[Cracked Sidewalks] Top 100 Recruits

[CrackedSidewalksSays]

Top 100 Recruits

Written by: noreply@blogger.com (Rob Lowe)

One of the things I am looking forward to most about this season is that it is completely up in the air.  In a somewhat down Big EAST, Marquette could legitimately finish anywhere from 4th to 14th.  I'm particularly excited to see how all of the various new players will perform this season, partially for the same reason.  No one knows what to expect.

The question of what we expect from the new players drove me to take a look at Top 100 recruits in the Big East, and how they performed in their first year.

Thanks to the help from bma and statsheet.com, I tracked down every Top 100 recruit for the Big EAST from 2005 through last year.  Because there were a number of puts and takes, this list may have some inaccuracies.

Over this four year period, there were 89 players listed as Top 100 by one recruiting service or another.

• The heavy hitters were exactly what you'd expect:  Georgetown (10 players), Louisville (9), Syracuse (9), UConn (8)
• Marquette had five top 100 players.  You know their names (James, McNeal, Matthews, Hayward, Mbakwe)
• In somewhat surprising information, Rutgers had six Top 100 players.
• South Florida was the only Big EAST team with zero Top 100 players
• It's important to note that ten of the players in this pool (including Mbakwe) end up as incompletes due to injuries or lack of production.  I actually consider this somewhat good news, because I would have expected the percentage to be a lot higher.
  

Over this period, how did these players perform their first year on the team?

Somewhat surprisingly, the average first year player, even as a Top 100 recruit, was... average.  Seriously, the average of the remaining 79 players was an offensive rating of 100.4 and a usage of 20.6%.  It doesn't get much more average than that.  The first point that this brings up is that even Top 100 recruits are most likely not very efficient offensive players.

In fact, 80% of the Top 100 recruits in their first year had an offensive efficiency of 110 or less.  Here is the breakdown of all of the players.




As you can see, I've broken down the players into four quadrants of Stud, Role Player, Ball Hog, and Non-Factor.  They are surprisingly consistent across categories (20 Studs, 19 Role Players, 17 Ball Hogs, and 23 Non-Factors.

• Stud - A player that has an above average offensive rating and an above average usage is a first year stud.  These are players like Jerome Dyson, Greg Monroe,  Samardo Samuels,  DeJuan Blair, Jonny Flynn, and Scottie Reynolds. You know every single player on this list
• Role Player - A player with above average offensive rating and a below average usage.  They're not the focal point, but they are efficient on the court.  In their first year, role players include Jeff Adrien, Kemba Walker, Austin Freeman, Jerry Smith, Kyle McAlarney, and Levance Fields
• Ball Hog - A player that is below average offensively but above average in terms of usage.  Guys in this category include Deonta Vaughn, Wilson Chandler, Chris Wright, Derrick Caracter, Mike Rosario, and Paul Harris.  These guys put up points but hurt the team.
  
• Non-Factors - Below average offensively and in terms of usage.  Many of these players prompted a "who?" when I saw their names.  Sometimes the players just need time (like Thabeet), but often, these guys simply become role players later, like Andre McGee or Reggie Redding.  Or they don't contribute at all later.
  

Again, this is a view of how Top 100 players perform in their first year.  So the second point is that there is a pretty even split as to whether or not these players will be true studs, simple role players, ball hogs, or even just a non-factor on offense.

I'm sure you'll note that I didn't mention any Marquette players in the list above.  How did they do in their first year?




James was a legit stud his first year, with an offensive rating of 104.9 and a usage of 27.7%.  McNeal was a true ball-hog that first year, consuming almost the same amount of possessions (27.1%) with an offensive rating of 87.7.  woof.  Lazar and Wesley were basically average players (100.5, 99.1, respectively) with slightly above average usage (22.5% each).

The good and the bad news




Here is how last year's top five players (JB = Jimmy Butler) would have stacked up against the same list of first year players. The Big Four were all studs, with offensive efficiency and usage above average.  It's no surprise that players improve over time.  So even if the guys joining the team next year are sub-par offensively, they can still get a lot better.  That's the good news.

I previously mentioned that 80% of top 100 recruits have an offensive efficiency of 110 or below.  Well, Marquette's team offensive efficiency last year was 117.5.   To put it another way, almost all of the Top 100 recruits (95%) in their first year weren't as efficient as the entire 2008-2009 Marquette team.  If you are expecting a team that looks nearly as good offensively on the court as last year's team, well... that's the bad news.

Looking at Marquette's Top 100 Recruits
(I'll look at Darius Johnson-Odom and Dwight Buycks separately)

Barring injury, it's almost certain that Erik Williams, Junior Cadougan, and Jeronne Maymon will receive somewhere close to the average number of possessions.   The number of possessions they receive will probably be the most important aspect of how they perform in their first year and there are plenty of possessions to go around.    

While it's almost certain that their offensive skills will be limited, there appears to be a chance that one (or more) of them will shine as a true first year stud.  However, it also appears that one (or more) of them may end up as a ball hog.  Regardless, even if these highly touted recruits struggle offensively,  we should expect to see them grow into more offensively efficient players in subsequent years.

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2009/09/top-100-recruits.html

[dsfire]

• South Florida was the only Big EAST team with zero Top 100 players

Oof.  That's just another kick in the groin after last year's loss (though Dominique Jones is a solid player).  South Florida is the new East Carolina.

Overall takeaway: Our offense won't be as good as last year, which shouldn't be a shocker.  We'll need to use our new size to improve our defense and close the gap.

Edit: Incidentally, Jimmy Butler was the only player last year whose individual offensive efficiency was at or above the team's, though a few others were close.  I think 105ish is probably a reasonable efficiency to tab as "good" for a first year player with decent usage.  James was around there his freshman year, Kemba Walker was last year, etc.  You're probably also looking for higher numbers from your big men than your guards.

[TomW1365]

Does Rob Lowe love number crunching or what?!? 

It was cool to see where Butler landed on that list... we all knew he was a hell of a role player down the stretch, but his offensive efficiency is off the charts!

[Marquette84]

I previously mentioned that 80% of top 100 recruits have an offensive efficiency of 110 or below.  Well, Marquette's team offensive efficiency last year was 117.5.   To put it another way, almost all of the Top 100 recruits (95%) in their first year weren't as efficient as the entire 2008-2009 Marquette team.  If you are expecting a team that looks nearly as good offensively on the court as last year's team, well... that's the bad news.

Nice analysis, however, I'm not sure that one can make the comparison quoted above.

Specifically, I don't think that 117.5 team offensive efficiency is comparable to the individual offensive rating.

According to Pomeroy, every single player aside from Butler on the 2009 team had an offensive rating below 117.5.  Our four most-used players McNeal (108.6),  Matthews (116.8), Hayward (114.1) and James (104.0) were all below the team average. 

Yes, Butler was rated 131, but I doubt his participation--whether weighed by minutes, possessions, shots, or any other factor--would be enough to pull the rest of the team up--especially when we have Acker at 99.0 rating pulling the team down, with very nearly the same usage factor as Butler (12.7 for Acker vs. 14.1 for Butler).  In other words, as much as Butler pulled us above that 117 number, Acker pulled us down.
http://kenpom.com/team.php?y=2009&team=Marquette


The other factor that isn't readily apparent here is who those players shared the court with.  Compared to Dominic James head to head, Rosario was a slightly better outside shooter, much better FT shooter, and slightly worse 2 point shooter.   Overall, their Points per Shot was an identical 1.10.

So why does Rosario have a Ortg of 95, while James gets a 104?  It's because Rosario's supporting cast wasn't as strong as James', forcing him to take a significantly larger percentage of the team's offense (and hurting his ability to get assists).  We saw the same thing on MU in 04 and 05, where Diener took an inordinate number of outside shots, bailing the team out as the shot clock expired.  I would submit that this is not a result of Rosario "hogging" the ball, so much as the fact that he had nobody of note to pass the ball to (and possibly a directive from Fred Hill that Rosario not even try to make that pass).

It is an interesting exercise---however I'm not sure it supports the conclusion that 95% of the top 100 players play at a level below MU's team average.

[Fullodds]

Question:  if DJO and Byucks were true first year players today, where would they fall in a top 100 ranking system? 

[bma725]

Question:  if DJO and Byucks were true first year players today, where would they fall in a top 100 ranking system? 

Only two services really do any sort of ranking where you can make that sort of estimate.  HoopScoop's as we've discussed before is a mess, and there's really no way to know what they actually would be because Francis has screwed up his estimates so much that there are more players in his combined Top 100 than there are spots.

ESPN is the other option.  They don't do a combined ranking, but every player they evaluate is given a rating of 1-100. Buycks is a 94, and on their list that puts him at #48 out of all players in the class.  Players with ratings of 94 fall between #42 and #54, so how they put him at that spot is unknown.

Unfortunately, ESPN didn't see DJO this year, and his evaluation as a prep school player is incomplete so they didn't give him a grade.