Lobo basketball is back! Tonight, even! It’s a talented roster with a lot of returning players, including two first-team all-conference selections, so needless to say, we’re excited for this year. To get ready for it, we decided to look at the roster and see how the players did last year, based on some advanced statistics and broken down into guards, wings, and posts. From this, we can see where the strengths of each player are, and get some insight where they probably spent some time this summer improving.

(Before we get into it, it’s worth noting that a description of each of the statistics can be found at the bottom of this post and all of the stats were taken from kenpom.com.)

Guards

Returning Players

The plot above shows how the three returning guards – Elijah Brown, Jordan Hunter, and Anthony Mathis – measured out last season. Unsurprisingly, Elijah was good at a lot of things last year. He had an excellent offensive efficiency rating, played a bunch of minutes, was elite at drawing fouls, made his free throws, assist at a good rate, and didn’t turn the ball over much. A couple of sneaky-good things that he did last season was rebound well on the defensive end and stay out of foul trouble. That last one was crucial, as the Lobos needed him to stay on the court to drive their offense. However, that likely came at the cost of his defense, as he likely backed off some to avoid committing fouls, which is slightly evident in his relatively-low BPS rating, which measures block and steal rates. With more help on offense this year, I think that he should be able to play defense without as much fear of getting into foul trouble. That said, we still want him on the court as much as possible.

Jordan played somewhat-limited minutes last season, but still flashed some good skills, especially for a freshman. He shot over 40% from three point range, had the highest steal rate on the team, and had a solid assist rate. The main areas where we would like to see him improve are with his turnovers, as he led the team in turnover rate, and simply being more assertive in taking shots. If he can do those two things, I think that we’ll see his offensive efficiency rating go up considerably this year. He’ll be counted on quite a bit this year, so if he can take a leap as a sophomore, he’ll help the team win a lot of games.

Anthony also played limited minutes last season, but also showed some good flashes. He was unafraid to take open shots, and made a good percentage of them, while shooting an excellent 91.7% from the free throw line. Offense was never really the question with him, as we knew coming in that he was a lights-out shooter. For him, the main areas of improvement can come on the defensive end. He committed fouls at a high rate, which is usually indicative of a player who is struggling on the defensive end, and he’ll need to cut that down if he’s going to get more minutes this year. As a side note, there have been some comments that make it seem like he might get some action at the point this year, so it will be interesting to see how he’s able to run the offense.

Newcomers

Jalen Harris was a late sign for the Lobos, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not an exciting player. He’s been described as being one of the fastest players on the court that his teammates and coaches have seen, drawing comparisons to Kendall Williams in that regard. He also has some hops, making some impressive dunks at the Lobo Howl, which makes me think that he has the sort of athleticism to be a special player. He’s currently battling with Jordan for the starting position, and should play a lot either way.

Wings

Returning Players

The plot above shows how the three returning wings – Xavier Adams, Sam Logwood, and Dane Kuiper – measured out last season. As can see, there are a lot of similarities between the three players, which is a testament to the depth at the position. Sam got the most minutes of the three last year, starting every game. He was pretty much solid all around last season, but wasn’t particularly spectacular at anything. He was a good rebounder on both ends, played good defense, and shot threes fairly well. His Achilles heel has been his free throw shooting, where his 58.3% needs to improve, especially if he plays more aggressively, as expected. It feels like he’s been on the verge of a breakout for a while, and if he can be more assertive on offense, I think that this could be that year.

Xavier is sort of the consummate hustle guy, who bangs hard for rebounds on both ends of the floor, does a good job of getting blocks and steals, and draws fouls at a decent rate. The flip side of that is because of the way he plays, he turns the ball over a little too much and he commits fouls at a high rate. I think that he can cut both of those things down a little while still playing at the same level of energy that he does now, which makes him a valuable player in the rotation. Especially given his flexibility to play and guard multiple positions.

Dane was caught in the wing logjam last year, which meant that he didn’t play a ton last year. When he did play, he showed good polish on the defensive end, showed a nice shooting stroke from deep, rebounded well on defense, and did a good job of distributing the ball. He wasn’t particularly aggressive on offense though, evidenced by his low Shots% and by the low rate of fouls drawn, which should improve as he gains more playing time and experience. He’ll have a chance to be a big part of the rotation, so we should see a lot more of him this year.

Newcomers

Damien Jefferson is a second-generation Lobo, which is pretty cool, but he’s quite the prospect in his own right. He’s a well-rounded player who is full of athleticism and has the potential to turn into the go-to player on the team in the future. Because of the players in front of him who are returning, it’s unclear how much playing time he’ll get on a regular basis, but he seems to have the talent to force his way on the court if things go well.

Aher Uguak is an athletic wing with good size who is still a little raw, by all accounts. He’s a good candidate to redshirt this year, which could be a good thing for him anyway, given the depth the team has on the wing already. If he develops the way the coaching staff hope, he could become the sort of two-way player that are always valuable in basketball.

Posts

Returning Players

The plot above shows how the three returning posts – Tim Williams, Obij Aget, and Joe Furstinger – measured out last season. Tim immediately sticks out with his offensive performance, rating as the most efficient Lobo from last season while taking a high percentage of available shots. He was also strong on the defensive glass and did a good job of avoiding turnovers and fouls. He was already one of the best players in the conference last year, so simply repeating his performance would be great. Any improvements are just icing on the cake.

Obij Aget earns his keep on the glass and on the defensive end, but can still be effective on the offensive end, mostly through putbacks and alley-oops. He had a fairly high turnover rate for a post, which indicates that throwing the ball to him down low wasn’t always effective. He also had a good block rate, but was prone to getting into foul trouble, evidenced by his high FC/40 rate. The goal for him will be to play good defense without fouling, as the team needs him to be able to stay on the court.

Joe was pretty much the definition of all-defense, no-offense last year, as he had the highest BPS on the team by a good margin, but had the lowest offensive efficiency rating. Depending on who else is on the court, that could be okay, as some units have plenty of offense and need more defense. However, some improvement on the offensive end will earn him more time on the court this season.

Newcomers

Connor MacDougall is now where he’s supposed to be, having transferred from Arizona State (by way of South Mountain Community College) to a Lobo program that wanted him bad out of high school. Now that he’s here, he’s expected to start contributing immediately, providing another physical presence in the post who can be effective on both ends of the court. I don’t know if he’ll ever crack the starting lineup this year, with the two senior starters returning, but he’ll almost certainly get starter’s minutes. Based on what we’ve seen out of him this preseason, he could be in the conversation for conference newcomer of the year.

Description of Stats

All of the stats shown are taken from kenpom.com.

• Min%: Percentage of possible minutes played. For example, in a 40 minute game, a player who plays 30 minutes would have a value of (30/40)*100 = 75%. Scale is from 0% to 100%
• ORtg: Offensive efficiency, which measures how effective the player is on offense. The higher the number, the better. Scale is from 80 to 120.
• Shots%: What percentage of the team’s shots did the player take when he was on the floor. So, if a team takes 10 shots while a certain player is on the court and that player took three of them, his value would be (3/10)*100 = 30%. Scale is from 0% to 35%.
• TS%: True shooting percentage, which is a weighted percentage of a player’s three point percentage, two point percentage, and free throw percentage. Scale is from 35% to 70%.
• OReb%: Offensive rebounding percentage, which is the percentage of potential offensive rebounds a player collects. Scale is from 0% to 20%.
• DReb%: Defensive rebounding percentage, which is the percentage of potential defensive rebounds a player collects. Scale is from 0% to 20%.
• ARate: Assist rate, which measures the percentage of baskets made by a player’s teammates that the player collected an assist on. Scale is from 0% to 40%.
• TORate: Turnover rate, which is the percentage of possessions that a player used where he turned the ball over. Scale is from 0% to 40%.
• BPS: A combination of block percentage and steal percentage. Block percentage is the percentage of opponent’s field goal attempts while the player is on the court that were blocked by the player. Steal percentage is the percentage of opponent’s possessions while the player is on the court where the player records a steal. BPS is just the two percentages added together. Scale is from 0% to 10%.
• FC/40: Fouls committed per 40 minutes played, which is calculated by taking the number of fouls the player committed over the season, dividing by the number of minutes that player played over the season, then multiplied by 40. Scale is from 0 to 10.
• FD/40: Fouls drawn per 40 minutes played, which KenPom estimates using some of the other statistics available, including total number of fouls committed by opponents, the amount of time the player was on the court, and the number of free throws the player took. Scale is from 0 to 10.
• FT%: Free throw shooting percentage, which is simply the number of free throws made divided by the number of free throws taken, multiplied by 100. Scale is from 0% to 100%.