There are certain athletes who have mastered a skill in their sport to the point where they can pretty much deploy it whenever they want and it remains successful. Randy Johnson put together one of the most impressive bodies of work an MLB pitcher ever has over a 22 season career in which he threw almost exclusively fastballs and sliders, with the occasional changeup mixed in for laughs. It didn’t matter that batters, especially lefthanded batters, knew what was coming, they weren’t going to hit it. Is this intro me saying that Ruben Dominguez is the Randy Johnson of basketball? Yes, actually. Put him in Cooperstown and stick his jersey in the rafters, the guy is a legend.
In basically every stat that can be tracked on the basketball court, Dominguez was pretty pedestrian last season at Texas A&M. He didn’t rebound especially well, his season high was five, didn’t generate steals or block shots, didn’t gather many assists, didn’t get to the free throw line very much, and shot 17-38 (45%) from inside the three point arc. However, the one thing he did well he did really, really well and that is why he was so highly sought after in the transfer portal and why he is regarded as one of Xavier’s key additions this year. Dominguez hoisted 215 three pointers last season, 58 more than anyone on Xavier did, and cashed out on 40% of them. He had 16 games where he hit three or more, including in the first round of NCAA Tournament against Saint Mary’s, and he set the Texas A&M school record with 10 in one game. To put it plainly, he’s not out there to put somebody on a poster, lock down an opponent’s best scorer, or make a flashy pass to set up a teammate. He’s out there to be a catch and shoot machine and to make opposing defenses pay for overhelping elsewhere or being a step late in rotation.
What this mean’s for Xavier’s roster as a whole is that guys who like putting the ball on the floor and attacking opposing defenses like Chance Westry, Tru Washington, and Gabriel Pozzato will either have more room to do so or an absolutely lethal shooter standing unguarded on the perimeter. In modern college basketball, offense is all about space and there are few better floor spacers than Dominguez. He doesn’t stuff the stat sheet otherwise, but his impact is far from limited to just the shots he takes as his gravity away from the basket opens things up for the rest of the team.