Kansas Basketball Outlook
Kaegan Cowan
11/11/2020
COVID-19 shut down the 2019-20 NCAA men’s college basketball season just as the most exciting and lucrative part of its season, the NCAA Tournament, was about to begin. As the calendar flipped from February to March, it had become clear who the top team in college basketball was: Kansas. The Jayhawks were the only team to have a single-digit ranking in Ken Pomeroy’s offensive and defensive efficiency ratings (eighth and second, respectively). Unfortunately, they were unable to take their 16-game winning streak into March Madness and compete for what would be their first championship since 2008. They also lost their top two players in terms of player efficiency rating (PER), 7-foot center Udoka Azubuike and 6-foot-2-inch guard Devon Dotson to the NBA Draft. However, the new-look 2020-21 Kansas basketball team may surprise some people and avenge their predecessors.
Did anyone tell Kansas that basketball is all about the three-point shot nowadays? Apparently not. Azubuike’s dominance as a true post-up center, coupled with the extension of the three-point line by almost 1 ½ feet, led the Jayhawks to embrace an interior offensive strategy.
A shot chart of three of Kansas’ biggest wins in the 2019-20 season—vs. Dayton to win the Maui Invitational, at No. 14 West Virginia, and at No. 1 Baylor—looks like a black hole destroying a bright star. The hole, of course, is the hoop, showing that most of Kansas’ field goal attempts were five feet or less. Azubuike had the highest field goal percentage in the NCAA, and it is not surprising that the Jayhawks as a whole ranked ninth nationally in field goal percentage, given the high-percentage looks they were taking.
How does this translate to the upcoming season? Some skepticism that they can replicate this kind of offense is fair, given the loss of Azubuike and a slashing point guard in Dotson. However, a look at the team’s PER shows that the two next-best players on the team, 6-foot-10-inch forward David McCormack and 6-foot-5-inch point guard Marcus Garrett, are hardly pushovers.
| 2019-20 Kansas Players PER | |
|---|---|
| Player | PER |
| Udoka Azubuike | 31.3 |
| Devon Dotson | 24.9 |
| David McCormack | 23.6 |
| Marcus Garrett | 16.8 |
| Christian Braun | 14.8 |
| Ochai Agbaji | 13.1 |
| Isaiah Moss | 11.4 |
| Tristan Enaruna | 9.0 |
McCormack, who was seventh in minutes played as a sophomore in 2019-20, will be given a much greater opportunity to produce as he fills the hole left by Azubuike’s departure, and his PER suggests that he could be primed for an excellent season. Meanwhile, Garrett, who was third in minutes played as a junior, has a chance to not only make up for some of the production lost by Dotson’s departure but also to cement himself as the team’s leader as a senior. Garrett has proven to be a defensive stalwart—he led the team and was fifth in the nation in defensive box score plus/minus, which is an estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions he contributed above a league-average player.
Two other important pieces returning to the 2020-21 Kansas squad are 6-foot-6-inch junior guard Ochai Agbaji and 6-foot-5-inch sophomore guard Christian Braun. Agbaji started all 31 games for the Jayhawks in 2019-20, and provided solid all-around play, finishing fourth on the team in both offensive and defensive win shares. Braun only started five games as a freshman, but he immediately established himself as a sharpshooter with the best three-point field goal percentage of any player with over 400 minutes played (.444). Agbaji and Braun should be able to keep the offense from seriously regressing, as both of them are right around Dotson in terms of effective field goal percentage (a statistic which weights three-point attempts more heavily due to greater value).
Defense may be where the loss of Azubuike and Dotson hurts the most. As mentioned earlier, Garrett is a top-tier defender, but after him, there are some question marks. Perhaps sophomore forward Tristan Enaruna, who was fifth in defensive box score plus/minus but who only played 11 minutes per game, can contribute more defensively with increased playing time.
Another huge way Azubuike in particular will be missed is on the glass. Azubuike was 10th in the country in rebound percentage, which measures the proportion of available rebounds a single player gets while on the floor. He grabbed 21.5% of available rebounds, providing valuable second-chance scoring opportunities for the Jayhawks while taking them away from opponents. By comparison, McCormack recorded 16.1% of available rebounds, a number he will need to increase.
Kansas should see plenty of contributions from many players who hardly played or did not play at all last year—the Jayhawks had three redshirts: two four-star recruits in guard Dajuan Harris and forward Jalen Wilson and a very experienced player in senior forward Mitch Lightfoot. In addition to those players, Kansas landed five-star guard Bryce Thompson, who presumably will immediately step into much of the role vacated by Dotson.
Aside from past statistics and hopeful potential, why is this Kansas team poised to make a championship run? After all, they are no more than a preseason borderline top-10 team according to many polls, and they face a tough challenge in the Big 12 with Baylor starting at No. 2 in the AP Poll. In short: they are due. Head coach Bill Self has been on the verge of an elusive second championship for many years now, and he was robbed of the chance to have his top-ranked team compete in March Madness last season. For an example like themselves, the Jayhawks need to look no further than to the 2019 national champion, Virginia. The Cavaliers, like the Jayhawks, finished No. 1 in the final AP poll, only to have their season cut short in the first round of the tournament by No. 16 seed UMBC in 2018. Virginia was expected to take a step back in the 2018-19 season, but they responded to their historic upset loss by going 35-3 and defeating Texas Tech in the national championship. Kansas can do the same.