Here’s your weekly dive into what we took away from the last seven days of college hoops.
Each week of this college basketball season seems determined to top the ones that came before it. This week’s coup de grâce on Saturday delivered perhaps at least the wildest day of hoops this season as six teams ranked in the top 10 fell. Those matchups and more taught us a few more things about the country’s best squads. Here’s a look at what we learned from the week that was.
1. Maybe we should be less concerned about Duke
In Mike Krzyzewski’s return to the Duke Blue Devils’ bench, he changed the team’s starting lineup by removing senior Matt Jones and inserting freshman Frank Jackson alongside Grayson Allen, Luke Kennard, Jayson Tatum and Amile Jefferson. The move initially seemed like an attempt to shake up the Blue Devils offense that had drawn criticism in recent weeks, but it turned out that Jones was injured at practice earlier in the week and it was unclear if he would play.
Although Jones still played 14 minutes, the move to have Jackson on the court with Duke’s core four worked out as the team held off Pittsburgh, 72-64. In a limited sample, the Blue Devils have been very good with the Jackson-Allen-Kennard-Tatum-Jefferson lineup, although they are still a decent bit better with Jones on the floor in place of Jackson as the below chart shows:
The two other things the chart shows? The first is that Duke seems to be much better with Jefferson as its lone big man on the court. The Blue Devils simply don’t have enough shooting when Tatum, Giles and Jefferson are all on the floor together and Giles single-digit minute totals in the last two games suggest we may not see that much going forward.
The second thing is more important: Duke has been excellent with its most likely March lineups on the floor. Now, both of these five-man combinations have still played small samples together due to various injuries and suspensions. Even the Jones-Allen-Kennard-Tatum-Jefferson lineup represents just about 10 percent of the Blue Devils’ total possessions this season. As rotations tighten, Krzyzewski seems like to turn to his core four along with either Jackson or Jones. So far, it looks like that’ll work out just fine.
2. Projecting the national champions using adjusted efficiency
Despite all of this week’s chaos, in March people across the country will get together and attempt to predict how the NCAA Tournament will go down by filling out their bracket. The process is always fruitless because attempting to find predictability in utter chaos is nearly impossible. However, if we use history as our guide, it might be a little easier to at least nail down the future national champion.
Using KenPom’s pre-March Madness adjusted efficiency numbers, I went back and looked at the worst offense and defense to win the NCAA Tournament since 2001-02. Carmelo Anthony’s 2003 Syracuse team holds the title of worst offense with a 110.56 adjusted efficiency rating while Duke’s 2015 squad posted a 93.31 adjusted defensive efficiency rating. Just seven teams in the country meet both standards this season:
Obviously there is plenty of time left before Selection Sunday for these numbers to change. Duke is finally sorting out its best lineups, Kansas could figure out its defensive woes and Kentucky might get back to playing like it was earlier this season. As of now, though, only these seven teams meet the criteria. For anyone else to cut down the nets, they’ll either have to improve before the First Four tips off or they’ll have to break the mold.
3. The Big 12’s middle solidified its NCAA Tournament chances
While most of the country’s attention has been focused on how many ACC teams will make the NCAA Tournament this season, there’s been an interesting battle to build up resumes happening in the Big 12. With eight teams ranked in the KenPom top 50, the league obviously has plenty of quality, but few of the teams in the middle of the pack established themselves as NCAA Tournament contenders during non-conference play.
Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU and Texas Tech combined to amass three wins over KenPom top 50 teams before conference play. Luckily, there are plenty of opportunities to pick up RPI boosting victories in the league. The Cyclones, Wildcats and Cowboys all took advantage this weekend by winning key away games against the conference’s top three opponents.
The Big 12 has once again been one of the toughest conferences in the country this season and there have been plenty of close games where teams needing wins can find them. Nearly one-third (32.0 percent) of the league’s games have been decided by less than four points or gone to overtime, the second highest mark in the country, per KenPom. Now, it’s just a matter of seeing how many schools hear their names called on Selection Sunday.
4. Kentucky’s recent defensive woes
After starting the season 17-2, the Kentucky Wildcats have lost three of their last four games with their lone win coming in overtime against the Georgia Bulldogs. There have been problems on both sides of the ball for Kentucky and we wrote about some of those after its blowout loss to the Florida Gators on Saturday, but a deeper dive reveals some interesting numbers regarding the Wildcats defense.
To help illustrate those problems, I’ve compiled Kentucky’s “Four Factors” numbers from its first 19 games and its last four using data from Hoop Lens:
Obviously, the overall number sticks out. Kentucky has allowed opponents to score 1.05 points per possession over the last four games. To give you some perspective, that number would rank amongst the likes of Cornell, Niagara, Oregon State and Texas Southern were it to continue over a full season, according to Team Rankings.
Digging into the specifics, the Wildcats have notably stopped forcing as many turnovers. Some of that can be contributed to De’Aaron Fox’s struggles with an ankle injury given that Fox is one of Kentucky’s toughest perimeter defenders.
Opponents have also shot the ball much better against Kentucky, making 40.0 percent of their 3-point attempts during the four game stretch. The optimist, though, would note that 3-point percentage is one of the noisiest defensive statistics and it’s likely that the numbers are just evening themselves out after opponents hit a meager 30.4 percent of their 3s in the first 19 games.
The more concerning fact is how much better teams are shooting inside the arc against the Wildcats. In the last four games, opponents have made 51.6 percent of their 2s compared to 46.9 percent over the first 19 games of the season. Kentucky’s interior defense has begun to stumble and if they want to right the ship before March, they’ll need to figure out how to take away easy baskets.
5. The best team in the Pac-12 is ???
There are three teams in the Pac-12 conference that have an argument to be the league’s best team and all three are tightly bunched in the KenPom rankings. Arizona (no. 22), Oregon (no. 19) and UCLA (no. 18) are all worthy competitors, although the Wildcats and the Ducks are a step ahead of the Bruins in the race for the Pac-12 title.
Plenty of folks would no doubt be willing to make an argument for UCLA and its high-powered offense as well, but the Bruins have lost to both Arizona and Oregon this season. Until the team cleans up its performance on the defensive end, it may be tough sledding against top-tier opponents.
Arizona, meanwhile, continues to adjust to adding sophomore Allonzo Trier back into its lineup. The Wildcats have a plethora of long, athletic wings who can cause plenty of teams problems — ask UCLA — balanced with a pair of frontcourt players, including basketball unicorn Lauri Markkanen, who can put points on the board.
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The team with the best argument, at least based on results, is Oregon given that they eked out a win over UCLA and blasted Arizona, but both of those games happened in Eugene. The Ducks have an impressively versatile defense that can switch one through four against most teams as it did versus the Wildcats on Saturday. Dillon Brooks is a legitimate All-American candidate when healthy and the team hasn’t struggled shooting the ball like it did last season.