3 and 2 is way better than 1 and 4. In fact, and don't quote me on this, it could be as much as 200% better.
See what I mean? Positivity abounds!
I can't remember the exact numbers, but at this time last year, K-State was around 280 in the KenPom and right now, K-State currently ranks 79. That's a pretty substantial leap from an efficiency standpoint. For those that don't pay much attention to it, KenPom gives each team an offensive efficiency rating and a defensive efficiency rating. He then subtracts the defense from the offense and the number left over is your total efficiency and that's how he ranks teams.
Just for comparison sake, Baylor is currently 3rd nationally in the KenPom. They have the 5th best offensive efficiency at 116.3 and the 5th best defensive efficiency at 88.9. Their total efficiency of 27.31 trails only Gonzaga and Purdue.
K-State ranks 104th nationally at 104.9 offensively and 60th nationally at 95.1 for a total efficiency of 9.76. Last year, that number hovered around 0 and was in the negative for part of the time.
Those are all big time improvements from a numbers standpoint.
I don't do moral victories, but last year the losses were to Drake, Colorado, UNLV and Ft Hays State with all of them coming in Bramlage. Pretty big difference in this year's losses coming to Arkansas and Illinois on a neutral site.
See what I mean? Positivity abounds!!!
I will take all of this positivity and go one step further to say that I think K-State wins both games this week, and will be a jaw dropping 5-2 by this time next week.
Now, just to balance out this over the top optimism, I did have K-State at 5-2 after this week in my original season predictions. I just had them beating Cincinnati in KC and then losing to WSU in Wichita. After watching WSU and Missouri, I think K-State matches up pretty well with WSU.
After that though, I think things might get really tough and things will get even more tense around here.
I have now seen every Big 12 team play at least twice. Originally, I had the Big 12 ranked as follows:
1. KU
2. Texas
3. Baylor
4. Texas Tech
5. Oklahoma State
6. West Virginia
7. Oklahoma
8. Kansas State
9. TCU
10. Iowa State
After 5 to 8 games for every team, I would change those rankings to:
1. Baylor
2. Texas
3. Texas Tech
4. Kansas
5. Oklahoma State
6. Iowa State
7. Oklahoma
8. West Virginia
9. Kansas State
10. TCU
It's pretty hard to squint right now and see where many wins come from during the Big 12 slate. Now, I do know that things will change. Teams will have slumps, they will have injuries and at some point, Covid is going to wreck a couple of teams. But as of now, I would probably amend my prediction of 7-11 to 6-12.
The Big 12 is currently 45-8 in overall games and teams like Baylor, Kansas, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and WVU all have wins over P5 teams.
This board went absolutely bananas laughing at Iowa State for hiring TJ Otzelberger in the offseason. It may ultimately fail, but so far, the results have been pretty astounding. He was able to land 5 star PG Tyrese Hunter who is averaging 13 points and 5 assists per game so far (and he may be better defensively than offensively). They landed a gigantic transfer class and are getting pretty significant contributions from a bunch of them. Brockington and Kalscheur have both had 30 point games so far this year and even Tristan Enaruna and Aljaz Kunc have been matchup problems with their size and ability to shoot.
Otz took a team that went 2-22 last year and is 6-0 so far.
I don't want to get into the K-State players to much yet because I am going to give Bruce the benefit of the doubt and say that the rotations (as silly as they have been) are mostly a product of players not quite being fully available.
That said, I don't know that we will see this team fully available for a while.
We know who Nijel Pack is. He is a small 2 guard that would be a really good second or third scoring option on a great team. He has been really poor defensively so far though. I am going to chalk it up to having to rest on the defensive end due to a lack of conditioning at this point. The problem is, K-State needed Pack to be a 1st or 2nd team All-Big 12 guy to take a big step forward and he isn't that. At least not yet.
I do want to talk about the transfers some though.
I'll start with Ish Massoud because he is the easiest. He's been a major disappointment. I thought he was legitimately talented enough to be a 15-6 guy in a Bruce offense that wants to feature a legit stretch 4. I knew he would be challenged on the defensive end, but I thought he would have enough athleticism to overcome some of that. Instead, he is the guy that had a wide open lane last night and couldn't get the ball above the rim on a dunk attempt. He simply hasn't been very good on either end while playing the most minutes on the team by a pretty significant margin at this point.
Mark Smith is who many of us thought he was. He is going to do a lot of things at an average to a slightly above average level, but he won't do anything great. Now, I will say that he has rebounded at a pretty exceptional level so far, but I expect some of that will regress towards the mean as the season goes on and the competition ramps up. At this point last season, I was getting tagged about 9 times a day because I had the audacity to question @Grant Flanders prediction that Dajuan Gordon would double his rebounding numbers from the previous season. DJG had gotten off to a pretty hot start rebounding the ball too. But back to Smith, he isn't the potential star that he was being made out to be in the preseason write-ups. He is a glue guy that will do a lot of things to help you in games that you win and pretty much disappear in games that you lose. If he was a baseball player, he would be your consummate league average guy. A guy that would accumulate about 1 WAR over the course of the season.
The guy that is most intriguing is Marquis Nowell. There could be a case made that Nowell has been the best player for K-State so far. He is for sure the guy that makes the most things happen. My concern was never in his ability on the offensive end. He has skills that nobody else on the roster has and that is incredibly meaningful. My only concern was, would he be able to coexist with Bruce and Bruce's comments after the game last night give me even more pause. All I ever wanted from my players was to make their mistakes out of aggression. Mistakes are going to happen, just be aggressive doing them and you will be a net positive in just about every occasion. When a coach starts trying to "reel a player in" like Bruce seems to be doing with Nowell, you take away the aggressiveness that makes him different from the other guys. Nowell isn't a system guy. He is a guy that needs some freedom to impact the game for himself and others. In fact, I would argue that he is closer to Jake Pullen in offensive ability than anybody on K-State's roster since Pullen graduated. There is no doubt in my mind that Bruce would be talking in press conferences about Pullen needing to "play within the structure of the team" if he coached him.
I can almost guarantee that Nowell sees those remarks about him last night and his first thought is "WTF?" He is the team's 2nd leading scorer and leads the team in assists and steals all while having a 2-1 ATO ratio. And oh yeah, he is coming off the bench and playing significantly less minutes than all the other guards. This isn't some scenario where he is turning it over 3 or 4 times per game. Stop trying to put reigns on the kid and let him go be your best all-around player.
See what I mean? Positivity abounds!
I can't remember the exact numbers, but at this time last year, K-State was around 280 in the KenPom and right now, K-State currently ranks 79. That's a pretty substantial leap from an efficiency standpoint. For those that don't pay much attention to it, KenPom gives each team an offensive efficiency rating and a defensive efficiency rating. He then subtracts the defense from the offense and the number left over is your total efficiency and that's how he ranks teams.
Just for comparison sake, Baylor is currently 3rd nationally in the KenPom. They have the 5th best offensive efficiency at 116.3 and the 5th best defensive efficiency at 88.9. Their total efficiency of 27.31 trails only Gonzaga and Purdue.
K-State ranks 104th nationally at 104.9 offensively and 60th nationally at 95.1 for a total efficiency of 9.76. Last year, that number hovered around 0 and was in the negative for part of the time.
Those are all big time improvements from a numbers standpoint.
I don't do moral victories, but last year the losses were to Drake, Colorado, UNLV and Ft Hays State with all of them coming in Bramlage. Pretty big difference in this year's losses coming to Arkansas and Illinois on a neutral site.
See what I mean? Positivity abounds!!!
I will take all of this positivity and go one step further to say that I think K-State wins both games this week, and will be a jaw dropping 5-2 by this time next week.
Now, just to balance out this over the top optimism, I did have K-State at 5-2 after this week in my original season predictions. I just had them beating Cincinnati in KC and then losing to WSU in Wichita. After watching WSU and Missouri, I think K-State matches up pretty well with WSU.
After that though, I think things might get really tough and things will get even more tense around here.
I have now seen every Big 12 team play at least twice. Originally, I had the Big 12 ranked as follows:
1. KU
2. Texas
3. Baylor
4. Texas Tech
5. Oklahoma State
6. West Virginia
7. Oklahoma
8. Kansas State
9. TCU
10. Iowa State
After 5 to 8 games for every team, I would change those rankings to:
1. Baylor
2. Texas
3. Texas Tech
4. Kansas
5. Oklahoma State
6. Iowa State
7. Oklahoma
8. West Virginia
9. Kansas State
10. TCU
It's pretty hard to squint right now and see where many wins come from during the Big 12 slate. Now, I do know that things will change. Teams will have slumps, they will have injuries and at some point, Covid is going to wreck a couple of teams. But as of now, I would probably amend my prediction of 7-11 to 6-12.
The Big 12 is currently 45-8 in overall games and teams like Baylor, Kansas, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and WVU all have wins over P5 teams.
This board went absolutely bananas laughing at Iowa State for hiring TJ Otzelberger in the offseason. It may ultimately fail, but so far, the results have been pretty astounding. He was able to land 5 star PG Tyrese Hunter who is averaging 13 points and 5 assists per game so far (and he may be better defensively than offensively). They landed a gigantic transfer class and are getting pretty significant contributions from a bunch of them. Brockington and Kalscheur have both had 30 point games so far this year and even Tristan Enaruna and Aljaz Kunc have been matchup problems with their size and ability to shoot.
Otz took a team that went 2-22 last year and is 6-0 so far.
I don't want to get into the K-State players to much yet because I am going to give Bruce the benefit of the doubt and say that the rotations (as silly as they have been) are mostly a product of players not quite being fully available.
That said, I don't know that we will see this team fully available for a while.
We know who Nijel Pack is. He is a small 2 guard that would be a really good second or third scoring option on a great team. He has been really poor defensively so far though. I am going to chalk it up to having to rest on the defensive end due to a lack of conditioning at this point. The problem is, K-State needed Pack to be a 1st or 2nd team All-Big 12 guy to take a big step forward and he isn't that. At least not yet.
I do want to talk about the transfers some though.
I'll start with Ish Massoud because he is the easiest. He's been a major disappointment. I thought he was legitimately talented enough to be a 15-6 guy in a Bruce offense that wants to feature a legit stretch 4. I knew he would be challenged on the defensive end, but I thought he would have enough athleticism to overcome some of that. Instead, he is the guy that had a wide open lane last night and couldn't get the ball above the rim on a dunk attempt. He simply hasn't been very good on either end while playing the most minutes on the team by a pretty significant margin at this point.
Mark Smith is who many of us thought he was. He is going to do a lot of things at an average to a slightly above average level, but he won't do anything great. Now, I will say that he has rebounded at a pretty exceptional level so far, but I expect some of that will regress towards the mean as the season goes on and the competition ramps up. At this point last season, I was getting tagged about 9 times a day because I had the audacity to question @Grant Flanders prediction that Dajuan Gordon would double his rebounding numbers from the previous season. DJG had gotten off to a pretty hot start rebounding the ball too. But back to Smith, he isn't the potential star that he was being made out to be in the preseason write-ups. He is a glue guy that will do a lot of things to help you in games that you win and pretty much disappear in games that you lose. If he was a baseball player, he would be your consummate league average guy. A guy that would accumulate about 1 WAR over the course of the season.
The guy that is most intriguing is Marquis Nowell. There could be a case made that Nowell has been the best player for K-State so far. He is for sure the guy that makes the most things happen. My concern was never in his ability on the offensive end. He has skills that nobody else on the roster has and that is incredibly meaningful. My only concern was, would he be able to coexist with Bruce and Bruce's comments after the game last night give me even more pause. All I ever wanted from my players was to make their mistakes out of aggression. Mistakes are going to happen, just be aggressive doing them and you will be a net positive in just about every occasion. When a coach starts trying to "reel a player in" like Bruce seems to be doing with Nowell, you take away the aggressiveness that makes him different from the other guys. Nowell isn't a system guy. He is a guy that needs some freedom to impact the game for himself and others. In fact, I would argue that he is closer to Jake Pullen in offensive ability than anybody on K-State's roster since Pullen graduated. There is no doubt in my mind that Bruce would be talking in press conferences about Pullen needing to "play within the structure of the team" if he coached him.
I can almost guarantee that Nowell sees those remarks about him last night and his first thought is "WTF?" He is the team's 2nd leading scorer and leads the team in assists and steals all while having a 2-1 ATO ratio. And oh yeah, he is coming off the bench and playing significantly less minutes than all the other guards. This isn't some scenario where he is turning it over 3 or 4 times per game. Stop trying to put reigns on the kid and let him go be your best all-around player.
