Week six of college basketball has come and gone. Here’s a look at what we learned.
Week six of college hoops meant finals week for universities across the country and that, in turn, meant very few interesting games during the week.
Luckily, Saturday gave us one of the best days of the season featuring matchups between Arizona and Texas A&M, UCLA and Ohio State and Kentucky and North Carolina.
To get you all caught up, we’ve put together our biggest takeaways from the week that was.
1. The interesting efficiency of Josh Jackson’s assists at Kansas
Kansas wing Josh Jackson has been one of the best shot creators in the country from that position this season.
So, inspired by Luke Winn’s tracking of Lonzo Ball’s assists over at Sports Illustrated, I decided to take a look at where exactly Jackson’s 4.8 assists per 40 minutes are going. Below is a radar chart showing the distribution of the 6-foot-8 guard’s 37 assists this season.
Diving a bit deeper gives us some even more interesting information. In basketball, the most efficient field goal attempts are either shots at the rim or 3-pointers. In general, teams tend to want to avoid taking too many mid-range jumpers as they are worth fewer points than a 3-pointer and usually aren’t as likely to go in as a layup or a dunk.
Jackson, either intentionally or simply by chance, has helped the Jayhawks produce efficient scoring chances by dishing off most of assists this season either for a shot at the rim or a 3-pointer:
| Jackson’s Assist Locations | Layup/Dunk | Other 2s | 3-pointers |
| Total | 20 | 3 | 14 |
| % of Total Assists | 54.05% | 8.11% | 37.84% |
In Kansas’ 89-71 win over Davidson on Saturday, Jackson doled out another three assists — two to Landen Lucas for shots at the rim and one to Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk for a 3-pointer in transition. Here’s a look at all three:
What’s noticeable is how good Jackson is at facilitating at all levels. His first assist comes on a designed play to Lucas. The 6-foot-10 big man isn’t an excellent post scorer, but he’s a smart one and does a nice job angling off his defender to create an opening for Jackson to deliver an entry pass on the money.
On the second, Jackson’s defender simply slips, giving him a driving lane and an open pass to a cutting Lucas. The third assist might be the most impressive one, though. Jackson has the ball in transition and rather than pass ahead early to Mykhailiuk, he waits until he can get into the mid-range and forces the defense to commit away from the shooter before kicking it out for the open look.
As of Sunday afternoon, Kansas has the fourth ranked offense in the country in terms of adjusted efficiency. The Jayhawks already benefit from having a pair of stellar point guards to help create shots for others. Adding Jackson to the mix is a plus that most other teams simply don’t have.