I am sure someone is going to complain that I am not writing enough about all the stats (rebounding, blocks). Ideally I would show 25 stats on every player to tell the whole story, but this is hard enough to read just focusing on scoring and efficiency, so I’m electing not to expand this further. Also, while it may seem odd to focus so much on PPG and playing time, I think that playing time is a very under-rated metric of player quality. A player with a 130 ORtg who rarely plays (like Brannen Greene of Kansas) is clearly not perceived by the coaching staff as one of the team’s most important players.
The minutes’ percentages in the following tables are
based on games played, not the full season, so I am showing a higher percentage
of minutes for a mid-year transfer like Deonte Burton than you would see on
Kenpom.com. I am going to focus on players that have played over 20% of their
team’s minutes when they have played.
Big 12 Freshmen
PPG, Min%, Poss%, ORtg, Player,
Team
12.6, 73%, 26%, 108.5, *+Jawun
Evans, Oklahoma St.
10.4, 66%, 20%, 111.0,
Dean Wade, Kansas St.
9.9, 68%, 21%, 99.6,
Kamau Stokes, Kansas St.
8.7, 53%, 23%, 98.3,
Barry Brown, Kansas St.
8.1, 54%, 18%, 105.3, *+Eric
Davis, Texas
6.4, 42%, 26%, 84.1, *Kerwin
Roach, Jr., Texas
6.1, 43%, 24%, 86.7,
J.D. Miller, TCU
5.6, 36%, 25%, 90.2, *Tevin
Mack, Texas
4.6, 26%, 22%, 110.3, *Carlton
Bragg, Kansas
4.5, 46%, 17%, 93.1, *+Esa
Ahmad, West Virginia
4.4, 23%, 22%, 104.9, *+Cheick
Diallo, Kansas
4.3, 30%, 14%, 120.5, *King
McClure, Baylor
3.5, 27%, 19%, 99.3, Dante
Buford, Oklahoma
2.8, 31%, 16%, 111.0,
Jake Lindsey, Baylor
2.4, 21%, 16%, 91.1,
Christian James, Oklahoma
There are other freshmen in the Big 12. Kansas’ Lagerald Vick was even a Top 100 recruit. But the above 15 players are the only ones to earn meaningful playing time. Players marked with a * were consensus Top 100 recruits. Players we pegged as instant impact recruits at SI.com are marked with a +. Tempo is playing somewhat of a role here, as Oklahoma is getting about 10% more possessions per game than Oklahoma St. But I didn’t think it mattered enough to warrant listing another number in the table. If you care, you can find pace stats at Kenpom.com, but keep in mind that when comparing PPG you should think about raw pace, not adjusted pace.
Cheick Diallo was the only Top 10 recruit in the
conference this year and he has struggled for playing time in Kansas’ unsettled six-man
frontcourt rotation. Obviously getting a
late start on the season (due to eligibility issues) put him behind the curve.
And there were always a chorus of people who said his defense was ahead of his
offense. But for Diallo to be sitting at 4.4 PPG and barely playing is hugely
disappointing. There was certainly ample reason to think that with his size and
athleticism that he would putting home a number of put-back dunks at this point.
In fairness, none of Diallo’s per-possession statistics have been terrible, but
the coaching staff still does not trust him for major minutes at this point.
The same can be said of Kansas’ Carlton Bragg.
Jawun Evans was the only other Big 12 prospect ranked
high enough to expect an immediate impact, and Evans has delivered. We pegged
Esa Ahmad as one of the next most likely stars based on the fact that West
Virginia planned to start him. But while Ahmad has started almost every game
for the Mountaineers, he has also been the team’s least efficient rotation
player. Ahmad is essentially playing because of his athleticism and reach. He’s
among the nation’s best at getting blocks and steals.
Top 100 recruit King McClure should not be viewed as a
bust despite his low PPG. Due to his heart condition diagnosis, McClure is not
being pushed into major college minutes right away, and his efficiency has been
very solid.
The big surprise is Kansas St. having three of the
league’s top scoring freshman. Certainly, any team with Bruce Weber on the
sideline is going to play solid defense. But there were a lot of reasons to
expect Kansas St. to be horrible offensively this season. Yet somehow, the
Wildcats have played well enough on offense to have a Top 50 margin-of-victory.
And those three freshman have more than held their own. Notice that no one in
Kansas St.’s recruiting class was a consensus Top 100 recruit. And while only
Dean Wade has been super-efficient, Stokes and Brown have done quite well for
unranked freshmen.
Big 12 JUCOs
PPG, Min%, Poss%, ORtg, Player,
Team
11.3, 59%, 22%, 115.2,
Vladimir Brodziansky, TCU
11.2, 67%, 26%, 89.0,
Malique Trent, TCU
3.0, 31%, 15%, 106.6,
Corlbe Ervin, Kansas St.
2.9, 22%, 19%, 93.2,
Akolda Manyang, Oklahoma
2.9, 33%, 12%, 104.1,
Austin Budke, Kansas St.
2.3, 22%, 15%, 96.1,
Teyvon Myers, West Virginia
Austin Budke was recruited as a walk-on, but the JUCO
transfer has made it into Kansas St.’s rotation. All of these players (except
Budke) were considered Top 100 JUCO transfers, but that label is virtually
meaningless. If you learn anything from me about college basketball, please
learn that JUCO transfers are lottery tickets. Because of the differences in
competition, it is extremely hard to tell what skills will transfer from the
JUCO game to the D1 game. If you read the limited scouting on the JUCO ranks, Oklahoma’s
Akolda Manyang, Oklahoma St.’s Igor Ibaka, and West Virginia’s Teyvon Myers
were the three Big 12 JUCO players that received the most hype. Now Manyang has
struggled to make twos on a dominant offense where he gets almost no defensive
attention, Ibaka has barely played at all and didn’t play enough to show up in
my table, and Myers has fallen out of the deep West Virginia rotation.
Meanwhile, Vladamir Brodziansky received some hype,
but over the summer I read that due to TCU’s veteran front-court, Brodziansky
was expected to redshirt. And then, lo and behold, Brodziansky became TCU’s
best front-court player and stole the playing time away from his teammates. No
one can predict JUCOs. You just never know with these guys.
Big 12 Walk-On
PPG, Min%, Poss%, ORtg, Player,
Team
3.4, 27%, 21%, 92.1,
Matthew Temple, Texas Tech
Somehow Matthew Temple has become a rotation player for Texas Tech. Good for him.
Big 12 D1 Transfers
PPG, Min%, Poss%, ORtg, Player,
Team, Former PPG, Former Team
8.9, 40%, 27%, 111.5,
Chris Olivier, Oklahoma St., 13.0, Eastern Illinois
8.5, 39%, 23%, 119.9,
Deonte Burton, Iowa St., 6.4, Marquette
3.5, 33%, 15%, 100.7,
Hallice Cooke, Iowa St., 8.2, Oregon St.
3.2, 37%, 15%, 96.9,
Devon Thomas, Texas Tech, 3.2, Missouri St.
3.1, 27%, 16%, 106.6,
Shaquille Cleare, Texas, 3.0, Maryland
Shaquille Cleare is mildly disappointing. The former
Top 100 recruit has been stuck as the back-up center for Texas even with the
injury to Cameron Ridley. But the Big 12’s D1 transfers have all performed
about as expected.
Returning PlayersI am not going to show stats for the injured Phil Forte, Naz Long, or Cameron Ridley. Obviously injuries to Forte and Long have been devastating to those teams. The loss of Forte turned Oklahoma St. from a dark-horse NCAA tournament team to a team that is barely hanging on in the ferocious Big 12. Oklahoma St. isn’t terrible, but with the league as deep as it is, it is just so hard to win without the team’s lights out scorer. And Long’s injury probably knocked Iowa St. from the ranks of teams likely to make the Elite Eight. It isn’t that Long isn’t replaceable, but Iowa St.’s depth is now sorely lacking. I’m not sure that Ridley’s absence has been a huge negative to Texas, only because Shaka Smart wants to play a smaller lineup, and he has been more empowered to do so with Ridley out. Notably, Texas Tech’s Isaiah Manderson and Texas’ Jordan Barnett played very little this year, are transferring, and are not included in the tables.
I am going to switch the format now to focus more on
player development. Thus in the next tables I am going to focus on changes in
production. But comparing seasons is a little bit difficult. In particular,
most teams are nearly done with their “easy” games and have some of their
hardest games left on the schedule. And this has been complicated by the rule
changes that have made it easier to score this year.
The table below shows the change in the average
opponent defense (this year relative to last year). While Texas Tech has
actually played a nearly equivalent schedule of defenses to last year, West
Virginia’s opponent’s defenses have been much easier this season. And thus any
inflation in the ORtg of players on West Virginia should be discounted
slightly.
I also show the change
in raw pace and while Oklahoma St.’s games have had slightly more possessions
so far this year (compared to the full year last year), Texas Tech’s games have
had a full 6 more possessions per game. Pace slows later in the year, so when we have a full season of data, the increases will be smaller. But right now, comparing half a season to a full season, that is the appropriate comparison.
ChOppDef, Team, ChPace
3.3, West Virginia, 3.2
3.2, Oklahoma St., 2.1
2.8, Kansas St., 5.1
2.4, Baylor, 5.3
2.3, Kansas, 3.8
1.6, Iowa St., 4.0
1.0, Texas, 5.1
0.9, Oklahoma, 5.6
0.6, TCU, 5.7
0.3, Texas Tech, 6.1
Taking the difference in defense and pace into consideration, here are the
players with the biggest jumps in scoring in the Big 12 relative to last season.
I start with the change in PPG, then I show the change in percentage of minutes,
then the change in possessions’ used, then the change in ORtg. The current PPG
is shown on the far right.
ChPPG, ChMin%, ChPoss%,
ChORtg, Player, Team, CurrentPPG
8.5, 3%, 2%, 16.9, Buddy
Hield, Oklahoma, 25.9
7.9, 20%, 4%, 18.2,
Jaysean Paige, West Virginia, 13.6
7.6, 36%, 5%, 11.4,
Leyton Hammonds, Oklahoma St., 9.9
7.4, 32%, 1%, 18.8, +Allerik
Freeman, Baylor, 12.2
7.1, 36%, 0%, 11.4,
Abdel Nader, Iowa St., 12.9
7.1, 48%, -3%, 6.1,
Chauncey Collins, TCU, 10.5
6.5, 15%, 4%, 13.4,
Wesley Iwundu, Kansas St., 12.3
5.7, 21%, 2%, 10.2, +Justin
Edwards, Kansas St., 12.0
5.6, -5%, 2%, 27.5,
Jordan Woodard, Oklahoma, 14.9
5.4, 27%, -2%, 44.3,
Aaron Ross, Texas Tech, 8.1
5.2, 41%, -2%, 9.4, Matt
Thomas, Iowa St., 10.2
5.1, -1%, 1%, 19.5,
Wayne Selden, Kansas, 14.6
As of Saturday morning,
January 30th, Oklahoma has the top margin-of-victory in the nation
and has been voted #1 by many pollsters. In the preseason, everyone thought
this team would be strong, but few experts suspected it would be this strong.
At this point, Jordan Woodard has had the biggest improvement in efficiency in
the entire Big 12. He did it be reducing his turnovers and improving his three
point shooting. But it also helps a lot that Buddy Hield is now drawing a
ridiculous amount of defensive attention, making Woodard’s job substantially
easier. To say Hield’s improvement is jaw-dropping is an understatement. Hield improved from 16.5 PPG as a sophomore to
17.4 PPG as a junior. It would be logical for him to improve by another point
or two in his senior year. But for a player like Hield, who was not believed to
have can’t-miss NBA-level athleticism in the preseason, to somehow increase his
scoring to 25.9 PPG as a senior, is ridiculous. And almost all that improvement
is due to improved shooting accuracy.
Technically Aaron Ross
has seen a greater jump in efficiency than Woodard, but Ross was injured last
year and his low efficiency should be thrown out.
In the preseason, we
picked breakout players at SI.com. Two Big 12 players, Allerik Freeman, and
Justin Edwards, made our list. These are noted with a “+”. Both have delivered.
We also predicted a rather substantial leap in efficiency for Wayne Selden.
After a strong freshman year, last year’s shooting slump looked like a statistical
fluke, and that has proven to be the case.
Jaysean Paige’s
development is a key reason West Virginia has gone from a borderline Top 25
team in the preseason to a Top 10 team.
The Big 12’s biggest
improvements are impressive. You will not see nearly as many experienced
players with huge efficiency gains in the other leagues.
ChPPG, ChMin%, ChPoss%,
ChORtg, Player, Team, CurrentPPG
5.1, 33%, -5%, 11.1,
T.J. Maston, Baylor, 7.0
4.8, 42%, -3%, 12.6, Devonte'
Graham, Kansas, 10.5
4.7, 20%, 1%, 6.5, Jeff
Newberry, Oklahoma St., 11.4
4.4, 42%, -1%, -3.4,
Jeffrey Carroll, Oklahoma St., 8.4
4.3, 28%, 2%, 19.9,
Khadeem Lattin, Oklahoma, 6.3
4.0, 21%, 4%, 1.9, Tarik
Phillip, West Virginia, 8.1
3.9, 4%, -1%, 12.3,
Georges Niang, Iowa St., 19.3
3.9, 33%, 5%, 0.8,
Ishmail Wainright, Baylor, 5.3
3.6, 10%, 3%, 8.8, D.J.
Johnson, Kansas St., 6.8
3.5, 7%, 2%, 2.8, Monte
Morris, Iowa St., 15.5
3.5, 9%, 0%, 21.5,
Toddrick Gotcher, Texas Tech, 10.7
3.4, 9%, 3%, 1.5, Zach Smith,
Texas Tech, 9.6
3.3, 12%, 1%, -0.8,
Daxter Miles, Jr., West Virginia, 10.6
3.3, 66%, -4%, -40.0,
Michael Williams, TCU, 5.1
3.3, -4%, 0%, 22.9,
Johnathan Motley, Baylor, 11.0
3.1, 23%, 1%, 20.1,
Tyree Griffin, Oklahoma St., 4.6
TJ Maston and Devonte’ Graham’s
improvement in efficiency comes with a caveat. They are using fewer
possessions.
In addition to Hield
and Woodard, Khadeem Lattin has become much more efficient for Oklahoma. He is
mostly taking wide-open lay-ups this year, but his two point percentage is substantially
elevated over last year.
Don’t overlook the
improvement of Georges Niang. Like Hield, Niang is showing that even polished
veteran offensive players can get better.
DJ Johnson’s stats are
relative to two years ago. He missed last season.
Michael Williams barely
played last year, so don’t read too much into his decline.
ChPPG, ChMin%, ChPoss%,
ChORtg, Player, Team, CurrentPPG
2.9, 6%, -1%, 10.2,
Perry Ellis, Kansas, 16.7
2.8, 10%, 1%, 8.5, Jevon
Carter, West Virginia, 11.0
2.8, 10%, 5%, 14.7,
Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, Kansas, 5.7
2.8, 21%, 0%, 13.1,
Isaiah Taylor, Texas, 15.9
2.7, 26%, -15%, 30.7,
Joe Burton, Oklahoma St., 4.5
2.6, 25%, 1%, 18.1, Justin
Gray, Texas Tech, 9.3
2.4, 14%, 4%, -7.8,
Mitchell Solomon, Oklahoma St., 3.6
2.4, 27%, -2%, 0.3,
Brandon Parrish, TCU, 8.0
2.4, 13%, 1%, -7.0,
Devonta Abron, TCU, 5.2
2.3, 19%, -4%, 6.4,
Stephen Hurt, Kansas St., 6.6
2.3, 12%, -1%, 12.6,
Javan Felix, Texas, 11.0
2.3, 18%, 1%, 10.8,
Anthony Allen, Jr., Oklahoma St., 3.9
2.2, -4%, 7%, -4.7,
Karviar Shepherd, TCU, 8.4
2.1, 4%, -1%, 21.0,
Jonathan Holton, West Virginia, 9.7
2.1, 8%, 0%, 0.4,
Devaugntah Williams, Texas Tech, 12.5
No one in the Big 12
has seen a bigger jump in possession’s used than TCU’s Karviar Shepherd, and
his efficiency has fallen because of it.
ChPPG, ChMin%, ChPoss%,
ChORtg, Player, Team, CurrentPPG
2.0, -7%, 3%, 3.4,
Norense Odiase, Texas Tech, 9.0
1.9, 29%, 0%, 2.0,
Jameel McKay, Iowa St., 12.9
1.7, 5%, 0%, 11.9,
Elijah Macon, West Virginia, 6.0
1.7, 0%, 2%, 6.7, Devin
Williams, West Virginia, 13.1
1.4, -1%, 1%, -9.6,
Tavarius Shine, Oklahoma St., 4.8
1.4, 4%, 2%, 9.2, Lester
Medford, Baylor, 9.0
1.4, 3%, 0%, 10.2,
Isaiah Cousins, Oklahoma, 13.1
1.4, 13%, -2%, 5.6,
Keenan Evans, Texas Tech, 7.1
1.3, 11%, -2%, 5.8,
Connor Lammert, Texas, 6.4
1.2, 10%, 0%, -1.7,
Taurean Prince, Baylor, 15.1
1.1, -11%, -1%, 13.6,
Brannen Greene, Kansas, 6.8
1.1, 12%, 0%, 6.9,
Prince Ibeh, Texas, 3.2
1.1, 4%, 0%, -0.1, Ryan
Spangler, Oklahoma, 10.7
Tavarious
Shine’s
efficiency is down, but in fairness he is returning from an injury AND he
didn’t get to play as many cupcake teams in the preseason.
ChPPG, ChMin%, ChPoss%,
ChORtg, Player, Team, CurrentPPG
0.9, -6%, 0%, 6.4, Rico
Gathers, Baylor, 12.5
0.8, -4%, 2%, 0.5, Frank
Mason, Kansas, 13.4
0.8, 8%, -3%, 9.7,
Dinjiyl Walker, Oklahoma, 4.1
0.5, -3%, 1%, 13.6,
Landen Lucas, Kansas, 4.0
0.5, 11%, -3%, 14.7,
Hunter Mickelson, Kansas, 2.8
0.5, 0%, -1%, 5.9,
Nathan Adrian, West Virginia, 3.3
0.2, -32%, 5%, -24.3,
Chris Washburn, TCU, 7.2
-2.1, -18%, -3%, 9.3,
Jamari Traylor, Kansas, 2.7
-3.7, -34%, -2%, -11.1,
Demarcus Holland, Texas, 3.4
-3.7, -33%, -3%, 4.9,
Kendal Yancy, Texas, 2.6
Kansas’ Frank Mason got a lot of love in the
preseason, but he hasn’t delivered. Part of that may be because of the
increased defensive attention he is facing, but if you want a reason why
Oklahoma has risen and Kansas has fallen relative to preseason expectations,
here is a pretty clear explainer. Mason plays the most minutes for Kansas and he
is not any more efficient than last year. Meanwhile, Buddy Hield plays the most
minutes for Oklahoma and he has gotten substantially better.
Chris Washburn’s numbers are way worse than last
year, but in fairness he is returning from an injury AND he didn’t get to
play any cupcake teams in the preseason.
As a freshman and sophomore, Texas’ Demarcus Holland struggled
to make three point shots. Then as a junior, he suddenly shot 46% from deep. This
year, as a senior, he is struggling again. His good junior season appears to
have been a fluke.
Is Kendal Yancy
going to transfer out of Texas? His minutes have ticked up some lately, but
that is a pretty serious decline in playing time. Most players won’t accept
that.