Gonzaga’s Brandon Clarke is college basketball’s best-kept secret

Brandon Clarke is the greatest college basketball player you haven’t heard enough about.

Gonzaga’s Brandon Clarke is in the middle of one of the greatest statistical seasons in the modern college basketball era (since 2002, when KenPom debuted), but unfortunately for the junior forward, no one has really noticed—he is ranked eighth in Ken Pomeroy’s player of the year rankings.

Perhaps this anonymity is due largely to the fact that his name isn’t Zion Williamson, and even though he is outperforming Duke’s one-and-done unicorn, Clarke is also overshadowed on his own team, both on a granular level (by frontcourt teammate Rui Hachimura) as well as via big picture (e.g. can Mark Few finally win an NCAA title?).

Which is a shame, as the 6-foot-8 transfer from San Jose State is playing at an unprecedented high level.

Offensively, he is nonpareil. Clarke’s usage rate—23.7 percent—ranks second on the team, yet he scores roughly 1.3 points per play and his offensive rating is 136.2, which is fourth-best in Division I. No other play has ever used at least 20 percent of the team’s possessions while also posting an offensive rating that efficient.

Per Synergy Sports, his overall scoring rate leads the nation (Clarke is the only player in the top 10 to attempt fewer than 330 shots), and according to CBB Reference, Clarke is the most efficient offensive player in its database. Clarke has essentially spent the entire season toggling with Williamson for whom is the most efficient player in the 21st century: they are the only duo to at least register a PER of 37 and a box plus/minus of 18.

And yet, Clarke is arguably better at defense than he is on the other side of the ball. Per Synergy, Clarke’s opponents score just .7 points per play, which ranks in the 90th percentile, and while using Synergy to track a player’s defensive impact can be misleading, it’s worth noting his individualistic defensive traits in 2019—a defensive rebounding rate of 19.3 percent, block rate of 11 percent, and steals rate of 2.3 percent—compare favorably to Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, and Nerlens Noel.

Though the NCAA selection committee slotted the Bulldogs as the tournament’s fourth-best top seed, Gonzaga’s road to the title game is relatively light. According to FiveThirtyEight’s statistical model, the squad has a 50 percent chance of making the Final Four and a 15 percent chance of winning the national title, which ranks just slightly behind Duke and Virginia.

If Clarke—who is clearly college basketball’s most dominant player entering March Madness—continues his statistically anomalous play, this could finally be the season in which the WCC team is showered with confetti.