×
Rock Chalk Talk: Basketball
Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage
Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage
Player by Player Analysis
3 years 9 months ago #26246
by CorpusJayhawk
Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!
I completely rewrote my player rating system over the weekend. It is about time. My old system was fine but it was really my first iteration many years ago. I am a bit more knowledgeable now so I tried to build a more accurate system. As I looked at the player ratings of this group, what I already knew was reinforced. Here is my very high level conclusion as to why this team is gravitating to relative mediocrity.
1. We have no true star that can seemingly take over a game at times or lift the rest of the team. We have a bunch of nice players with fair talent but no real game changer.
2. Our overall talent is fair but clearly below the bar set by previous KU teams. Again, we have talent it is just a notch or two below our usual expectation.
3. We lack adaptation. If Self ever had a weakness, like all of us, it stems from his strength. Self runs more of a structured offense and defense than the average coach. That can make it difficult for young or new players to step right in an excel. But that system has proven to be incredibly successful at the highest level. But when you have players who lack the creative ability or will to improvise, it can become predictable. We have a few players who have shown adaptivity but to varying degrees. Tyon Grant-Foster appears to be the ultimate adaptive player, he simply lacks the ability to do so going against the grain of the rest of the team and he just doesn't quite have the skills to make it work well. Tristan has spent his young career trying to be adaptive but it has appeared more rebellious and cowboy like. Jalen was surprisingly adaptive for the 1st 10 games but confoundingly has seemed to lose it. Braun is a system guy to the core. Marcus is a system guy dominantly. David has tried adapting to a degree but with limited success. Ochai is really a system guy at this point but seems to be developing the skills to be more adaptive but it goes against his grain. We need a Josh Jackson, or Devon Dotson or a Devonte' Graham. Guys who were the ultimate adaptive players. We lack that.
4. Now here is maybe the biggest one of all. This team is wildly inconsistent. They are inconsistent from game to game and from possession to possession. Heck, they are inconsistent within the 30 seconds of a possession. This team is the most inconsistent team I can recall. And this is a main reason why many of us are frustrated. They have shown the ability to play at a very high level. Then they seem to funk out in an almost laissez-faire mode. Or even an outright incompetence mode. You always wonder with college young men how much psyche plays into it. Jalen Wilson is not the same player the last 5 games he was the early part of the season. Why? Sure, scouting is part of it but adaptive ability is the counter to scouting. This issue of inconsistency is huge with this team. It shows in my DPPI algorithm and it shows in the eye test. As the infamous boxer Mike Tyson was quoted, "Every one has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." This team does not react or adapt to being punched at times. At other times they have. Is it team chemistry? Is it coaching? Is it girlfriend troubles? Is it some other off-court issues? Is it lack of mental toughness? These are all questions that make for great speculation and endless internet discussion but in reality are harder to get a true and meaningful grasp.
So let me share with you a player by player analysis to illustrate some of these points. Without going into the gory detail of how my player rating works, suffice it to say that the rating based on a players overall contribution to team success but also factors in individual stats. It is also adjusted for the quality of opponent. So performing well against a Tennessee is substantially more valuable than performing well against Omaha. One other note, on the graphs below, the blue bar is the actual player rating. The red dashed line is the projected rating needed from that player for KU to perform at a championship level (roughly to be a top 10 team) So for KU to consistently be a top 10 team, all players would need to be at or above the red line. As you will see, that is the problem. So here we go.
1. Team Co-Leader - Marcus Garrett
As you can see, Marcus has been pretty nicely consistent from an overall contribution standpoint. This surprised me a little when I finished this analysis. He has done a lot that is not always on the stat line. He had a very slow start. He was okay against Gonzaga an played very well against St Joseph's. Then he had a couple bad games but since then, only the Oklahoma St. game has been a dud. He has played right at the level required. But here is where one of the team problems comes in. Remember I talked about every team needing that go-to stud that can take over games. Well for us this season, it has to be Marcus or Ochai (or possible Jalen if he ever recovers). What that "taking over" looks like is when the blue bars ore well above the red line on a fairly consistent basis. Marcus has two such games (Omaha and Oklahoma). But when you look at the Oklahoma game, one reason Marcus is so high is that almost everyone else was so low. He played relatively well against Tennessee but again, everyone else was low. I would say Marcus grades out at a solid B+ for the season as a contributor but something less than that as a team leader.
2. Team Co-Leader - Ochai Agbaji
The eye test for Ochai this season says he is an improved version of the sophomore Ochai. He is slightly better at handling the ball, passing, shooting and decision making. He has shot mostly well until the last couple games. The first thing you notice on Ochai's chart is the inconsistency. He has had a couple really nice games (1st TCU, 1st Oklahoma, Omaha, Texas Tech). But boy oh boy has he had some stinkers. Texas and Creighton were horrible and Oklahoma, Baylor and Texas were not much better. It begs the question, Ochai seems to fade against the top opponents. Is that really the case or is his chart an attribute of the teams fade against quality opponents? Perhaps they are tied since Ochai is a team leader. This chart is concerning for this factor alone, can Ochai dig down against the toughest opponents consistently? It will be interesting to watch this as the season progresses. Hey, it bodes well for tomorrows game against lowly K-State. Maybe Ochai will go off.
3. Team Enigma - Jalen Wilson
Seriously, Jalen opened the season not just as a freshman phenom, but a potential stud who could take over games. After an okay opening against Gonzaga, he proceeded to virtually dominate over the next 11 games. He was not just a good freshman, he was that x-factor guy. Then it stopped. I mean it came crashing to an unceremonious halt. He showed flashed against Tennessee but it was too little too late. His 4 game stretch from OSU to TCU was something south of very bad. He was no compos mentis. Talk about the freshman wall. KU's clearest path to a decent season finish is to get that 1st 12 game Jalen back to form. I have no clue what happened. Was it the quality of competition? Was it an injury? Is it a personal problem? I have no clue why Jalen hit the wall and crashed. Thus, I have no idea what to expect from the future. But after a fairly in-depth analysis of this team, I can say with some confidence, we will not have a story book finish without Jalen returning to some reasonable semblance of form.
4. Team scapegoat -- Dave McCormack
Why do I call David the team scapegoat? Well mostly that is bad on me, I have been a huge critic of David this season. It has been essentially 100% from my eye test. I see so much of what he is doing wrong in the game and it frustrates me. He misses too many shots. He can't keep smaller guys anywhere close to in front of him on defense. He does not set screens exceptionally well. His offensive footwork is often poor. On and on. But after doing a thorough look at his corpus of work via the lens of the player rating, David has been acceptable. In fact, he has had 4 exceptional games where he was the x-factor. Unfortunately his teammates let him down in the Oklahoma State game but he played exceptionally well. He played reasonably well against Tennessee. He even played adequately against Baylor for the few minutes he played. So David, I apologize for being quick to recognize your weaknesses and not giving you proper credit for what you have done well. But as with Ochai, David has been somewhat inconsistent. That is a theme of this entire team. One last thing to mention about David. The red line, which is the projected rating needed, is a sliding scale based on minutes played. In other words, starters need to play at a higher level than subs. Not only do they play more minutes but they need to play at a higher level in those minutes. You can see that David's red line is somewhat less than Ochai and Marcus and even Christian. That is because David is only averaging 21 minutes per game. That in itself is a problem. If David played at the same level he has been but played 30 minutes per game, his red line would go commensurately up and his performance would look slightly less glowing. But good on David. He has been reasonably solid if not somewhat inconsistent.
5 -Team underachiever - Christian Braun
When the season started, I had super high expectations of Christian. I had adopted him as sort of my favorite player. Thus, it saddens me to say that he has also been one of the biggest disappointments this season. Christian has had 4 really outstanding games this season, 4 solid game, 4 somewhat subpar games, and 5 absolute stinkers. That is the recipe for classic textbook inconsistency. Like Ochai, the stinkers are against Gonzaga, Texas Tech, Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. All tough opponents. Are you noticing a pattern? Both Ochai and Christian seem to have a tendency to fade against the elite opponents. Well, that is until you consider that Christian's 4 great games are Baylor, West Virginia, Kentucky and St. Joseph's. I don't know? I am at a loss. Who is Christian Braun? He has never showed that go-to capability that Jalen teased us with. But he certainly has some impact ability. But why does it come and go? Arghh!
1. We have no true star that can seemingly take over a game at times or lift the rest of the team. We have a bunch of nice players with fair talent but no real game changer.
2. Our overall talent is fair but clearly below the bar set by previous KU teams. Again, we have talent it is just a notch or two below our usual expectation.
3. We lack adaptation. If Self ever had a weakness, like all of us, it stems from his strength. Self runs more of a structured offense and defense than the average coach. That can make it difficult for young or new players to step right in an excel. But that system has proven to be incredibly successful at the highest level. But when you have players who lack the creative ability or will to improvise, it can become predictable. We have a few players who have shown adaptivity but to varying degrees. Tyon Grant-Foster appears to be the ultimate adaptive player, he simply lacks the ability to do so going against the grain of the rest of the team and he just doesn't quite have the skills to make it work well. Tristan has spent his young career trying to be adaptive but it has appeared more rebellious and cowboy like. Jalen was surprisingly adaptive for the 1st 10 games but confoundingly has seemed to lose it. Braun is a system guy to the core. Marcus is a system guy dominantly. David has tried adapting to a degree but with limited success. Ochai is really a system guy at this point but seems to be developing the skills to be more adaptive but it goes against his grain. We need a Josh Jackson, or Devon Dotson or a Devonte' Graham. Guys who were the ultimate adaptive players. We lack that.
4. Now here is maybe the biggest one of all. This team is wildly inconsistent. They are inconsistent from game to game and from possession to possession. Heck, they are inconsistent within the 30 seconds of a possession. This team is the most inconsistent team I can recall. And this is a main reason why many of us are frustrated. They have shown the ability to play at a very high level. Then they seem to funk out in an almost laissez-faire mode. Or even an outright incompetence mode. You always wonder with college young men how much psyche plays into it. Jalen Wilson is not the same player the last 5 games he was the early part of the season. Why? Sure, scouting is part of it but adaptive ability is the counter to scouting. This issue of inconsistency is huge with this team. It shows in my DPPI algorithm and it shows in the eye test. As the infamous boxer Mike Tyson was quoted, "Every one has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." This team does not react or adapt to being punched at times. At other times they have. Is it team chemistry? Is it coaching? Is it girlfriend troubles? Is it some other off-court issues? Is it lack of mental toughness? These are all questions that make for great speculation and endless internet discussion but in reality are harder to get a true and meaningful grasp.
So let me share with you a player by player analysis to illustrate some of these points. Without going into the gory detail of how my player rating works, suffice it to say that the rating based on a players overall contribution to team success but also factors in individual stats. It is also adjusted for the quality of opponent. So performing well against a Tennessee is substantially more valuable than performing well against Omaha. One other note, on the graphs below, the blue bar is the actual player rating. The red dashed line is the projected rating needed from that player for KU to perform at a championship level (roughly to be a top 10 team) So for KU to consistently be a top 10 team, all players would need to be at or above the red line. As you will see, that is the problem. So here we go.
1. Team Co-Leader - Marcus Garrett
As you can see, Marcus has been pretty nicely consistent from an overall contribution standpoint. This surprised me a little when I finished this analysis. He has done a lot that is not always on the stat line. He had a very slow start. He was okay against Gonzaga an played very well against St Joseph's. Then he had a couple bad games but since then, only the Oklahoma St. game has been a dud. He has played right at the level required. But here is where one of the team problems comes in. Remember I talked about every team needing that go-to stud that can take over games. Well for us this season, it has to be Marcus or Ochai (or possible Jalen if he ever recovers). What that "taking over" looks like is when the blue bars ore well above the red line on a fairly consistent basis. Marcus has two such games (Omaha and Oklahoma). But when you look at the Oklahoma game, one reason Marcus is so high is that almost everyone else was so low. He played relatively well against Tennessee but again, everyone else was low. I would say Marcus grades out at a solid B+ for the season as a contributor but something less than that as a team leader.
2. Team Co-Leader - Ochai Agbaji
The eye test for Ochai this season says he is an improved version of the sophomore Ochai. He is slightly better at handling the ball, passing, shooting and decision making. He has shot mostly well until the last couple games. The first thing you notice on Ochai's chart is the inconsistency. He has had a couple really nice games (1st TCU, 1st Oklahoma, Omaha, Texas Tech). But boy oh boy has he had some stinkers. Texas and Creighton were horrible and Oklahoma, Baylor and Texas were not much better. It begs the question, Ochai seems to fade against the top opponents. Is that really the case or is his chart an attribute of the teams fade against quality opponents? Perhaps they are tied since Ochai is a team leader. This chart is concerning for this factor alone, can Ochai dig down against the toughest opponents consistently? It will be interesting to watch this as the season progresses. Hey, it bodes well for tomorrows game against lowly K-State. Maybe Ochai will go off.
3. Team Enigma - Jalen Wilson
Seriously, Jalen opened the season not just as a freshman phenom, but a potential stud who could take over games. After an okay opening against Gonzaga, he proceeded to virtually dominate over the next 11 games. He was not just a good freshman, he was that x-factor guy. Then it stopped. I mean it came crashing to an unceremonious halt. He showed flashed against Tennessee but it was too little too late. His 4 game stretch from OSU to TCU was something south of very bad. He was no compos mentis. Talk about the freshman wall. KU's clearest path to a decent season finish is to get that 1st 12 game Jalen back to form. I have no clue what happened. Was it the quality of competition? Was it an injury? Is it a personal problem? I have no clue why Jalen hit the wall and crashed. Thus, I have no idea what to expect from the future. But after a fairly in-depth analysis of this team, I can say with some confidence, we will not have a story book finish without Jalen returning to some reasonable semblance of form.
4. Team scapegoat -- Dave McCormack
Why do I call David the team scapegoat? Well mostly that is bad on me, I have been a huge critic of David this season. It has been essentially 100% from my eye test. I see so much of what he is doing wrong in the game and it frustrates me. He misses too many shots. He can't keep smaller guys anywhere close to in front of him on defense. He does not set screens exceptionally well. His offensive footwork is often poor. On and on. But after doing a thorough look at his corpus of work via the lens of the player rating, David has been acceptable. In fact, he has had 4 exceptional games where he was the x-factor. Unfortunately his teammates let him down in the Oklahoma State game but he played exceptionally well. He played reasonably well against Tennessee. He even played adequately against Baylor for the few minutes he played. So David, I apologize for being quick to recognize your weaknesses and not giving you proper credit for what you have done well. But as with Ochai, David has been somewhat inconsistent. That is a theme of this entire team. One last thing to mention about David. The red line, which is the projected rating needed, is a sliding scale based on minutes played. In other words, starters need to play at a higher level than subs. Not only do they play more minutes but they need to play at a higher level in those minutes. You can see that David's red line is somewhat less than Ochai and Marcus and even Christian. That is because David is only averaging 21 minutes per game. That in itself is a problem. If David played at the same level he has been but played 30 minutes per game, his red line would go commensurately up and his performance would look slightly less glowing. But good on David. He has been reasonably solid if not somewhat inconsistent.
5 -Team underachiever - Christian Braun
When the season started, I had super high expectations of Christian. I had adopted him as sort of my favorite player. Thus, it saddens me to say that he has also been one of the biggest disappointments this season. Christian has had 4 really outstanding games this season, 4 solid game, 4 somewhat subpar games, and 5 absolute stinkers. That is the recipe for classic textbook inconsistency. Like Ochai, the stinkers are against Gonzaga, Texas Tech, Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. All tough opponents. Are you noticing a pattern? Both Ochai and Christian seem to have a tendency to fade against the elite opponents. Well, that is until you consider that Christian's 4 great games are Baylor, West Virginia, Kentucky and St. Joseph's. I don't know? I am at a loss. Who is Christian Braun? He has never showed that go-to capability that Jalen teased us with. But he certainly has some impact ability. But why does it come and go? Arghh!
Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Share this page:
