Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Diving Into Kansas Basketball Numbers: Do the Jayhawks Have a Defensive Rebounding Issue?

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Diving into some analytics and lineup numbers for Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball from EvanMiya.com. What it tells us or confirms for this KU team. Plus, does Bill Self's squad have a defensive rebounding issue, and what can some of these numbers tell us about the center position between KJ Adams, Zuby Ejiofor, Ernest Udeh, Zach Clemence and Cam Martin?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! LinkedIn LinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply. Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. BetOnline BetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! SimpliSafe With Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnCollege to learn more. Omaha Steaks Omaha Steaks is a gift from the heart – a gift that will be remembered with every unforgettable bite. Order with complete confidence today knowing you’re ordering the very best. Visit OmahaSteaks.com use promo code LOCKEDON at checkout to get that EXTRA $30 OFF your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we're going to take a deep dive into some of the metrics, statistics on this Kansas basketball team, and what that can tell us about this team, including at the five. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk from 3 to 6, Monday through Friday on KLWN in Lawrence.

Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to talk some KU basketball, going into some maybe different metrics or, I don't know, advanced statistics, numbers of the KU basketball team, the early portion of the season, and what that can maybe tell us about the team, including at the five position. So let's just start right here. Evanmiakawa.com is a website that shows a lot of different rating numbers and really recommend checking out. We had him on Rock Chalk Sports Talk a couple of weeks ago to kind of talk about some of this stuff.

And it's a good way of seeing players and like a perfect example, like DeJuan Harris, for instance. DeJuan Harris doesn't necessarily put up the loftiest numbers for you, score 15 points per game. But clearly his value is very, you know, important for Kansas and one of the better ones in the team.

And so like, if you're just looking at all conference awards at the end of the season, DeJuan Harris might not be on the first or second team because he might only be averaging 8.6 assists per game. But when you look at this site with Evan Miyakawa, EvanMiyakawa.com,

you can see that his basically value is so far, it's been one of the top 10 players in the big 12. So it basically how it values players. It has this offensive Bayesian performance rating, defensive Bayesian performance rating, and then the overall rating, which is just you take the sum of the offense and the defense, put them together. And you might be asking, well, how is that put together? Well, it incorporates a player's individual efficiency stats. It incorporates on-court play-by-play impact and it accounts for

the offensive strength of um you know other teammates on the floor when you're for the offensive side of it all right if you have good offensive players around you that's going to be factored in to where hey if if they're always putting up good offensive numbers when you're on the floor it could just be that you have other good offensive players around you so that is factored in um on the defensive side the same thing be that you have other good offensive players around you. So that is factored in on the defensive side, the same thing with, do you have good defensive players around you? And then also factored in is the opponent strength, right? How good is the defensive value of the opponents? Or when you're on defense, how good is the offensive value of the opponents? Obviously, you know, when you put it all together, a higher rating is better. So that's just kind of

the primer on some of the numbers we're going to be using here and taking a deep dive into. Offensively, numbers that stick out for you, because it does have this nice little mix between the offense and the defense. And Jalen Wilson has the best offensive rating on the team. He has a 33 offensive rating, which you might be saying, I have no idea what that means. Is that very good? Well, that's also second in the entire big 12 in offensive rating. So yes, that is a very good number for Jalen Wilson, which

certainly is interesting. I know there've been some people, and this is like kind of a small sect of Kansas fans. I think for the most part, most Kansas fans know that yes, he's putting up big numbers. He has been awesome so far. He he's your best player at least offensively or getting his own bucket for this team and they need him to step up in those ways there is that like i said small subsect where it's like oh but he's shooting a little too much it's like this team does not have a ton of offensive options they're going to be just fine they need him to shoot a lot and yes he has one of the best ratings in the entire Big 12. DeJuan Harris is actually second on Kansas in terms of the offensive rating. He is seventh most valuable in the Big 12 offensively, too. So again, not a guy who's putting up like big numbers in terms of points per game, but

his value is just so important for what he brings to the table when he's on the floor for Kansas. He has a 25.3 rating. So there's actually a big drop between even Jalen and DeJuan. Grady Dick is third, not far behind DeJuan at 23.4. And both those guys are top 11 in the Big 12. DeJuan is actually top seven in the entire rating system in the Big 12. So is Jalen Wilson.

He's second there, too. And then you go to Kevin McCuller, who's fourth, and MJ Rice is fifth. So that, on its own, is a little bit interesting that your top five offensive players, none of them are centers. And it does kind of make you wonder, like, at any point, would we see a lineup where Jalen Wilson's at the five you know Kevin McCuller MJ Rice Grady Dick doesn't really matter which one's the two three or four it's just kind of about who's guarding who and then DeJuan at the one I don't think that'll ever be like a primary lineup or

anything but could we see it for like five ten minutes in a given game at some point I don't know it's definitely possible I'm not like expecting it to happen because I do think they really want to give all these centers different run and tries, but I would be very interested by that lineup if they ever decided to kind of float that out there. Now on the defensive side, some interesting numbers here. How about right off the top, the top defensive mark for a KU player in these ratings is Zuby Ejifer at a 20.4. Now, smaller sample size, hasn't played a ton of minutes. I mean, so far his mark would rank among players who are qualified by playing enough possession, so he is at least qualified for that.

He would rank fourth in defense among all Big 12 players. So that on its own, it's certainly wild and makes you, I don't know, maybe take another look at this guy because i i do think that he has been probably the best rebounder of the different big men and you're not really getting much offensively from most of the bigs i think uday has probably been the best offensive big for you so far and it's not from being a guy you're going to dump the ball to in the post and let him make a move it's more so just been as like a rim runner or running the floor hard or catching lobs.

Zuby has the top mark, so that's certainly interesting. Now, a lot of the guys in between, they're close together and there's not really a ton else that sticks out. But here is something that sticks out. So Bobby Pettiford is last for you and actually offensive and defensive rating, which I think reflects just when he's been on the floor, hasn't had a lot of necessarily stats next to his name. But K.J. Adams, oddly enough, is second to last among the nine qualified Kansas players

for defensive rating here on Evan Miyakawa's website. And I think when you look at and you say, well, Zuby Adjafar is first and K.J. Adams is second to last, there's a common theme, a common statistic that would go into that, in my opinion, because it's hard for me to figure out, well, I think KJ is a good on-ball defender. I think he's a very switchable defender. He's versatile. He's really good guarding the ball. He can be good off the ball also. But I think what this shows is how valuable defensive rebounding can be. Because when you look at defensive rebounding, just think about it.

That's ending the defensive possession. You can be the best defensive team in the country, right? Guarding the first shot. They miss every shot. But if they get all the offensive rebounds and they stick it back in for an easy bucket because they get the offensive rebound right near the rim, that's going to lead to not being as good of a defense. That's part of defense, right? That's part of it. It's clearing that possession. You can't fully have a stop until you get the defensive rebound, which is why Zuby Ejfer, been a really good defensive rebounder,

KJ Adams has kind of struggled in that regard, that that stat would kind of make sense. I want to dive a little bit more into this side of things, the defensive rebounding numbers and those defensive numbers in just a second here, and then we're going to get more so just kind of into the KU center position as a whole. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business.

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Zuby is first, and a lot of everybody else is kind of just mushed together in between. If we basically view it as, well, KJ actually is a good defender. I don't view this rating as saying he's a bad one, but the big thing hurting him is the defensive rebounding. I think that's a very fair way of looking at it. And when you look at what KJ is being asked to do for this Kansas team, it's not just be a helpful, versatile, good defender on the floor. It is being the guy who can grab a lot of those defensive rebounds for instance if KJ Adams was playing next to a center might worry you a lot on the offensive end of the floor but

like ideally in a perfect world you would have player uh Ernest Uday next to KJ and KJ was good enough to be able to shoot 30 percent from three and at least keep defenses honest out there and then the the defensive rebounding issues for KJ would be overcome by the center. And those defensive rating numbers for KJ would be a lot better. But because he is being asked to play the center position and the defensive rebounding numbers haven't been there, that's what drives the number down. So I did a search on college basketball reference for forwards and for centers at KU by defensive rebounding rate.

Now, I should clarify this defensive rebounding rate only goes back to 2009 on college basketball reference. So this is not like an all encompassing stat to go back to the entire self era or, you know, decades upon decades of time with Kansas, but it does give us a sample size of over a decade worth of bill self centers and forwards. And if you're wondering what defensive rebound rate is, it is the percentage of defensive rebounds that you grab when you're on the court and the opponent misses the shot. So for instance, if the opponent, when you're on the floor for whatever designation of minutes, the opponent misses 10 shots over that course of time. Let's say you grab two of those defensive rebounds.

Your defensive rebounding rate is 20%. Okay, makes sense. And if you're wondering what is a good defensive rebounding rate, what is maybe a bad one? Well, usually the leaders in the entire country, like Oscar Shibuye, for instance, going to be up toward the top like every year that he's in college basketball, it's around like the mid 30%.

If you're 30% or higher, you are one of the elite of the elite defensive rebounders. Even if you're 25% or higher, that's like a good number to have. Usually, ideally you want to be at like 20% if you're a center, right? Like David McCormick last year was at 19%. He wasn't like a great defensive rebounder, but he was good enough. That ranked top 300 nationally, right? So ideally, you want to be at least at 20%. You'd love to be at 25% or better. And if you're the elite of the elite, you're at 30, 35%, like an Oscar Chibwe.

KJ Adams is at 8.6%. So that has been the struggle. And again, I love KJ Adams. Brings a lot. Versatile, good defender in the other senses of it. But again, what's driving down the rating here is the defense rebound. He's a great offensive rebounder.

He catches lobs actually pretty well, dunks the ball. Well, he's actually a good passer too, which I think they exploited the last couple of games of getting him into those short roll scenarios into the, you know, on a pick and roll,

but he catches it as opposed to all the way through him. He catches it at the high post free throw line and is able to either take a dribble and try to dunk it if it's open or is able to if a guy is his same height or a little smaller use his power to to finish through contact or because of his passing is able to kick it out so he's a very useful player and i like kj adams a lot but when you look at some of the things this team needs the defensive rebounding certainly sticks out. And KJ has struggled in that regard with just an 8.6% defensive rebounding rate. So anyway, so back to all this search on college basketball reference, you can go search by position.

So I took out the guards, just forwards and centers for defensive rebounding rate back to 2009 when the stats started of players with a defensive rebounding rate of under 15% even, which KJ would qualify for. Over the past 13-ish years with this stat available, there's only been nine forwards or centers who play at least five minutes per game. That's still not even that big of a number, who have been under 15% on the defensive rebounding rate. Freshman Jamari Traylor, senior Mitch Lightfoot, kind of oddly enough, senior Perry Ellis,

sophomore Marcus Morris, and sophomore Mitch Lightfoot are part of that list. But all of those guys, even though they were under 15%, they were just barely under 15%. I mean, for most of those guys, they were in the 14% range. And then there's a couple of them that were in like the 13 and a half percent range. Then you drop off to sophomore, Justin Wesley, junior Jamari trailer. And those guys were both under 12%, but still in the double digits. Then you get to KJ at just 8.6%.

Literally the only player with a lower defensive rebounding rate of a forward or center for Kansas since 2009. Clay Young. And I don't even know if he would be considered a forward. I mean, he was asked to play that role for Kansas, but like realistically, he was a shooting guard wing that you didn't have much depth. And it was like, oh, he's a walk-on. He goes against the bigs in practice.

He's 6'5". We'll just play him because we're a little thin there. That's not a good list to be on. And the fact that basically among scholarship players, you are last signals why, despite KJ Adams being a good defender, why his defensive rating is bad. Because defensive rebounding important, and he is the linchpin when he is at the center position for Kansas as a defensive rebounding unit, it has not been good. Now, I say all this to say the importance of defensive rebounding, which we go back to Zuby Ejifer.

His defensive rebounding numbers are off the charts. That's why his rating is so good. When you're a center, that is one of the most important things. So what does this mean? Does it mean that Kansas needs to play other centers? Does it just mean that the Kansas Wings need to do a better job rebounding? I mean, for instance, the Seton Hall game, you got what? 23 combined rebounds from Jalen Wilson and Kevin McCuller.

And you really kept them off the offensive glass to a good rate, especially compared to what they were doing. Like they had been a really good offensive rebounding team, but you held them from really taking over the game on the offensive rebounding chart. Like you had a more than manageable game there, defensive rebounding. And the big reason why it was your wings were aggressive, crashing glass and getting rebounds.

So it might not just be that, okay, you have to have a center who can get a bunch of defensive rebounds. Like that would certainly help. And those numbers do need to improve for KJ. But a big part of that too can just be, hey, if the wings do a better job at crashing, crashing the glass and being aggressive, as opposed to maybe leaking out as much into transition,

that's going to help KJ and the centers too on the defensive glass. All right, we are going to get on to specifically more diving into all of the center's numbers in just a second here. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought by BetOnline. BetOnline.net is your number one source for sports betting information, stats, news, and analysis. You can get the latest odds and trends for every professional and amateur league out there from football to basketball to soccer,

esports, they've got it all at BetOnline.net. And if you love sports podcasts, which you're listening to this, you can find those too at BetOnline. They're the fastest and easiest way to get your betting fix. You can head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more right now. You can get the line for the Kansas Arkansas game. It opened at four and a half. I actually saw another site opened it at five already money coming in on Kansas, which I think is a bit reflective to one, maybe them thinking, you know, better thinking the

line was too big, but also Arkansas has had a lot of players maybe transfer out of the program. I think they've already lost double digit players. I don't know how many of those guys actually play. Drew Sanders, who's projected to be a first or second round pick linebacker, leads the team in sacks. He opted out to go to the NFL draft line has already dropped to three and a half on bet online. Now it's not just three and a half though, but you can also get plus three and a half at bet online for Kansas at plus 100 just three and a half though, but you can also get plus three and a half at bet online for Kansas at plus 100 odds. So you're getting good odds juice there.

Also the over under at 69 and a half. That's exciting for the game that you could have a very high scoring game, but sounds like the numbers are coming in on Kansas. So you better go to bet online quick before the numbers go away from you. Bet online where the game starts. I've done some of these different you know metrics or numbers or whatnot with the kansas centers this is kind of interesting the best offensive center so far for just the offensive rating has been earnest due day and he's actually you know been

one of the better players often rating rating kind of overall for the team. Now among the center second is KJ Adams. Third is Zuby Ejifer and very slightly over fourth with Zach Clements. I think that does reflect on Ernest's ability to run the floor in transition. Also his ability to catch lobs and throw down dunks. Like just being a rim roller and a rim runner, it's not the same as past KU bigs who have been able to catch the ball in the post

and make a move, drop step, spin by a guy, hit a hook shot, something like that. But it still is a useful role. There have been other really good college basketball offenses. I mentioned Baylor on a show a week ago or something that Baylor has been one of the more elite offenses in the country the past few years. They haven't had that center either. They've just had rim rolling centers that with creative guards who can get their own shot. If you overemphasize those guys, the center is going to be good

and running hard at it that after he sets a hard pick he's going to be able to throw down a dunk or make an easy catch and finish and that is what Ernest Uday right now can provide if he can add anything to his low block game in the post or just carving out those angles that Bill Self does such a good job of creating for his big man it's going to only add more but he has been the the best offense center actually followed by KJ Adams for, I think, a lot of the reasons that he probably is the most versatile in terms of his ability to dribble and pass. Defensively, the best, as we mentioned, has been Zuby, that he's overall best on the team. Second has actually been Zach Clements so far this season. Third has been Ernest Uday. Fourth has been KJ Adams. Now for Clements, the defensive numbers are kind of encouraging there

for a guy that you wonder about some of those things like rebounding and defense. What is he going to provide there? Because I, ideally he is a stretch five. You have the questions about what is he going to do in the other ways? He's actually done okay on the defensive side of the ball, but for him, it just kind of does at this point come down to the shooting. He's not hitting. He's 0 for 11 from the field. He's 0 for 9 from three-point range. And Zach Clements so far is one of just three players with 50 or more possessions played among Big 12 players who has a negative plus minus, according to Evan Miyakawa's website at evanmiya.com.

So think about that. Among the entire Big 12 players who have played 50 or more possessions, Zach Clements is one of just three players with a negative plus minus. It's all about the shot, man, because the defensive numbers, they're not like great, but they're not bad. They're solid, right? If he starts hitting shots, he can earn a role. If not, he's in a tough place. He's one of those players for a Bill South team that that's his role hit shots. So if he's not hitting shots that day, it's tougher to kind of use that, that tool, that weapon. Also cam Martin coming back soon. And if the struggles continue for Zach Clements, I don't know, cam might be back on Saturday

against Missouri and cam Martin comes in and he's hitting shots, you're probably not going to, like, you might only play one pick in pop five, basically. So Zach Clements is going to have to start shooting himself into more playing time, but it's going to be tough because with Cam Martin back, who knows? He might overperform on Zach Clements and make that more difficult. But overall, Zuby is a 28.2 on this rating system

when you add everything up as the best center. A lot of that, though, is carried from the defense. Earnest is a 26.4, and those are your two best, which I think does kind of match the eye test for me. I've kind of been saying, like, I am a Zuby Ejifer guy. I think he's kind of the best right now, slightly better than Earnest today, but it's not like a big difference. And I think that shows it there. Zuby's a 28.2.est is a 26.4 by BPR. That's not like that big of a difference. And so while I do continue to be team Zuby because of what he can bring defensive rebounding, which I

think can be the difference if this team becomes a good defensive rebounding team between them being a good defense and a great defense. But if it is that close, it continues to emphasize the idea of, well, we think Ernest today has the highest potential. And I guess maybe this does bring up a broader conversation about how I feel like sometimes just as a community, we mis-evaluate what potential is. We just say, oh, that guy's bigger. That guy's stronger. That guy's faster, higher potential, right? There are other things that go into it. Like nobody would have, I don't know, there, there is the mental acumen of the game. There is your touch. You're there's so other things that go into it like nobody would have i don't know there there is the mental acumen of the game there is your touch your there's so many things that go into potential but all that being said i do agree with earnest today having the highest potential so if you're saying

that as zoobie's a little better right now but it's not that big of a difference and earnest has the highest potential then it makes sense that you would want to continue to go to that well and that you hope that by January, February, March, he can be a much improved player. Now, I haven't really mentioned KJ yet, and while I think there's room for one of those traditional centers to eventually maybe surpass him in terms of being a starter and play more minutes,

KJ is the guy among all the centers right now that has the highest floor. Whether KJ's a starter or not, he's going to play double-digit minutes for this team. For Ernest Uday, Zuby Edgever, Zach Clements, Cam Martin, you don't really know what the role of those players is going to be. Like, sure, one of them could be the first big off the bench. One of them could eventually be a starter.

But if you're not that guy, we've seen other games where they just haven't played at all. Or if they did play, it was only for a handful of minutes. So, I mean, the biggest wildcard at this point is Kim Martin trying to figure out what you're going to get out of him. And I don't think we're going to have a full answer till we actually see it on the floor, but certainly those numbers provide intrigue or maybe matching some certain things that we've seen so far to this. I come on tomorrow's show.

We're going to preview the Kansas, Missouri basketball game. We'll get to our bet online segment of the week as well. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along on the action, you can reach out at D Johnson radio on Twitter. You can hit us up in the comment section on YouTube. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on YouTube or anywhere that you get your podcast. So you're getting all the latest with Locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for today's episode.

Have a good rest of your day. I'll see you later today. Bye.