Game One Reaction

It was great to have some quality basketball in our lives again last night.  It wasn't the blowout that some of us expected (and probably shouldn't have), but it was the first win of hopefully many this year.  When it comes to college basketball I could probably write a book about every game, week, season, and so forth but I'll try to keep this short as there is another game in just two days.  Here are a few thoughts from last night.

Georges Niang really could be an All-American this year.
I know the pre-season publications have touted him as someone that could be in the mix, but to be honest I didn't completely buy it.  I didn't think he would score enough or do anything else well enough to be first-team.  There are so many options on this team that his numbers might not get to where they need to be.  Well, after the first game it is pretty obvious he will be force fed the ball.  I didn't expect to be impressed with Niang after the first game.  I thought Niang would be Niang and we would leave it at that.  It is pretty clear that the weight loss has helped him in a couple of ways and to me his most impressive stat was the nine rebounds he had.  With the pre-season hype he had and as active as he was last night I think he certainly has a shot.

It is pretty clear Hoiberg is only planning on going eight deep in his rotation...again.
Why do people think every year that Hoiberg will all of a sudden roll out all of these guys?  It just isn't going to happen.  I said it before the season and I will continue to say that you lose your talent edge when you rotate more guys in the game.  Is it great to have some depth?  Yes, but it is like insurance.  Its great to have for peace of mind but you hope you don't have to use it.  Hoiberg essentially ran with a seven man rotation last night and I think when the three amigos return SDW and Edozie will fall to limited roles.

This team won't live by the three point shot.
People have said ISU has lived and died by the three point shot under Hoiberg and I don't think that is fair.  They have shot a lot of them, and made a lot of them under Hoiberg and they will do the same this year but I think this team is the best equipped to score without shooting from beyond the arc.  It was apparent last night that they are going to attack the basket and the rim.  When Nader and McKay return I think this will hold even more merit.  There were an awful lot of free throws shot last night.  Free throws aren't exciting and it was Paul Janssens crew calling every touch but being able to score from the line is a huge benefit when the shots aren't falling.  ISU hasn't shot many free throws under Hoiberg because of how perimeter oriented they were.  This could make a big difference at the end of games.

ISU needs McKay on the interior of the defense.
I have a hard time believing Oakland's big guy would have had the night he did had McKay been down there instead of Niang.  My hope is that the perimeter defense will improve when Nader and McKay return.  If it doesn't it looks like ISU won't be able to shake its Achilles heel from the past couple of seasons.

BDJ's shot selection is a work in progress.
There will be some times that he will force it this year but if Fred can get him to buy-in to the style of play they were playing last year this team could be really special.  The analytic side of me was wondering if he would eliminate the "long two" from his game when he came to Ames.  I noticed on all of his highlights from UNLV he had a tendency to settle for the long two.  Of course on the highlight reel they all went in.  Over the course of the year they won't.  BDJ needs to understand if he gives it up there is a good chance the ball will come right back to him if he's open.

Why the long (two) face?
The basketball analytics people would say the long two is the worst shot in basketball.  Under Fred the Cyclones have largely stayed away from it.  Last night I noticed several players take some long twos.  I'm hoping it gets looked at in film and corrected.  Maybe I will call in to the call-in show and suggest it.  Kidding....kind of.

Monte Morris is going to play a lot of minutes this year.
I wasn't surprised to see Hoiberg use a short bench.  I was surprised to see Custer have as limited of a role as he did.  I won't jump to any conclusions about Custer after last night because he has battled mono and the game was fairly close all the way through, but I fully expected Custer to spell Morris for a little more time and/or play together a little bit.

Hogue should be more assertive on the offensive end.  
There were glimpses last night of his performance against UConn where he scored 34 points.  He has a little extra giddy up in his step and for the most part finishes around the rim.  People may not think of him as an offensive weapon but his overall game as drastically improved since his arrival in Ames.

ISU MBB Better 1 through 9?

Fran Fraschilla has been spending time at ISU practices again this fall.  Here's one of his comments:

Fran Fraschilla @franfraschilla

My thoughts on Iowa State: While Ejim/Kane will be missed, talent level from 1 to 9 better this year. McKay is 1st rim protector Fred's had.

 

At first blush, it appears reasonable.  But when you consider that Ejim and Kane were two of the very best players in the conference and country, it makes Fran's assessment a very bold one.  Could it be true?

 

First you'd have to decide who the best 9 players were last year and this year.  Going off my All-Big 12 rankings last year, the top 5 were Kane, Ejim, Morris, Niang, and Hogue.  Arbitrarily, I'll go Naz, Thomas, Edozie and SDW after them.  From this article, the top 7 are Niang, BDJ, Hogue, McKay, Morris, Long and Nader.  For the next two I'll pick Custer and Thomas. 

 

Starting from the top, could Niang be better this year than Kane was last?  Qualitatively, Niang was their 'most important' and probably 'most talented' player last year, so it'd be easy to reason he will more talented and more important this year.  Quantitatively, it will be very hard for Georges to match the volume of statistics Kane put up last year.  DeAndre was among the leaders for every major category except blocks, including second in points, first in assists and third in steals.  Niang could eclipse Kane's scoring; he's projected to average 18.4 ppg in the article referenced above, and I think could average closer to 20 during conference play.  His rebounding could improve, with increased quickness and playing a more suitable SF or PF defensive position.  SI's projection has him at 5.6 rpg and I have him at 6 per game, which would get close to the top 15, where Kane was last year.  3.5 assists per game would put him about where Niang was last year, well off the top of the leaderboard.  I don't expect him to be among the conference leaders in blocks or steals or minutes.  Statistically, this matchup goes to Kane.

 

In my All-Big 12 ratings, I take into account minutes per game, because they're listed on the Big 12 website and it should be a good indication of the total impact a player has on his team's success.  Both Kane and Morris were in the top 10 of minutes played per game, but I don't expect to see any Iowa State players on this list.  Fran was right about there being 9 players who could see playing time on any given night, and there just aren't the minutes to go around.

 

A few things are working for Georges in his pursuit of POY honors.  First is the preseason hype.  He's been listed on the All-Big 12 first team and several individuals' All-American watch lists.  This gives him an advantage that Kane certainly didn't have, and puts him ahead of Ejim at this point.  Secondly, the Big 12 seems to have transformed into a guards' league, but both my list and the official preseason lists are split between guards and forwards, with only Staten and Anderson being the type of stat sheet stuffers Kane and Smart were the last couple years.  It doesn't look like either's team will be good enough to put them in serious contention for end of the year POY.  There are no super freshmen guards coming in either.  If Niang can outplay the best of the forwards, he's got a shot.

 

Ejim might not have been super talented, but he put up big numbers as well.  BDJ should contribute nicely but he won't be expected to carry the same type of load that Ejim did.  Another case of more talent but fewer numbers.

 

Hogue and Morris were very close in my ratings last year, so I'll say the 2014-15 Hogue will statistically be better than the 2013-14 Morris. 

 

McKay certainly looks to have more athletic talent than Niang will ever have, and may be able to outperform statistically if he's near the top of the league in rebounds and blocks.  It will depend on how many minutes he plays early in the Big 12 season, which will essentially be his first action of the year.

 

Again Morris and Hogue were close last year so I say each will be better this year, and better than each other last year.

 

Naz should improve, as a 3 point specialist with plenty of other options around him.  It sounds like he could handle the ball a little more too, which would help his assist numbers.  He could see some nice minutes off the bench, mostly at the 2 with some at the 1 and 3.

 

Here is where this year's team becomes undoubtedly stronger than last year.  Nader should be a huge upgrade over Matt Thomas.  He can score in more ways than Matt and defend more positions.  Nader will see minutes as a staple of the second unit.

 

Custer over Edozie is a no brainer.  He fits a role as a scoring point guard backup whereas Edozie was a spot minutes space filler. 

 

Matt Thomas had a bit of a rough go as a freshman, but he was obviously better than SDW last year, and should have improved over the off season.  Unfortunately for him, he won't see nearly as many minutes as he did early last year.

 

So I think statistically, ISU will be better at 6 or 7 of the top 9 spots.  That's impressive in it's own right.  If you assume all the returning players improve, will BDJ, McKay, Nader and Custer be able to replace the production of Ejim and Kane (and Edozie and SDW)?  I think so.  All four can score in their own ways.  BDJ and Custer will replace some of Kane's assists, and the combination of BDJ, McKay and Nader should replace all of their rebounds. 

 

Back to Fran's assessment.  As a whole, 1 through 9, Iowa State is easily both more talented and better statistically than last year.  Individually, matching Kane and Ejim's production probably won't happen for a variety of reasons, but you can argue that Niang is already more "talented" than either, and BDJ and McKay are too.  Fran looks to be right in that every spot on the depth chart is more talented than last year.

 

Projected Minutes Distribution, 2014-2015 MBB Team

I've read a lot of opinions lately that expect Sherron Dorsey-Walker to have a bigger impact this year, and Giorgios average 10 minutes/game.  I don't see how either of those happens.  There are at least 7 players, if not 8 or 9 that should earn minutes ahead of either of them.  Especially considering generally Fred keeps it to a rotation of 6 or 7 players, minutes are going to be scarce.

Rotations tighten up at the end of the season.  And I think it's a good place to start to see who will be playing big minutes next year.  In the postseason, Monte averaged 32 minutes, Hogue 34, Niang 31 (not counting the final two games), Naz 24 minutes, and Thomas 10.  That's 131 minutes/game there.  The two players lost from last year's team combined for 71 mpg.  So I believe, there's only about 70 minutes left to hand out for the upcoming season.  BDJ will start, and should be penciled in for about 30 minutes a game.  Nader and McKay will likely be the 5th starter/6th man in some fashion and should easily share a combined 40 minutes. 

That's it.  That's your 200 total player-minutes per game.  There aren't another 20 minutes for SDW to make an impact and certainly not 10 minutes for the Greek.  You could argue Hogue only sees 25-30, but those extra minutes would go to Nader/McKay.  And maybe Naz sees a reduction, but those would go to BDJ first (Kane averaged 35 mpg last year) and I think Custer second as a backup point guard. 

With Nader and McKay and Thomas out to start the season, against an easy non-conference schedule, everyone should see minutes.  Come the end of the season, I think it'll be Morris, BDJ, Niang, Hogue, Nader, McKay and Naz seeing nearly all the minutes.  And I'm OK with that.  It's still a deeper, and better, team than they had last year.

2013-14 Individual Players Recap and Predictions

How the players did this season and what to expect going forward.

DeAndre Kane - He finished All-Big 12 first team, Newcomer of the Year, All-American honorable mention and still might have been underappreciated even by his own fanbase.  I've said all year long he's been the best player on the team and in the conference and he didn't disappoint in the postseason, averaging 17 points, 7 rebound and 6 assists.  He flirted with a triple double in each of the last two games.  Royce White was flashier, but Kane impacted the game in all facets the same way and had more team success.  He's my pick for best transfer of the Hoiberg era, and just had the greatest single season of the Hoiberg era.

Melvin Ejim - Looking over some of my previous posts, I noted where Melvin had 70 points and 30 rebounds over two games.  That's silly.  Ejim might see his jersey retired some day based on his career numbers and achievements, but for that one week, he was as good as any player in ISU history.  In recent memory, Marcus Fizer is the only player that would have been even capable of putting up a stat line like this over two games.  And before that you're probably talking Abdul-Aziz and Alexander, both of whom have their jerseys in the rafters.

Georges Niang - Georges took a big step forward with his game.  He continued to improve his conditioning, averaging 31 MPG in his last 4, scoring 20 PPG in that stretch.  Niang might have been the 3rd best player on the team this year, but he's the one opposing fan bases know about.  With Kane and Monte, he didn't have to play as much point-forward as I thought he would at this point last year, but they still ran plenty of offense through him.  Niang was the one who kept the team going when they were stuck in the mud and was the one to get buckets at the end of games.  He should be the #1 scoring option next year, and with the addition of McKay will get some help on the defensive end.  20 points per game and an increase in assists would put Georges right at the line between first and second team All-Big 12, depending how the team finishes. 

Monte Morris - Matt Thomas was the freshman starting at the beginning of the year, but Monte Morris was the starter at the end.  He played 32 minutes combined in their two big non-conference games against Michigan and BYU and in the postseason averaged 32 minutes/game.  Monte came on as perhaps the team's best defender and showed the ability to score too, averaging 10.6 per game in the postseason.  Most of his assists early in the season came in the flow of the game but by the end he started creating a little more, while still keeping his turnovers down.  I'll reiterate my prediction that he'll be at least third team All Big 12 next year.

Dustin Hogue - Wow.  Who knew he had that type of game in him?  I bet even he wouldn't have predicted that type of scoring outburst.  His big night (along with DeAndre Kane) kept ISU in that game with UCONN and gave the Cyclone fan base something to be excited about heading into next year.  He had a Ejim '12-'13 type season this year, and while it's too much to expect him to have a Ejim '13-'14 type season next year, who knows.  He averaged 17.6 PPG and 34 MPG in the postseason.  I thought he could have been named honorable mention All-Big 12 this year and that should be his floor next year.


Naz Long - 2014 will forever be known for the birth of 3sus of Nazareth.  Slaying OSU not once by twice, and extending the season for one more game, Naz provided more heroics per minute played than anyone I can remember.  That he was even on the floor to make those big shots was either incredible foresight by Hoiberg or extremely good luck.  Either way, we'll take it.  He justified the swagger shown by Kane and Niang but was humble and deferential in post game interviews.  His peacekeeping ability with Kane was an underrated aspect of the season.  Often when Kane started getting worked up, Naz was there to step in front of him and let him vent.  It's an impressive trait for someone whose roll was undefined to start the year.  And a big reason why the transfer "experiment" will continue to work for Iowa State.

Matt Thomas - Matt had a tough year.  Looking back, it's pretty obvious that Monte should have been the freshman starting at the beginning of the year, but since it was Matt, he had some unfair expectations placed on him.  It's tough to be a shooting specialist as the fifth option on the court.  When he got going, he played OK but went through some slumps like any shooter.  Hopefully he'll put in the same work that Naz did last season and get his 3P% up around 35-40%.

Daniel Edozie - I still think we should have seen more of him this season.  This team lacked size at times and could have used his minutes and fouls.  He was great when he played but I think he'll be outside the rotation with the additions of Nader, McKay, Custer and another transfer.

SDW and Gibson - I've seen SDW's name more times since the season ended than any other player on the team.  While it would be nice if he'd make an improvement like Naz, I just don't see it happening.  As a fan, I'm rooting for Thomas to make that leap and would love it if Custer could come in and play ahead of him.  Unfortunately, both of these guys signed on when the team was thin and have been left behind by the team's huge upswing.  It'll be tough for either of these players to move on - Percy is coming into his senior year and SDW has already used his redshirt, but it wouldn't be the first time Fred has seen players leave.  While they don't NEED to cut either, I'd be surprised if both return for next year. 

"Fred is good for one extra win in the NCAA's"

While not "technically" true, I still stand by the spirit of this statement.  The idea is, some coaches always seem to be winning more games than they should in the tournament, and some coaches always seem to be bowing out early.  A couple years back, I found a table that highlighted this using a metric called PASE - performance against seed expectations.  You can find an explanation of it here.

Each seed has a historical average number of wins.  ISU has been a nine seed and a ten seed the last two years.  This means they should have won .56+.65 = 1.21 games between the two years.  Iowa State, of course, won one game each of the past two tournaments.  This is a total PASE of 2-1.21 = .79 or .395 extra wins per year.  Not a whole game more like I had stated.  But read this quote from the above article:

Generally speaking, a PASE above +.250 shows solid overachievement. A PASE of +.500 represents major over-performance. 

So Fred is easily in the overachievement category.  He certainly isn't the best coach out there.  This chart comes from cbssports.com.

The coaches you think are good are backed up by this metric.  I referenced Tom Izzo in my previous post and he's second behind Brad Stevens, who has made two improbable runs to the Final Four with Butler.  So Fred might not be in the top five, but this metric isn't always positive.  If one team is overachieving, another is under achieving.  From the cbssports article:

 DePaul coach Oliver Purnell owns the worst PASE (-.818), followed by Colorado State coach Larry Eustachy (-.665), Pitt coach Jamie Dixon (-.567), Creighton's Dana Altman (-.515) and Clemson's Brad Brownell (-.446).

My feelings on Jamie Dixon are justified!  It's tough seeing Larry on that list.  His PACE was obviously hurt in 2001.

And finally, another chart in the above article was very interesting.

These are the top 10 attributes that contribute to a positive PASE.
- ISU isn't outscoring people by 15 (2013 margin of 8.4).  BUT, I've said recently, you need to score points to win, and winning games 50-45 doesn't leave you a lot of margin for error in the tournament.
- Fred hasn't been to the elite eight, but I believe when he gets ISU to the second weekend, they'll win to make the Elite Eight.
- Turnovers they were basically +/-0.0 / game.  I'd like to explain this away with pace but the opponents have just as many possessions a game as the Cyclones.
- ISU shot 73.1%, fitting this criteria.
- Iowa State's starters scored 72.4% of the points this year, in large part thanks to Tyrus scoring 13 a game. And it's another reason why I think Fred will keep someone in this role again next year, either SDW or Bluford.  Keeping the scoring going when the second units are in really keeps the pressure on.
- Royce was an All-American last year, but I don't envision that being an every year occurrence.
- Even if you include Will's scoring as a forward, ISU doesn't meet this criteria.  And I don't know that they ever will, but look at next year's squad, with the only scoring returning being Niang and Ejim in the frontcourt.
- ISU *only* outrebounded its opponents by 4.6 a game, but like most of the stats, got better during the conference part of the schedule.
- ISU was senior heavy this year, but Fred hadn't been through a full recruiting cycle yet.  Even if SDW didn't redshirt, he wouldn't have started over any of these guys.  Next year, I think we'll see two freshman, one sophomore, one junior and one senior start next year.  Now, I don't think Fred looks at these types of numbers, but I believe we'll see at least one freshman start every year from here on out.
- ISU has a looooong way to get to a defensive efficiency less than 90.  At first glance, it would seem difficult to get guys to play in Fred's system, at a high offensive efficiency rate, that would also play defense.  But then I looked at the numbers, and the two teams surrounding ISU in the offensive efficiency rankings are Louisville and Florida.  Good company!  Those two teams are first and third in defensive efficiency.  Fred is one step ahead of us again.  It's my belief, his plan all along has been to establish the offense first - done - and then work on the defense.  Fun offense brings the fans and the talent.  Better athletes brings better defense.

To summarize, Fred Hoiberg is building this team for the tournament, and he's already shown results.  I think the Cyclones will continue to exceed expectations in the regular season to make the big tournament, and will continue to have success when they get there.