It was an up-and-down year for Tri State. They started the season off hot, but their reliance on the three-point shot ended up coming back to bite them. They suffered a mid-season losing streak, and just missed the playoffs.
Tri State are coached by the legendary Julius “Dr. J” Irving. Jason Richardson served as their Captain this season, with Justin Dentmon and Larry Sanders as Co-Captains. The team’s strength was its shotmaking. Big man Larry Sanders won the BIG3 Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2021, but last season Dr. J mostly opted for small-ball. The team’s go-to lineup consisted of Richardson and DaJuan Summers, both swingmen, with Justin Dentmon, a true guard, filling the third spot.
When Tri State was on, it rained threes. Tri State doesn’t just have good shooters. They move exceptionally well without the ball, and are great at setting screens for each other and finding open spots on the floor. When defenses stretched out to cover the three-point line, it freed up the paint for cutters. That led to some easy baskets at the rim and some spectacular finishes from Richardson, a former NBA Dunk Contest Champion.
However, the team was undersized, and had trouble getting to the line or snagging offensive boards. When I made my “Power/Finesse” Index back in July, Tri State was all the way on the finesse end of the spectrum.
Jason Richardson is a dangerous man when he's going downhill@jrich23 | @BIG3_TriState pic.twitter.com/qtDNVqT637
— BIG3 (@thebig3) July 17, 2022
Tri State had a rough Week 1, as Richardson missed the game due to Health and Safety Protocols. Without Richardson, Power were able to cruise to a 50-35 victory.
Richardson was back for the team’s Week 2 matchup against 3’s Company, and his impact was easy to see. He had a game-high 21 points, and led the team to a 51-35 victory.
The shots kept falling for Tri State in Week 3. In their 50-38 win against the Killer 3’s, they went 7-13 from 3-point range and 1-2 from 4-point range. It was more of the same in Week 4, as the team went 9-18 from 3-point range en route to a 50-44 victory over the Ball Hogs.
In Week 5, the threes didn’t fall, and to make matters worse, Tri State was up against Trilogy. They went just 2-14 from 3 and lost by a final score of 51-46. In their Week 6 matchup with the 3 Headed Monsters, the team went 5-15 from 3 and lost by a final score of 50-33. In Week 7, they went 4-16 from 3, and Power rolled to a 51-36 win. They actually won their Week 8 matchup with the 3 Headed Monsters, but it wasn’t enough to get them into the playoffs.
The BIG3 can be an unforgiving league. Tri State lost four games. Three of those games were against Power and Trilogy, who played each other in the 2022 BIG3 Championship, and their only other loss came without Richardson.
In 2022, Tri State was unapologetically a perimeter-oriented team. We’ll see if they double down on small-ball next year or sacrifice some of their shooting and quickness for more of an interior presence.