His life is being made hard because hes an outside-in player meaning he needs his shot to fall to set up drives and not the other way around. For instance, Lebron James, Tyrece Radford and Dorenzo Hudson would be inside-out players. Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Hunter Cattoor and Corey Kispert are outside-in players.

There are obviously different levels of skill within that, like NAW being a better driver than Cattoor. And Alleyne isnt a great driver without the shot falling. So if the shot isnt falling hes going to have a tougher time than say Corey Kispert. Thats because teams are starting to play him as an inside out player and he cant make them pay for it.

Certainly that can have an affect on his psyche, and overall skill level too. Alleyne is best as a third/fourth option. When a team overplays to 2 or 3 players he can make you pay by leaving him open.

The way teams are playing Aluma, it is making it harder on ALL the perimeter players. Storm came out of his funk a few games ago. Cattoor has been pretty consistent but still isnt getting up as many shots as he could.

So if you arent converting on the very limited opportunities you do have, then you have a tendency to force opportunities to get out of the funk. Thats when you go 1-for-11 in 35 minutes.

Eventually Alleyne will be fine. When he is, VT will take a big step forward. It would be super nice to have a bigger wing who could play his role while he tries to figure things out, but Maddox isnt ready and theres no one else on the roster.

Ideally the roster would be:

PG - Murphy/Pedulla
Wing - Cattoor/Alleyne
Wing - Sixfootsixman/Maddox
4 - Mutts/N'Guessan
5 - Aluma/Ojiako

If any one player in that lineup isnt performing, you can still be a very deep team.

So you look at next years roster and..

PG - Pedulla/Rice
Wing - Cattoor/Alleyne
Wing - Whotheheckknows/Maddox
4 - N'Guessan/yikes
5 - Ojiako/Kidd

Yikes Yikes Yikes

Rice and Cattoor is better than Alleyne and Cattoor on the wings but its not a given Rice will pick things up quickly. Pedulla seems to be a very smart player and even he has lots of lapses a month in.