Laila Phelia wasn’t a 3-point threat. She is now.
After Syracuse's win over Canisius, Laila Phelia admitted 3-point shooting wasn't her game. But she's since developed it, shooting a career-high 42.9% on triples. Matthew Crisafulli | Contributing Photographer
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Laila Phelia just flat-out said it. No need to sugarcoat. She was coming off a 22-point performance in Syracuse’s 96-72 win over Canisius and had missed her only 3-point attempt. She was 1-for-7 from deep through the Orange’s first three games, and when asked about her reluctance to fire from beyond the arc, she had to make something clear.
“I feel like, in my game,” Phelia began, “I’ve never been a 3-point scorer.”
Was it a bit self-deprecating? Sure. But it was a fair assessment. Phelia spent four years in college — three at Michigan and one at Texas — before joining Syracuse in the offseason. In those four seasons, she’d only shot above 33% from deep once and a dismal 12.5% in eight games with the Longhorns last season.
The Orange already had their 3-point specialists in Sophie Burrows and Madeline Potts. Phelia wasn’t recruited to replace them. She was recruited to complement them elsewhere. It’s why, after being held to just three points in Syracuse’s 64-45 win over Albany, assistant coach Khyreed Carter had to remind her what she was here to do.
“You can’t shoot a 3 until you make a mid-range,” Phelia recalls Carter telling her.
Phelia has since figured out how to make a mid-range. With that development, she’s also unlocked the privilege to shoot 3-pointers, and she’s making them at a more efficient clip than anyone on Syracuse’s roster. Her career-high 42.9% 3-point percentage is currently higher than her 42.5% field goal percentage.
She’s SU’s only player with a 3-point percentage above 31%, and she’s not doing it on low volume — in her 18 starts, Phelia ranks second on the Orange with 1.5 made triples per game.
After that win over Canisius on Nov. 11, she said she was trying too hard to imitate Burrows and Potts and had gotten too far away from her game. But she isn’t just impersonating SU’s 3-point specialists anymore — she’s surpassed them.
“That was one of the biggest things for me,” Phelia said, regarding her 3-point shooting. “Especially thinking about future aspirations and everything, I need to make sure I have that 3-point shot developed.”
The way Syracuse assistant coach Amber Moore recalls it, she first heard about Phelia through her mother, Kimberly. A Detroit, Michigan, native, Kimberly often watched the Wolverines’ women’s basketball games, and she wouldn’t stop raving about their shooting guard.
Moore began paying attention after that. She saw Phelia’s Elite Eight appearance, the All-Big Ten selections. She saw the same “mid-range killer” that graced the JMA Wireless Dome this season, watching as she performed on some of the biggest stages the sport has to offer.
But that “mid-range killer” just wasn’t there in limited time with the Longhorns last season. For obvious reasons, of course. Try shooting a mid-range jumper, or any shot for that matter, with a detached retina. It’s pretty difficult, isn’t it? Phelia thought so, too.
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When Phelia decided to transfer to Syracuse, Moore was determined to make her an even better version of the player she was. After Phelia arrived, they immediately began shooting together, even though Phelia was fresh off eye surgery.
“Knowing that she wanted to get back to the kind of player and caliber of player that she is after her surgery, I knew that 3-point shot had to improve,” Moore said. “When we first met, she was very adamant about improving that shot.”
The routine was simple, modeled after Moore’s routine from when she played at Illinois. Moore finished her time in Champaign with 295 made 3-pointers, a program record by 81 triples. When she was in season with the Illini, she made 500 shots per day — 200 3-pointers, 200 2-pointers and 100 free throws. Offseason? Psh. Double that.
“Coach Moore’s been working with (Laila) and Sophie diligently every day,” SU head coach Felisha Legette-Jack said. “And Coach Moore is one of the best shooters I’ve ever seen.”
It’s a different era than it was back in Moore’s heyday, and thus, the routine she put Phelia through isn’t as intense as her own. Moore still had Phelia making around 500 shots a day in the offseason, though, at least four days a week.
At the beginning, with her eye surgery still troubling her peripheral vision, Phelia’s right hand would drift over to the left when she released her shot, overcompensating for her right eye.
There weren’t any special drills to remedy it. Just reps, reps and more reps. Once Phelia got more comfortable, she simulated more game-like shots, using movement and shots off of screens to nail down her fundamentals.
“Shooting isn’t rocket science,” Moore said. “It’s having clean fundamentals and repping it out.”
Phelia had a particular issue where she would land on one foot instead of two when shooting 3-pointers, almost Dirk Nowitzki-esque, Moore said. That — along with an issue where Phelia would lean when she released her shot — went away as she continued to take reps and practice drills that focused on shooting while remaining square to the basket.
The final tenet Moore preached to Phelia was the importance of “shooter’s bounce.” When Phelia landed straight down after shots, they would fall flat and short. So, Moore taught her to emphasize jumping higher when she released, giving herself a little more “bounce” so her shots still had lift when her legs were tired.
Before that Canisius game, because she had been shooting so many 3-pointers in practice, Phelia felt she was selling out for the triple too much. There are people on the team who are supposed to do that, whose “bread and butter” is to shoot from deep, she said, like Potts and Burrows. She didn’t feel like she was one of them then.
But maybe triples are Phelia’s bread and butter, too. She just didn’t know it yet.
