Sebastian Mack: From Westwood to Missouri - A Deep Dive into His Game and Potential Impact

Sebastian Mack's move to the Missouri Tigers has generated considerable buzz, and for good reason. After spending a season as the Bruins’ sixth man, averaging 9.6 points and 2.1 rebounds, the sophomore combo guard is looking for a reboot. The Tigers, in turn, were seeking a veteran to fill in alongside Anthony Robinson II while providing insurance as the program develops T.O. Barrett and incoming freshman Aaron Rowe. This article delves into Mack's strengths, weaknesses, and how he might fit into Dennis Gates' system at Missouri.

A Look at Mack's Profile

From: Las Vegas
Previous School: UCLA
Position: Combo Guard
Ht/Wt: 6-3/200
247Composite Ranking: 0.9200 (No. 110)

Season Statistics

| Season | G | MIN | PTS | REB | AST | FG% | 3FG% | FT% | eFG% | STL | BLK | TOV || :------ | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :----: | :----: | :----: | :----: | :-: | :-: | :-: || 2023-24 | 33 | 26.7 | 12.1 | 3.6 | 1.6 | 0.387 | 0.283 | 0.727 | 0.431 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 1.6 || Career | 67 | 23.8 | 10.8 | 2.8 | 1.7 | 0.451 | 0.296 | 0.734 | 0.449 | 1.1 | 0.1 | 1.5 |

The Allure of a Combo Guard

Through the first two weeks of portal season, one segment has been short on supply: combo guards. Finding a do-it-all option has posed a challenge, and those that fit the definition are commanding premium NIL asks. As the days have passed, identifying potential fits comes down to zeroing in on players who fit most of a team’s requirements. In Missouri’s case, that meant finding a player with a rugged frame, an attacking mentality with the ball in their hands, and a degree of reliability on the defensive end. In the end, UCLA guard Sebastian Mack ticked enough of the boxes, and on Monday morning, the sophomore committed to the Tigers, becoming the program’s third addition from the transfer portal, and arguably MU’s most important addition this spring.

Offensive Strengths: Attacking Mentality and Rim Pressure

Fundamentally, Mack’s game is about getting downhill. He converted at a 58.8 percent clip at the rim during half-court possessions. And even if Mack didn’t reach the cup, there’s a strong probability he drew a foul en route to the restricted area. Had he played enough minutes to qualify, his 57.4 free-throw rate would have ranked sixth in the Big Ten last season.

UCLA coach Mick Cronin didn’t use complicated schemes to tee Mack up for success, either. For example, the Bruins might start a possession with weave action as window dressing to get Mack the ball and have one of its big men set a step-up screen at the top of the key. Or the Bruins could simply align in five-out spacing and let Mack play out of a middle ball screen to get two feet in the paint. And every so often, Mack could operate in the left slot on the empty side of the floor to slash into a gap using his right hand.

Potential Jumper Upside

The potential upside in adding Mack is stabilizing his jumper. Last season, Mack made 32.6 percent of his 3-point attempts shooting off the catch - or slightly below the Division-I average. And that figure dropped to 23.3 percent with a hand in his face, creating a wide split between his performance when left all alone. If Mack can close that gap and perform at an average level, he will be competent enough to force hard closeouts. The result: more opportunities to rip through and attack.

Defensive Prowess: Tenacity and Strength

While much of the focus falls on what Mack can supply as a scorer, his biggest strides this season came on the defensive end. Mack can be a disruptive presence, and he rebounds well for his position, but Cronin demanded more attention to detail doing rote tasks like off-ball positioning and toughness in ball screens. For the most part, Mack obliged those requests. Last season, he finished in the 76th percentile nationally for defensive efficiency, per Synergy Sports.

When we look over his most common actions on the defensive end, it’s easy to see the progress Mack has made. Occasionally, he’d give up a gap on a close-out or open his hips to a driver, but in the kinds of routine jobs we’d expect on defense, he did more than a bang-up job. On film, though, only allowing 0.872 points per possession in spot-ups isn’t exactly enthralling. But what Mack managed to do - for the most part - was be in the vicinity when the ball came to his man. Mack’s frame and functional strength also help him hold up when targeted in ball screens.

Schematic Overlap

There’s also some schematic overlap with MU’s preferences. At times, Cronin had his big men hedge out, requiring Mack to fight over quickly to recover and prevent an odd-man situation with a roller. But if nothing else, Mack displayed the tenacity to get over the top of screens and stick with his assignment. It meant that UCLA didn’t have to switch screens unless a possession went deep into the shot clock or it wanted to keep pressure on the ball in late-game situations.

The Fit with Missouri: A Pragmatic Move

While MU could have continued to wait out the market and see if other players hopped in, the program ultimately opted for a pragmatic move. If nothing else, Mack projects as a starter-level combo guard with two years of experience, and he arrives from a Bruins program that finished one spot behind MU in KenPom. His frame and output also closely mirror what Tony Perkins supplied last season.

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Potential Role and Impact

Mack, who averaged 9.6 points and 2.1 rebounds, will look for a reboot after spending the past season as the Bruins’ sixth man. The Tigers were looking for a veteran to fill in alongside Anthony Robinson II while providing insurance as the program develops T.O. Barrett and incoming freshman Aaron Rowe.

Areas for Improvement: Jump Shot Consistency

Bringing up Mack’s shooting is ground we covered - albeit quickly - when the soon-to-be junior committed to Missourion April 7. And in the last four months, the contours of that terrain haven’t changed all that much. The question isn’t whether Mack’s move to Columbia heralds a drastic overhaul of his game.

Analyzing Mack's Jumper

Using Synergy Sports’ data, we can plot the average volume of catch-and-shoot jumpers and the efficiency of those shots for (almost) every player in the Big Ten Conference last season. What I find interesting, though, are his neighbors: Iowa’s Ladji Dembele, Michigan State’s Jaxon Kohler, and Michigan’s Danny Wolf. Functionally, Mack’s propensity to shoot the rock is on par with stretch fours and fives.

That modest volume isn’t surprising when you do line-by-line accounting. For example, Mack only launched seven catch-and-shoot threes over a nine-game span from mid-January to mid-February. He clanked all of them. To be clear: I’m not saying Mack was a suppressed sniper over two years in Westwood. His best stretches still came on paltry volume. However, it wouldn’t have taken much effort for him to reach the median (2.0 3FGA/game) among his Big Ten brethren.

In the five games I watched, Mack attempted seven threes as a catch-and-shoot option. Several of these clips rely on similar actions, like a dribble-handoff followed by reversing the ball and flowing into a step-up PNR, but almost all of them end with Mack having no alternative but to fire away. Put simply, they’re shots with a high degree of difficulty. The fact that Mack drilled three of them is a bonus.

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Shot Mechanics

When Mack has adequate time, he’s diligent about doing work before the ball arrives at his shot pocket: knees slightly bent, feet slightly less than a shoulder-width apart, torso squared up, and hands presenting a target. So often, shot mechanics are picked apart from the waist up, but preparation gets short shrift.

Notice how often Mack’s foot positioning and base differ with each attempt. But when Mack has adequate time to relocate and get on balance, he’s fluid all the way through. That’s even true when he’s had some chances to handle the ball during a set, like the 1-4 flat clips you’ll see below. Even Mack’s misses tell us a little bit about him. In these horns-based sets, Mack winds shooting from the corner, watching them hit off the heel. Crucially, they don’t ricochet into oblivion. They bounce almost vertically. The theory goes like this: the more optimal the release angle, the less force a shooter needs to apply. Why? Because they efficiently elevated and kept their core stable.

Lastly, this potpourri of possessions is a grab-bag of actions, but it’s helpful in the sense we can see that Mack’s shot flattens out once he stretches his range closer to the NBA 3-point arc. His release is less of a flipped wrist than a subtle push. Which brings us back to how we kicked off the piece and MacLean’s query: What kind of shots are you taking?

While Mack’s mechanics aren’t the kind we’d see in an instructional video or camp setting, his jumper isn’t busted. As Matt Watkins has shown, Mizzou has generally created enough rim pressure under Dennis Gates to produce a reasonable supply of quality catch-and-shoots beyond the arc.

Whenever I’ve seen the staff work with players on their jumpers, the emphasis falls on drills that replicate game conditions - not a player working from spot to spot around the arc while a manager rebounds for them. How MU structures Mack’s reps is integral because he’s never been a high-volume shooter. Not at Coranado High. Not with Vegas Elite on the EYBL circuit. This hits on the point Fraschilla made: improvement only comes through amassing enough intelligent repetitions.

UCLA Context: Role and Usage

Regardless of the lineup configuration Bruins coach Mick Cronin used, the odds were strong that he utilized Mack as a combo guard. In the games I watched, Mack would check in to give Skyy Clark a breather, but Andrews would slide up to play point guard. Often, Mack took up positions on the wing or slot and would only get the ball in his mitts if primary or secondary actions came up empty. While he was rarely stagnant, his movement was perfunctory, like interchanging with another guard or jogging through spacing cuts.

His best on-ball opportunities were Euro pick-and-rolls run early in a possession or ball screen set in the left slot, allowing him to drive a double-gap with his strong hand. Yet there was just one outing in the five I watched where Cronin relied on Mack to power UCLA’s offense. It’s probably little coincidence that it was Mack’s best outing, one where he tallied 16 points on 6 of 12 shooting.

On/Off Splits

Usually, on/off splits provide a helpful indication of how a player’s contributions impact a lineup’s performance. But the context around Mack’s role and usage makes it hard to pin blame on him for UCLA’s offensive efficiency declining by 3.8 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the floor. That split is eerily like Andrews’ mark (-3.9), per EvanMiya.com’s lineup data.

Even cursory research turns up stories about Mack’s coach at Coronado High School lobbying Cronin to recruit the slashing combo guard. As a freshman, an ill-constructed roster left Mack as the Bruins’ sole advantage creator. There’s an anecdote in multiple stories about Mack seeking out Cronin as he mulled transferring. “You should stay here,” Cronin reportedly told the guard. And to Mack’s credit, he embraced his role as a sixth man for the Bruins while improving defensively. Yet playing alongside Clark and Andrews didn’t produce the kind of reliable synergy Cronin might have expected.

Play Types

Unsurprisingly, the plurality of those attempts resulted from possessions where UCLA spread the floor in five-out alignment and tried to pry defenses open with a variety of ball-screen actions in the middle of the floor.

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