Mid-Season Player Rankings

Photo: Mark Jones

It’s been a pretty damn exciting season so far, has it not?  We have had the Big East fold, we suffered our worst lost in the history of the Jay Wright era, and we are no long guard u (although next year when we have Ennis join us we will again have 3 capable point guards).  Yet it seems that most people I talk to are semi-optimistic about this year’s team.  Either there really is something to look forward to, or we really did hate last year’s team way more than I thought was even possible.  Even though it’s a little of column A and a little of column B, let’s stick to the former and keep this positive.

A review of the team stats so far leads me to the following conclusion: our optimism lies in the improvement we have seen in individual players because at the team level we still have a lot of work to do (I’ll tackle the team mid-season review later this week).  In honor of the countdown that will happen tonight for New Years, I am going to rank and countdown the best Nova players so far this season.  My parameters for the rankings are based on a combination performance to date, pre-season expectations, and my personal preference.  If I were to rank, oh let’s say, Yacoubou above Arcidiacono it does not mean I think Yacoubou is an overall better player, nor do I want them to swap minutes.  I just think Yacoubou has had a more impressive season so far.   I’m also throwing in Jay into the mix since that will get us to 10 spots.  Here it goes.

10. Mouphtaou Yarou – You know I think that is the first time I have ever written his first name all the way through.  Anyways, to say that Yarou’s season has been disappointing is probably the understatement of the season so far.  It’s not as if we/I had huge hopes for him, it’s just that I didn’t think he would be THIS bad.  Here is all you need to know about Villanova big men and about Yarou in one nice simple graph.

Free throw percentage rises while FG percentage drops as he turns into a jump shooter instead of staying down low.  This would be somewhat tolerable if it wasn’t for the fact that his TO% and rebounding numbers all are pointing in the wrong direction, and to clarify the graph Yarou is shooting 42.5% from 2 this year.

9. Tony Chennault – The hope was for Chennault to come in and be able to help out with the point guard duties.  While he has shown that he is a somewhat able passer, posting the 2^nd best Assist rate on the team of 19.9, he has been a miserable shooter.  Although he is shooting a respectable 78% from the stripe and 42% from 3 (on only 14 attempts), he is shooting 33.3% from 2, yuck.  He is also leading the team in TO% at 26.1, which is not what you want from a distributor/creator.  On the bright side he is one of our most athletic players, and if he can shoot a less pathetic percent from 2, say 40-43% then this story is different.

8. Darrun Hilliard – I’m just going to put it out there.  I don’t really like Hilliard’s game.  I mean, what is his game?  He seems incapable of making a decent pass and is currently posting an Assist rate of only 9 – that puts him behind Arcidiacono, Chennault, JVP, Bell, & Sutton.  In other words not very good considering he is usually the second ball handler on the floor.  He is shooting a terrible 39% from 2 and only 66% from the line.  Sure his TO% is the best on the team, but when you aren’t looking to create, having a low TO% amounts to simply not doing a whole lot.  With all that being said, we need Hilliard to score and help us on offense, I just wish he was a little better at doing it.

7. Daniel Ochefu – I’m not sure what we should have expected from Ochefu.  I don’t think he has really underperformed; so much as he hasn’t really stood out, to me at least.  He currently leads the team in OR% and has a respectable DR%.  Defensively, his Blk% should be higher than 5.7% but it’s not too bad either and he ends up getting a lot of steals for a big guy.  He is besting Kennedy’s all-time awful free throw shooting by freshman bigs last year by shooting 43% from the stripe, but then again almost anyone can do better than Kennedy’s 1-16 – that is NOT a typo.  I’m just not sure at this point why he is getting more minutes than Sutton, except for the fact that Sutton will be gone next year and he is only a freshman.

6. Jay Wright – Two weeks ago, I probably would have ranked Jay 25^th on this list.  I had a long back and forth with a couple of friends and most of us agreed: it was probably time for Jay to leave, maybe.  I know the thought is crazy, but with the underperforming and the terrible loss to Columbia I was actually agreeing with them.  Two weeks later and Jay is showing his coaching chops.  He has tinkered with the lineups and rotations, and it seems as if most players are showing signs of improvement.  However, I feel as if time is slowly running out for Jay, and if we fade miserably in the second half this season and produce a mere 500 level campaign next year, he has to be out right?  Luckily, he has done enough recently to quell the uprising for now.

5. Ryan Arcidiacono – Arcidiacono is hard to rank for the following reasons: a) he is a freshmen b) can you imagine where we would be without him? c) he really hasn’t played THAT well d) I have some pretty serious doubts about his ceiling.  The good: he is our best ball handler and has the best Assist rate on the team at 24.3.  He is making 31.8% of his 3’s (a number that should improve this year and the following) and he knows how to get to the line where he is shooting 81% - best on the team.  Crazy stat: he has almost double the number of free throw attempts as he has 2 point attempts: 58 FTA – 30 2FGA.  The bad: he might be the most unathletic player we have ever had. His lack of athleticism not only hurts us defensively – as he can’t stay in front of his man – but it also hurts us offensively as he can’t beat his guy off the dribble to create his own shot.  Hopefully, he gets quicker as he works on his legs in the off season, and maybe with the addition of another point guard he can move over to the 2, where he would be more effective.

4. Achraf Yacoubou – You know how I said I don’t like Hilliard?  Well, Yacoubou is the exact opposite of that.  I love him.  Every time he enters, the game gets more exciting and when he leaves we look slower and less athletic.  He has the second best steal% on our team, but at 6-4 he is our second best defensive rebounder grabbing a whopping 18.6% of defensive rebounds while he is on the court, Sutton at 24.2% is the only player who is doing that better.  Throw in the fact that he is shooting better than 36% from 3, and it’s easy to see that he has been a tremendous impact player off the bench.  We need more Yacoubou.  Say it with me Yahh-cooo-booo.

3. James Bell – Bell was a hard guy for me to place on this list.  He is not a very good offensive rebounder at all and is an average defensive rebounder for a player of his size.  His Assist rate is decent, but I can’t get the pictures out of my head where he puts his head and down, tries to beat his guy off the dribble, only to put up a ridiculously contested shot after working way too hard to get there.  That being said the guy is clearly our best one on one defender and does a little bit of everything for us on offense.  He is posting the 2^nd best eFG% at 54.1 – just slightly behind Sutton, and he is our best 3 point shooter.  Was anyone surprised when he hit that shot at the end of the St. Joe’s game? No.

2. Mo Sutton – We also need more Mo.  I just don’t understand why Sutton has never gotten more playing time.  I mean, what else does the guy have to do?  He has the best 2 point FG% on the team, the best defensive rebounding percentage, the 2^nd best offensive rebounding percentage, and he has an assist rate that is BETTER than Hilliard’s.  Here is my favorite stat though, if Sutton gets more playing time he would be eligible for kenpom’s Blk% ratings.  He would rank 10^th in the ENTIRE country at 14.8%!  Next on our team is Ochefu at 5.7%.

1. JVP - If you want to point to one single player that has not only improved drastically but who is also the reason we are a) playing well at the moment and b) gives us great reason to be optimistic, I give you JVP.  He has improved his offensive rebounding, his steal%, his free throw shooting and attempts, & he has raised his 2 pt. shooting% by over 7 percentage points.  But the biggest improvement is in his assist numbers and in his turnovers.  Last season he assisted on only 8.8% of his teammates baskets when he was on the floor, while he turned it over on 25.2% of the possessions he used.  This season he is assisting on 18.7% (3^rd on the team and only a hair behind Chennault) of his teammates baskets while only turning it over on 19% of the possessions he is using.  Both of those numbers are remarkable for a 6-6 guy playing power forward, who takes the MOST shots on our team!

The Plus & The Minus

(My quick thoughts on re-alignment the blatant selfish money grab and the 7 basketball schools breaking away from the Big East, in this order:

1)      Enough already.  Whatever happens just needs to happen.  I want my life back.
2)      From a basketball fans perspective – if we pick up some A-10 teams (Xavier, VCU, Butler?) & coax Gonzaga and St. Mary’s into our little conference of irrelevance, then we would have a fun league to watch.
3)      Our presence on the national scene is going to fade, finding our games on TV will be a pain in the ass, and the school’s reputation will suffer.
4)      Father Peter needs to go to confession, immediately
5)      Jay just got some crazy job security out of this whole mess.  If I was him, I would take us to the cleaners because if we lose him now (or fire him) who the hell are we going to get? First, we would have to actually give a shit about athletics so scratch that last one.)

Tuesday marked the first time this season where I actually found myself enjoying watching Chennault play.  I was initially down on Chennault because even though he is new to our program, he already has two years of college ball under his belt; only up till recently he has played like a senior in high school.  Conversely, I am starting to worry a little about Arcidiacono.  It was easy to give him a pass to begin with as he was a pretty accomplished youth player and he was only a freshman, however, his lack of athleticism is frankly shocking.  It is apparent on so many offensive possessions where he is unable to utilize the high screen to get into the paint, and I don’t even want to talk about his defensive shortcomings.  In short, I’m higher on Chennault than I was, and I’m cooling on Arcidiacono.

What’s interesting is that the strengths of each player are the weakness of the other.  Chennault is quick, athletic and likes to attack the rim.  Arcidiacono shows signs of being an above average outside shooter, is tough, and has good court vision.  The question though is whether they can play with each other and compliment each other’s game.  More importantly even, does Jay think they can compliment each other?

Plus/Minus ratings should almost never be taken at 100% face value.  They are noisy and often struggle with sample size issues.  However, numbers are always fun to look at and talk about, so below is a table of plus/minus ratings from the last 4 games (St. Joe’s, UPenn, Temple, & Vandy).

	+/-	Min	%Min
Yacoubou	16	65	40.6%
Bell	15	121	75.6%
JvP	13	94	58.8%
Hilliard	8	113	70.6%
Sutton	6	65	40.6%
Ochefu	6	59	36.9%
Yarou	5	100	62.5%
Arcidiacono	3	125	78.1%
Chennault	-8	58	36.3%

I’ve been slowly turning into a huge Yacoubou fan over the course of the past couple of games, and this now solidifies my affection.  The guy has great energy and has shown he can be a competent offensive player – he is quietly hitting 40% from 3 & 50% from 2!

But look at the bottom of this list, and you will find our two aforementioned ball handlers.  As a point of reference we are +12 as a team over this time frame.  That is not good, but it is good to see that we have two main playmakers, Bell & JvP, at the top as well as at least one role player, Yacoubou.

Digging a tiny bit deeper into the play by play data, we can answer the original question that was posed: does Jay feel as if Chennault and Arcidiacono compliment each other?  The answer seems to be no he doesn’t and no they do not necessarily compliment each other.

Chennault and Arcidiacono have shared the floor for only 28 minutes over the last 4 games, which is only 17.5% of the total minutes.  The 28 minutes accounts for almost half of Chennault’s minutes but only 22.4% of Arcidiacono’s minutes (as he plays way more minutes obviously).  The result of these two being on the court together is a -12.  Again, NOT GOOD.  I do not unfortunately have +/- numbers for other pairings, but maybe in the future that is something I can look into.

For now, we have 3 out 4, and although Chennault’s +/- rating stinks I believe he has started to play better.  JvP and Bell are playing well enough and Yacoubou is providing some quality minutes and may even start taking away some time from Hilliard.  As for the minus, we need better play from out point guards and somewhere along the line I believe that will be the case.  Until then, we have to hope that our other players are doing enough to compensate for our weakness, and over the last 4 game stretch that worked 75% of the time.  With all the craziness going on with re-alignment, beating the Hawk will keep the frustration in check for the time being.

Death By 3's

Fact: We are not a good defensive team.

Fact: We are ranked 343 our of 343 teams in giving up 3FGA

Fact: We have 0 good, let alone elite defenders

Fact: Our defense, more than our struggling offense, is our biggest problem so far this year

Watching the games, the thing that jumps out the most is that we cannot stay in front of anyone defensively.  It is astonishing.  The result is that we are allowing our opponents to take over 44.3% of their shots from 3.  And in EVERY SINGLE GAME this season our opponents have attempted more 3’s, as a percentage of their shots, than they average for the season.

Ahem, Columbia, jesus.  The problem I believe is largely rooted in personal.  Arcidiacono is playing 84.8% of possible minutes so far this season, and he is our worst on ball defender.  His minutes may dip some, but he is our only real ball handler, so he has to be on the court.  Looking around at our other players, does anyone really stand out as an above average defender?  Sure, Sutton does, but Jay still keeps him on the bench for most of the game.  Bell seems like he is an above average defender, but not when he is playing down low, which he has to do from time to time.

The only option really left is to change up our defensive methodology, something that Jay has rarely done over the years.  However, considering how awful we have been at giving up 3 pt. attempts it might behoove him to make some adjustments.  Generally the 2-3 zone results in opponents shooting outside shots more frequently than against man to man schemes, but at least they generally get a hand in the guy’s face.  For now we are left with watching Arcidiacono/Hilliard/Chennault get blown by, and as the help defense arrives the ball is getting kicked out and passed around till someone has a wide open look.  Get used to it, because its going to be there all season long unless we make some changes.

We Are No Longer Guard U

Last night’s loss, which IS the worst loss in the history of the Jay Wright era, illustrated the biggest problem we currently face as a program.  We are no longer guard u.  This does not have to be a problem, as programs tend to ebb and shift over time, but it is a problem because we, ahem Jay, refuses to adjust our offensive game plan.  What you saw last night was a combination of untimely poor shooting, inexperience, awful defending but more glaringly a lack of creative penetrating guard play.  The one required component needed in our offense.

Since 2005, every single year without fail, we have had exactly 2 players who have played more than 40% of available minutes while also assisting (ARate) on at least 20% of their teammates baskets.

Name	Year	%Min	Arate	Torate
Foye	2005	79.9	21.5	15.9
Nardi	2005	77.4	20.0	22.5
Foye	2006	86.1	21.3	12.6
Lowry	2006	72.7	25.9	19.6
Scottie	2007	74.1	30.6	22.3
Nardi	2007	74.3	27.5	18.5
Scottie	2008	81.4	20.8	21.5
Fisher	2008	53.1	25.8	20.5
Scottie	2009	80.2	20.4	19.3
Fisher	2009	60.7	22.6	19.7
Scottie	2010	75.2	21.8	18.0
Fisher	2010	67.1	27.5	17.3
Fisher	2011	83.1	32.0	15.8
Wayns	2011	75.0	32.4	19.8
Wayns	2012	75.0	32.5	18.9
Johnson	2012	43.6	21.7	35.8
Arcidiacono	2013	81.8	31.1	23.4
Chennault	2013	43.0	18.6	10.7

Let’s take this one step further.  If we assume that 1 of these 2 players MUST be on the court at all times, we can then figure out the maximum % of minutes possible for these players to be on the court together.  The point is to illustrate that we need to creators on the court together a good chunk of the time for our offense to run efficiently.  Below is the graph which shows the possible % of minutes our 2 playmakers could have been on the floor together each year since ’05.

Look at 2012.  We could have played a total of ONLY 18.6% of minutes with two ball handlers on the floor.  Let me also take a moment to point out just how awful Johnson was last year; did you see that TORate from the earlier list?  It is a whole 12% points WORSE than the next guy, who unfortunately happens to be Arcidiacono.  Translation: Wayns was forced to create way too many shots and opportunities for his teammates while at the same time trying to create for himself because Johnson should be playing DIII.

Over the years, the beauty of our offense HAS been that we have had multiple ball handlers and creators on the court at the same time.  It is what has allowed to us play a rather loose and seemingly unorganized offensive game that at the same time has performed at an above average rate.  As this graph adequately illustrates, that is not the case anymore.  Currently, we have only ONE guy who can be labeled a creator and he is a true Freshmen.  I don’t think you need me to explain anything more.

Wait, what’s that you say?  What about Hilliard, he can play the point can’t he?  NO HE CAN’T, well at least he’s shown he doesn’t want to.  Last year Hilliard was third in ARate with 10.8.  This year, when we could use another creator, Hilliard currently ranks 6^th on the team.  Yeah that’s right, 6^th as he is only ahead of Ochefu, Yarou and Sutton and his ARate is down at 8.2.  It’s so low it’s insulting.  And I’m not even mentally prepared to talk about how bad Chennault is.  He stinks, end of story.  The guy played 75% of his teams minutes last year, took over 20% of the shots while he was on the floor, and shot 43% from 2 and 25% from 3.  Even Cheek was better than that.

I’m at a loss for any positive takeaways from this post or from the game last night.  However, I do believe Hilliard CAN be an OK creative ball handler, but either Jay doesn’t want him to or he doesn’t want to.  At the end of the day, we have to do something different if we are going to have only one creator, and so far Jay has not been able to answer that question.  Let’s hope he can because frankly, I can’t keep caring this much when we suck so badly.

Season Preview Part I: State of the Program

Before we get into talking about our actual team, players and schedule, I want to try and figure out what the current state of the program is.  Now entering his 12^th season, we have a pretty good picture about what it means to have Jay Wright as the head of your program.  First, I want to be clear.  I am a Jay supporter and defender, and I do NOT believe he should even be on the hot seat this season.  Now if we fail to show promise and this year ends up as bad if not worse than last year, well then obviously I think he should start getting nervous.  But for now, Jay is our coach and he should be.  But, what does it mean to have Jay as your coach?

It means the following:

11 season: 231-115 .667%

9 winning seasons

99 – 69 record in Big East play; including 8 seasons at .500 or better

1 Conference Regular Season Championship (’06)

7 seasons posting 20+ wins

7 NCAA Tourneys

4 Sweet 16’s

2 Elite 8’s

1 Final Four

Ah, the Final four.  Would Jay still have a job if he didn’t have that on his resume? I for one am glad we don’t have to answer that question, as Final Four coaches do not simply grow on trees.

That being said, we have frankly sucked the last two years.  I felt my soul slip from inside of me every time I tuned in the last two years.  We have had several blue chip recruits fail to pan out, and so this year we find the program in very uncertain territory.  We have few upperclassmen, again, and a handful of sophomores who were less than impressive last year.  We have also seen players leave early who were not ready for the next level (boy is that putting it mildly or what?) and players transfer who were once highly regarded recruits.  It seems as if Jay wants to start over and clean house of any bad apples, which in light of the last couple of years seems like a sound strategy.

But taking a step back for a moment, I want to look at some broader trends and see if we can’t define the components of a Jay Wright Villanova team.  I am using data from 2003-2012 as that data is the most easily accessible, and it gives us 10 solid years of information.

Looking at the Data

Anyone care to guess what our biggest statistical strength as a program has been over the last 10 years?  3 point shooting - clearly not.  Steals - no.  Assists - no.  Defensive FG% - um, no.  It is offensive rebounding percentage, OR%!  Crazy, right?  Here is a graph of our 4 factors over time and their respective national ranks, out of 347 D-I teams.

It looks harder to read than it is.  Check out 2010 for example, and you can see how all of the data points are clustered together at the bottom.  We were an offensive machine that year, as our national ranking in all the 4 factors was really solid.  But overall you can see that OR% (in dark green) is always the lowest, meaning best ranked, out of all of the 4 factors.  This is not something I ever would have expected, but clearly it is our teams best attribute on a consistent basis, as we were only ranked outside the top 50 three times and we were in the top 25 one 4 different occasions.  The other positive trend shown here is our ability to get the free throw line.  We have remained steady and we have even improved in this area over time, thank you Scottie and Fisher.

Now, here are the same stats but on the defensive side of the ball.

Several things stand out.  First, we have improved our defensive rebounding over the years – which makes sense as we have also added size: Sutton, Yarou, etc.  The second thing is look at how BAD we were at creating turnovers the last two years.  Jesus, that is awful and trending in the wrong direction.  Finally, look at the trends for our foul rate (FTA/FGA in orange) and also our TO% (shown in red).  For the most part, we have fouled at a fairly high rate, but that has been offset largely by our ability to create TO’s.  However, in the last two years that trend flipped, and you can see that we created far fewer turnovers while also fouling much less frequently.  I think it reflects an overall lack of effort on the defense end, and it could very well illustrate the chemistry issues and effort issues over the last two seasons.  Fouling a lot is never a good thing, but if you are being aggressive and creating turnovers as a result, I think you can stomach the foul rate.

Conclusions

Jay Wright has had success at Villanova over his last 11 years.  We have won the Big East regular season once.  We have gained a 1 seed in the tourney.  We have made a Final Four.  Short of winning the ship, I think he has done an excellent job.

Offensively over the years, we have been an above average offensive rebounding team despite our often lack of perceived height.  Additionally, we generally have a knack for getting to the foul line, where as everyone knows we convert our attempts at a high rate.  In our best seasons, ’05, ’06, ’09, & ‘10 we take care of the basketball, but outside of ’10 our eFG% fluctuates.

Defensively, we have steadily improved on the glass while also causing a good amount of turnovers – possibly a result of a guard heavy team which will improve one’s Stl%.  Overall, we tend to foul at a high rate, but until the last couple of years this has been offset by our ability to create turnovers.

I think more than anything the declining TO% and the lower FTA/FGA are the most indicative of our teams struggles over the last couple of seasons.  While our offensive numbers have shifted, it is our defense or lack thereof, which has hurt us the most.  Getting back to being aggressive and causing turnovers should greatly improve our overall defensive numbers, while at the same time instilling that team mentality and chemistry which just simply hasn’t been there lately.

2012 Preview Coming Shortly

After taking a year off because a) we were awful and not fun to watch or write about, and b) I was really really busy; I am hopeful that I can stick to a semi-regular schedule of posts.  If all goes well, this upcoming Friday I will have Part I of my season preview ready to post.