Big 12 Player Development

This is the first of several posts on player development in the major conferences. I basically wanted to look at every player in the top leagues and see who was performing above or below what we should typically expect.

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 Players

I 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 30^th, 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.

Early Season Thoughts

I am taking the year off from writing about college basketball. But I still follow the sport closely, and occasionally I need to share a few thoughts. Thus today’s rare column.
 
Butler’s Transformation

Teams are usually pretty consistent stylistically from year to year. You know you have to fear Michigan’s offense every season. They will have some quick guards and some big men who can shoot and their perimeter-oriented attack is lethal year-after-year. You know Louisville is going to let its guards gamble for steals, rely on a solid back-line to protect the rim, and play elite defense every year. You know Syracuse is going to play zone defense and rely on forcing turnovers and getting out in transition. You know Duke is going to deny threes and make a lot of threes.

Styles rarely change, but in the preseason our SI projections thought Butler might change its spots from a defense-oriented team:

Butler Last Year, 82^nd ranked offense, 7^th ranked defense

Butler SI Projection, 49^th ranked offense, 35^th ranked defense

We thought the addition of NC State transfer Tyler Lewis would help take the Butler offense to the next level, but that the loss of Kameron Woods physicality and next-level rebounding would cause the defense to drop off. So far, the effect has been even more dramatic than expected:

Butler KenPom Early, 12^th ranked offense, 79^th ranked defense

Now preseason projections still factor heavily into KenPom’s numbers, so you might question whether the swing has been this dramatic. But the raw numbers also support this. Butler misses Woods’ defensive rebounding:

Butler Defensive Rebounding Rank

2015 9^th
2016 142^nd

But on offense, things are much better. Last year Alex Barlow was a passable ball-handler, but he wasn’t great. This year Tyler Lewis is playing at a much higher level:

Butler Offensive Turnover Rate

2015 51^st
2016 4^th

Butler Offensive eFG%

2015 201^st
2016 27^th

Butler remains a fringe Top 25 team, but they are winning in a completely different way than last season.

Over 1000 Words on Providence where I barely mention Kris Dunn

In the preseason, SI projected Providence as a fringe bubble team. We didn’t have them in the field and we thought it would take some unexpected player performance for them to get there.

There were a couple of reasons for this skeptical projection. First, Providence did not have a great defensive team last season. And that was with two 7-footers Carson Desrosiers and Paschal Chukwu, and another experienced big man in Tyler Harris playing significant minutes. The Friars have much less size this season and we expected the Providence defense to be worse this year.

Second, as great as Kris Dunn is, a lot of Providence’s returning players just didn’t have great individual projections. Kyron Cartwright, Jalen Lindsey, and Junior Lomomba were all very passive players last season, and they still weren’t that efficient given how rarely they shot. Throw in a freshman Ryan Fazekas who wasn’t ranked high enough to expect an instant-impact, and you had a group of players who was likely to drag Dunn down quite a bit.

The key player in the preseason that was intriguing was Rodney Bullock. CBS Sports.com wrote about how Bullock could score over 15 PPG. But frankly, that seemed a little optimistic. Players that sit out don’t always come in and play at a high level.

Here is a list of some of Bullocks peer-type players. These are players who sat out most or all of last season and who do not have significant D1 experience. I’m going to exclude intentional red-shirts since that may suggest players who were not ready. This is a list of players who were ineligible, injured, or on mission trips.

10.0 PPG, 95 ORtg, 76% of minutes, Ohio St.’s JaQuan Lyle, #30 Recruit

3.1 PPG, 73 ORtg, 44% of minutes, Florida’s Brandone Francis-Ramirez, #31 Recruit
4.3 PPG, 104 ORtg, 40% of minutes, UCLA’s Jonah Bolden, #36 Recruit
9.8 PPG, 95 ORtg, 64% of minutes, Gonzaga’s Josh Perkins, #60 Recruit
14.7 PPG, 103 ORtg, 73% of minutes, BYU’s Nick Emery, #61 Recruit
8.3 PPG, 97 ORtg, 47% of minutes, San Diego St.’s Zylan Cheatem, #79 Recruit

These teams were all hoping that these players could all step into a meaningful role this year. But even though they were a year older and ranked highly out of high school, the results have been inconsistent at best.

I am not going to list all the similar players from 2014, but here are a few of the stronger performances for players that sat out un-intentionally in 2013 and debuted in 2014:

10.0 PPG, 101 ORtg, 84% of minutes, UCLA’s Isaac Hamilton, #19 Recruit
14.9 PPG, 97 ORtg, 84% of minutes, Florida St.’s Xavier Rathan Mayes, #43 Recruit
11.9 PPG, 99 ORtg, 70% of minutes, Marquette’s Duane Wilson, #59 Recruit

The key to me is that even though some of these players were able to step in and play big roles, none was able to do so at a star-level of efficiency. So when I read about Rodney Bullock being the key second piece to take Providence to the NCAA tournament, I was skeptical. Bullock might play a lot of minutes. And he might have to shoot a lot. But after not playing basketball for two full seasons, could he really score and be efficient at the same time? Here are the numbers so far:

13.1 PPG, 110 ORtg, 77% of minutes, Providence’s Rodney Bullock

That’s not a bad start. Oh, but let me mention one more thing. Bullock was NOT a Top 100 recruit like all the other players listed above. He was not considered a can’t-miss prospect out of high school. His name has been in the news a lot, but remember that when Brandon Austin and Rodney Bullock were suspended, it was Austin who was the prized Top 100 recruit. Bullock was just expected to be another player. Scout, Rivals, and ESPN all considered Bullock to be a 3-star recruit, which is pretty much the lowest ranking major conference recruits typically get. ESPN gave him a 77 rating.

So while I give CBS Sports a ton of credit for going to practice and raving about Bullock, I also have to say that for a non-elite recruit to sit out for two seasons and then debut above most Top 100 players who had to sit out, that’s pretty remarkable.

Of course teams are starting to scout Bullock, and he may not be able to sustain this level of performance. Bullock was great in the first four games of the season and he’s been below average in the most recent four game stretch. But there aren’t very many comparable players who have done what Bullock is doing. If he keeps it up, he deserves a lot of praise.

…

Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Ben Bentil. We had him on our SI Breakout player list, and while he has exceeded even our expectations, his breakout is not that unusual for a sophomore. The shocker is that Bentil is playing 83% of the available minutes for his team. That’s extremely difficult to do, especially since Providence can rarely afford to let Bentil guard a less-physical big man. Since Ryan Fazekas and Jalen Lindsey have to play at the 4-spot whenever Bullock is out, Bentil is playing most of the game against the opposition’s strongest and most physical post player.

Providence’s two point defense has fallen off to 223^rd nationally, which is to be expected when you don’t have any true tall post players defending the rim. But Bentil’s ability to avoid foul trouble has at least kept opponent’s honest.

And most importantly, Providence has been forcing turnovers at a very high rate. After ranking just 134^th in turnovers forced last year, Providence is up to 26^th in turnovers forced this year. And that has allowed the team to compensate for the weaker rim protection.

I can’t tell you how many coaches talk in the preseason about forcing more turnovers and getting out in transition. Everyone says they want to do that, but it is hard to force turnovers if players do not prepare the right way.

I love UNLV’s roster this year. They have great size and great athleticism across the board, and quality experience at the PG position. UNLV looks like they would be an automatic tournament team. But their defense is just a bad gambling defense. They take way too many chances, and when they don’t get steals, they give up easy baskets.

Providence is just the opposite. They aren’t getting quite as many steals. But by pressuring the ball-handler, hugging players off the ball, and taking away passing lanes, they prevent teams from getting in easy scoring position.

The difference between UNLV and Providence is that Providence lets teams make mistakes. They play pressure defense while maintaining good guarding position and wait for their opponents to make a bad pass. That’s more effective than gambling.

…

Ben Bentil will get into foul trouble at some point. And Dunn is playing on the edge. He might not be so lucky with calls when he goes on the road in Big East play. So Providence’s lack of depth is going to cost them in some games. But right now, Providence is playing like a team that can win in the NCAA tournament.

And I think my biggest point is that while Kris Dunn will get most of the credit, and he deserves most of it, this shouldn’t be all about Dunn. Because of transfers and defections, Ed Cooley has pretty much had an undermanned roster for several years now. But he continues to develop less-heralded players into stars. And this year he has found the right buttons to push to make the defense work. The coaching staff deserves a lot of credit for putting these pieces together too. There are a lot of coaches that would have performed worse with this mismatched roster, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that as our jaws drop at what Dunn is doing.

Quick Thoughts

1) Our SI’s projections probably had San Diego St. too high in the preseason, but I’m shocked at how much Malik Pope has regressed. Pope was an elite prospect who was on a lot of NBA-watch lists. Last year he had a 5.7% block rate, a 106 ORtg, and he made 20% of his 3’s as a big man. As a sophomore everything pointed to him becoming a breakout star. Instead his block rate has fallen in half, his ORtg is down to 65, and that’s largely due to his eFG% of 23%. He just can’t make any jump shots right now.

The guard positions were supposed to be the weak spot for San Diego St. And if you had told me that Jeremy Helmsley and Dakarai Allen were going to play as well as they have, I would have expected San Diego St. to be playing at a high level. I did not expect the forward spot to be such a weakness.

2) We knew Vanderbilt’s offense was going to be good, but the big surprise early on is that they are also shutting teams down defensively. Kevin Stallings has never had a Top 30 defense in the previous 14 seasons Ken Pomeroy maintained the stats. The next few weeks should tell us a lot more about whether they have found the right formula on defense or just run into some cold teams early.

3) SI had Xavier at 21^st in the preseason which was higher than almost every expert. Our model saw a very deep team where even players at the tail end of the rotation had a strong individual projection. And Chris Mack is a quality coach who has taken Xavier to the NCAA tournament in 5 of the last 6 years.

It wasn’t that others hated Xavier. There seemed to be a consensus that Xavier would finish in the Top 3 in the Big East. But most people were skeptical of the team’s PG situation. Well guess what, even though Edmond Sumner and Larry Austin have been turnover prone (a 26% and 32% turnover rate respectively), the team’s overall depth has been able to overcome that. Xavier is undefeated, has a number of Top 100 wins, and has been winning convincingly. Point guard is probably the most important position on a college basketball team, but this just goes to show that if you have quality players throughout the lineup, having a great PG isn’t everything.

Leaving RealGM.com

As a quick FYI to my loyal readers, I am stepping away from my weekly column at RealGM.com. I would not rule out the possibility that I will return someday. But I needed to take a break from the 52-week grind, at least for the time being. I want to re-focus myself and set up some new challenges.

In the early 2000's I went to graduate school at the University of Illinois. In 2005, my final year of graduate school, my wife and I had enough season ticket priority to get tickets at courtside. Of course 2005 was a dream season. #1 ranked Wake Forest and Chris Paul visited Illinois during the ACC/Big Ten challenge and Illinois crushed them. It was the beginning of the Chris Paul vs Deron Williams’ rivalry, and I got to see it up close. And then the wins kept coming. Illinois lost just once in the regular season and my wife and I went to 5 of the 6 NCAA tournament games on Illinois' run to the title game. The night after the title game loss my wife and I went to dinner and ran into Coach Bruce Weber who was at the restaurant picking up dinner for his family. My wife said, "Great job coach!" and Weber said in an incredibly raspy voice, "Thank you!" I will never forget that magical run.

In 2007, I started writing about college basketball. I would watch a bunch of games on Saturday, think of a few statistical things I wanted to do to entertain myself, and blog about it. I never thought I would make any money writing about sports. But I owe a huge debt of gratitude to John Gasaway for encouraging me at Basketball Prospectus, and for continuing to drop my name when he moved to ESPN. John and Ken Pomeroy not only invited me to be the third ever author in the Basketball Prospectus book, they also inspired me by all the creative stuff they had written for so long. There were others I should thank from this time period. People like Eric Angevine, and Mike Miller who was the voice of NBC's College Basketball Talk in that day, made me believe that what I was doing was interesting. And I cannot tell you how many times a link or a tweet from CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander came at exactly the right time to encourage me to do more.

In 2011, Chris Reina from RealGM.com offered me a job as a college basketball columnist. It was a dream come true to earn money for something I loved. I covered 5 NCAA tournaments for RealGM.com from 2011 to 2015. I wrote at least 200 weekly columns in that time span, and probably closer to 250 columns overall. Here is my digital archive.

My most famous pieces were probably my statistical ones, like this one on how star ratings predict player performance. The follow-up, showing the variation in performance by star rating was also important, as was this piece on JUCO recruits. But there were lots of unique pieces I wrote in this time period. Here is an article I wrote about the timing when coaches lose their jobs. But my favorite pieces were probably my running diaries of March, starting with the first day of the major conference tournaments, and wrapping up with the national title game.

Other dreams came true in this time period. My preseason prediction model was featured in ESPN the Magazine and Sports Illustrated. The Sports Illustrated publication really resonated with me, not only because my name was on the cover, but because I still have a subscription to that magazine dating back to when my late grandfather first ordered it for me as a teenager. I owe Luke Winn a huge debt of gratitude for pitching my rankings to his editors. I knew when my work was featured in SI that I had come full circle.

But it also felt like an ending in some way. Writing something for Sports Illustrated had essentially been my goal since I got started as a college basketball writer. It occurred to me when that dream came true, that I needed some new dreams.

I will forever be thankful to RealGM.com for not only giving me the opportunity to get paid to do what I love, but also for challenging me. Writing a weekly column takes discipline, and churning out content 52 weeks a year inspired me to invest in college basketball at a whole new level. Things change the more you invest in a sport. Today I look forward to events like the Nike Hoop Summit (the most under-rated high school hoops event), I love the Thanksgiving tournaments, and I care whether elite freshman live up to expectations. Twenty years ago, I cared about none of those things.

But I thought my material in 2014-15 became too much of a repeat of 2013-14. One of the things that happens when you write a weekly column throughout the whole year is that you tend to find a set of annual topics that you can use to fill the space. And I was getting angry at myself for writing the same story every year. A sense of creativity was a key part of why I was doing this.

I also have a couple of larger college basketball projects that I want to work on. But instead of investing in those long-term projects, I found myself worried about my weekly column. And lately, I have started attending fewer college basketball games. And that is when I knew it was time for a change. When writing a weekly column was taking away from my ability to work on some unique projects and causing me to attend fewer games, I knew I had to switch things up. I love writing game stories. I love writing recaps. And I am sure I will do those things again. But for this year at least, you will have to live with a little less. I am not going to do a Way-Too-Early Top 25 or a Nike Hoop Summit Recap.

I will have preseason rankings in the fall. And I am not done writing about college basketball. If you continue to follow me on Twitter, you will still see my latest work. But after 5 years covering the NCAA tournament for RealGM.com, I need to step away for now.

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