospect.

Jalen Hood-Schifino put on a show in this Big Ten matchup where he played all 40 minutes of the game and scored an efficient 35 points to go along with seven boards and a couple of assists.

This seemed like the perfect game to see what the ultimate ceiling for the Indiana freshman guard could be in the NBA.

Offense

Let’s start with a couple caveats before getting into a lot of positives from Hood-Schifino in this game.

First, he got a ton of usage where the entire possession ran through him and sometimes with the ball in his hands the entire time. It is important to mention this because that is not likely to be the role he gets in the NBA and he will have to be able to translate production without that type of usage. Second, this was one of his more efficient games in a season where he did struggle with efficiency so it is important to note that even though that is the idea behind this top performance series.

The 6-foot-6 guard was so good in this game, though. You just have to love the way he plays with a change of pace and the “bounce” in his step as he navigates how to attack a defense. He is strong, on balance and combines that with some really nice dribble combinations that allow him to get to his spots on the court.

At times I wished those spots would have been all the way to the rim but he really looked the most comfortable in the mid range. Not only did he show a very fluid pull up jump shot but also went to his floater off one or two feet and with either hand.

Where Hood-Schifino showed more of that change of pace was when operating ball screens. The Montverde Academy alum showed as much nuance as anyone in this class setting up the screen, reading the coverage, snaking, jailing, etc. in these possessions.

While projecting him to be a true creator at the next level might be a little ambitious, he did display an ability to throw the passes you want to see from a combo guard.

In this game alone there were four or five examples of live dribble one hand passes that were perfectly on time and on target to lead to open looks for teammates. Although the jump shot looks fluid and smooth there is still room to grow to truly reach his full potential as a combo guard that can play on and off the ball.

Defense

Hood-Schifino will not be mistaken for some on-ball lock down defender like a few other prospects in this class but that doesn’t mean he can’t offer some defensive value.

His size and strength alone will allow for some versatility with matchups and he does give the effort you want to see even if the possessions are not perfectly executed. Where he was really fun to watch in this game was actually off the ball with countless positive examples of scheme execution.

Perhaps this was just a great understanding of this particular game plan for Zach Edey but he seemed to know exactly when and where a double was coming from and knew what rotation was needed based off of that. At the end of the day the key word for Hood-Schifino is going to be consistency. If he is able to find it on both ends of the court then a team is going to feel like they got a steal in the 2023 NBA Draft.

Ceiling

Starting guard with scoring punch and above average team defensive scheme execution.

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