Hypothetical Question

Suppose Coach Self decides he wants Dajuan Harris in the starting lineup and he asks you who he should sit. What do you tell him and why?

I would say CB because I do not want to to take out JW because of his rebounding.

First of all, I think Dajuan is playing about the right amount of minutes. I like how Self is using him. I do not see him deserving more minutes other than in spot situations like the UTEP game. But don't mistake the UTEP game as the emergence of Dajuan. Look at his player rating chart. He was fantastic against UTEP but he was abysmal in the prior game against Baylor. For the season he has been up and down more often than a yoyo. If fact, more than any other player, he seems to be the ultimate feast of famine player. He seems to either have a great game or a total stinker. That is not the type of player you want leading the team. Marcus is the complete antithesis. He has had few blowout the roof type games, but he has been amazingly consistent. And without going into the gory details of the player rating, the mark (the little Jayhawk on the charts) is based on minutes played where more minutes also increases the expectation of efficiency per minute played. So If Dajuan were to play twice as many minutes his mark would do something more like 2.5-3 times. That makes these starters performances to the mark even more impressive. Look at Dajuan's chart and compare to Marcus's. On any given game when you catch Dajuan's lightning in the bottle then awesome. But for a starting spot we MUST have consistency.




But let's accept your hypothet and look at the options. HE suggested Jalen because he has been in a funk. I'm not sure what HE is referring to. Jalen has easily his worst game of the season against UTEP. But prior to that he was riding the crest of a ratings wave. He was on a 10 game streak where he was playing at team MVP potential level. Jalen had a very clear to see 4 game funk in January. It is so clear and demarcated that one wonders what might be at the source. That 4 game swoon was just bizarre. He was good before the funk and even better in the 10 games following. Then the UTEP game which was also bizarre. Let's hope the UTEP game was not the beginning of another bizarre funk. So I am not seeing the "bit of a funk" that HE was saying. Look at the chart below to see this trend. And I am in total agreement with HE that Jalen's rebounding has become one of the true bright spots and critical success factors on this team. We suffered in that category against UTEP with Jalen riding the pine for most of the game. So no, I would not bench Jalen.



I also concur with Hairy that Christian is the one to remove from the starting lineup if we needed to insert Dajuan. And I love Christian. I have super high hopes for him over the next two years. But by inserting Dajuan, you lose little on defense if any, depending on the matchups. The only difference is Christian can guard some bigger guys if needed. You lose some potential offense but Christian is soo soo timid too too often. And Dajuan does get the ball moving better than anyone else on the team. You also lose rebounding. Christian is a far better rebounder than Dajuan. And Christian has been pretty solid over the last 10 games as well. He has actually been better than Ochai over the last 10 games in terms of player rating. So why pick Chistian over Ochai to sit. Despite the fact that Dajuan and Christian are close friends, the data says that Dajuan and Ochai are a little more effective together but just barely. Ochai+Dajuan rate higher on offense than Braun+Harris but Braun+Harris rate higher on defense. The net delta goes to Agbaji+Harris by a fraction. So I would sit either Agbaji or Braun with Braun getting the edge. But as I said in opening, I would not alter the minutes on this team much at all from what Self has been administering.

With DMac out for KC, and likely the duration*, I like Dajuan in for most of the game.
Thoughts?

*As I understand the protocol players must have seven negative tests results before admittance to the NCAA Bubble.