Cotto tended to take a lot of shots, and sometimes ill-advised shots.
I guess that's OK if you take the shots within the offensive plan and if you can make some.
Cotto so far has shot 33% overall and only 27.8% from 3-point range (5-18 ).
But his 18 3-pt attempts and 27 FG attempted are still enough to give him the team lead in shots attempted per minute played (0.31) and 3-pointers attempted per minute played (0.21).
The next most prolific shooter on the team is far behind at 0.16 on 3-pointers per minute played, but that's Kevin Lisch, a proven scorer who shoots almost 40% from behind the arc.
In one game earlier this season, Cotto took (and missed) four wild shots in just 8 minutes of first half play (in a game that SLU only scored 48 for the entire game),
then Majerus benched Cotto and he didn't return the rest of the first half or the 2nd half until he was put back in for the final few seconds of garbage time.
After that game, Majerus made a few less than flattering comments about Cotto as well as a few other players.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=98384#post98384
of course the reason given by the school and by Majerus for why Cotto is transferring -- was that Cotto left to find more playing time.
But this just doesn't wash....as Cotto had plenty of opportunity to play for a FRESHMAN...
In fact, Saint Louis leads the country in minutes played by freshman....and it isn't even close...
Freshmen have played 56% of the minutes played so far for Majerus, and the next closest three schools are High Point at 38.7%, Duquesne at 36%, and UCLA at 33%.
Lastly, Majerus may have hurt his chances of landing talent from the local St. Louis area, as four of the players recently sent packing were local guys.
(in his career, Majerus has had a ton of players transfer out from his teams but has virtually never had a player transfer in.
One comment in today's story about Cotto...
"(Majerus) has pretty much closed the door on SLU’s chances of landing
any future local recruits from the three best programs on the IL side. Those
three SW Conference teams of course are Edwardsville (Dustin McGuire), East
St. Louis (Anthony Mitchell) and Alton (Cotto). Do you think any of the
coaches at those schools would encourage their star players to even
consider the Billikens? Not likely!" (after those players from the
schools were run out of SLU)
RickMa also sent Adam Knollmeyer packing last summer before the kid ever had much of a chance...
Knollmeyer was from local powerhouse Linn (MO) High School, a perennially strong local school in the St. Louis area.
...from Cotto's home town paper, the Alton Telegraph...
"The marriage lasted seven games - that's all. Ruben Cotto of Alton wanted out of the
Saint Louis University basketball program before he got too far involved with it. He saw enough to request a divorce.
It was sort of the quickie Las Vegas kind. Chalk it up to irreconcilable differences.
..it seemed when he didn't score or produce immediately, Cotto was back on the bench.
There was little room for blunders in the trial-by-fire method.
He's going elsewhere, ...Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, would love to have him."
PS-- f/u on Kyle Cassity...he was getting more playing time than Cotto, but is shooting
an only 13.3% from the field and 18.2% from 3-pt range.
