The Most Improved Players In The Country

[RealGM Articles]

Today I want to talk about players that have improved their efficiency substantially this season. This is a little bit of an awkward thing to talk about at the start of March. After all, if you've been following college basketball this year, the fact that these players have improved is nothing new. This seems like the kind of list that should be compiled in December. The problem is that lots of players look better in December. Only after the grind of conference play do we really find out which players took their game to the next level.

In another column, I may talk about PPG changes. Yes, PPG is pace-inflated, but playing time is an important component of a player's quality. The charts below are going to overlook some players who improved by simply taking their per-minute production, and maintaining it with more playing time.

But today I want to focus on efficiency and aggressiveness.

First, I want to give a shout out to Syracuse's Rakeem Christmas and Missouri's Jonathan Williams who became much more aggressive this offseason. Ken Pomeroy has shown how players rarely change their shot-volume significantly from year to year, but sometimes that happens by necessity. With both Syracuse and Missouri losing key players, Christmas went from using 13% of Syracuse's possessions to 26% of Syracuse's possessions when on the floor. And Williams went from using 15% of Missouri's possessions to 28% of Missouri's possessions. In both cases these players eFG% and turnover rates have gotten worse because of the additional aggressiveness. Christmas's ORtg plunged from 126 to 111. And Williams ORtg fell from 106 to 91. But it would be foolish not to call these two among the most improved players in the country. Both have become the heart of their teams.

Given these caveats, perhaps calling today's column "most improved" players is a bit misleading, But the main focus of today's column is players who have had the biggest improvements in ORtg, while weighting shot-volume in the ranking.

In all the tables, I'm going to limit my discussion to the top 10 conferences according to Kenpom.com, and the MWC which I'm including for historical reasons. I'm also going to limit my analysis to players that have played at least 30% of their team's minutes this year. I.e. Duke's Marshall Plumlee may be more efficient than last year, but he isn't playing enough to get a full read on his play.

I'm going to start with the group of players that played less than 20% of their team's minutes last season. Who improved the most:

	Player	Team	ORtg 2015	ORtg 2014	Pct Poss 2015	Pct Poss 2014
1	Kris Dunn	Providence	103	71	30	19
2	Josh Hawkinson	Washington St.	115	98	21	13
3	Jarmal Reid	Oregon St.	95	67	23	13
4	Damonte Dodd	Maryland	109	70	15	12
5	Isaiah Hicks	North Carolina	108	87	21	12
6	V.J. Beachem	Notre Dame	120	91	19	18
7	Matt Christiansen	San Francisco	102	77	15	11
8	Brannen Greene	Kansas	125	101	17	20
9	Jalil Abdul-Bassit	Oregon	109	86	20	18
10	Mike Crawford	Saint Louis	110	92	20	16

Now, some of these players had injury issues last year that accounted for their poor play. I'm looking at you Kris Dunn. And it is fair to say that several of these players remain bench rotation guys for their teams. I don't expect V.J Beachem to suddenly force his way into the Notre Dame starting lineup until he adds bulk and works on his rebounding over the summer.

But it is also fair to say that we wrote a lot of these guys off in the pre-season and thought they would be irrelevant. I remember when Mark Turgeon said that Damonte Dodd looked good and was going to be his starting center. I practically fell off my chair laughing. But Dodd has transformed himself into a key rotation piece for the Terrapins.

And rotation pieces matter. One reason we thought Oregon would struggle was lack of depth. They had to play all their scholarship players, and if one didn't pan out, they were doomed. Now no one is going to confuse Jalil Abdul-Bassit with Joseph Young. But by becoming a player who can knock down wide-open threes and make his free throws, Abdul-Bassit has allowed Oregon's play to stay at the highest level.

One note on Kansas' Brannen Greene. While his percentage of possession's used is down, that's largely because he has cut down on his turnovers.

One final hidden note on how I constructed the table above. I also gave weight to the strength-of-defense faced.  Kansas St.'s average opponent defense was 102.9 last year and is a remarkable 97.3 this year. Comparatively Michigan St.'s average opponent defense was 101.3 last year and 100.1 this year. The change in the way offensive fouls are called means virtually every team has played a tougher defensive schedule this year, but not everyone has had the same change in schedule strength. Essentially since the Big Ten is worse than last year, Michigan St.'s Gavin Schilling gets dinged which is why he misses my cut for most improved players. Several more players that nearly made the cut, with solid ORtg improvements include Duke's Matt Jones, Syracuse's Tyler Roberson, Marquette's Steve Taylor, and Oklahoma St.'s Michael Cobbins.

Clearly the above players are better, but given how little some of these players played last year, it is fair to ask whether last year's stats have any meaning. It might be more impressive to see which rotation players have made the biggest improvements. The next table looks at players who played 20-51% of their team's minutes last season who made big jumps:

	Player	Team	ORtg 2015	ORtg 2014	Pct Poss 2015	Pct Poss 2014
1	Jack Gibbs	Davidson	125	105	26	20
2	Tim Quarterman	LSU	107	78	20	19
3	Jamee Crockett	DePaul	109	79	19	19
4	Evan Wessel	Wichita St.	116	98	12	8
5	Luke Kornet	Vanderbilt	115	89	20	18
6	Dwight Coleby	Mississippi	118	99	17	15
7	D.J. Fenner	Nevada	92	78	22	15
8	Sterling Brown	SMU	128	100	13	15
9	John Kopriva	George Washington	111	89	14	12
10	Jarquez Smith	Florida St.	100	81	20	17

Jack Gibbs was a solid player last season, and this season he has reached the next level. Davidson is glad to have him back and is counting on him during the team's run at an NCAA tournament bid.

But frankly, a lot of these players played so poorly offensively last season, they had nowhere to go but up. Wichita St.'s Evan Wessel never shot last year and yet somehow he was still inefficient. But in Saturday's big game against Northern Iowa, Wessel hit three threes in the win. I can't say enough about how important Tim Quarterman's emergence has been to LSU's season. Johnny Jones team isn't deep, but his top players are capable of matching up with almost anyone.

DePaul's Jamee Crockett had an ankle injury last year and was a better player earlier in his career, so maybe I should include him in a "bounce-back" category, not an "improved" table, but his improvement was still a key reason DePaul played better this year.

Miami's Davon Reed and Georgia's JJ Frazier deserve honorable mention, but they are shooting less than last year, so take their improved efficiency with a grain of salt. Xavier's Myles Davis is also much improved. Davis' ORtg jump isn't as big as some of those in the table, but given his added aggressiveness, it is meaningful. Washington St.'s Jordan Railey also deserves some love. He's still an offensive liability, but he's less of an offensive liability than he was last year.

Next, I look at which fringe starters (51-61% of their team's minutes last year) have made the biggest jump:

	Player	Team	ORtg 2015	ORtg 2014	Pct Poss 2015	Pct Poss 2014
1	Josh Brown	Temple	104	80	17	12
2	Nate Britt	North Carolina	108	89	19	17
3	Justin Anderson	Virginia	125	101	22	23
4	Jaron Blossomgame	Clemson	109	97	24	15
5	Troy Williams	Indiana	114	100	25	19
6	Daniel Ochefu	Villanova	115	101	21	17
7	Dominic Pointer	St. John's	114	100	22	17
8	Chris Bolden	Georgia Tech	102	84	17	16
9	Alec Wintering	Portland	118	104	23	19
10	Demetrius Jackson	Notre Dame	121	108	19	16

When Jesse Morgan enrolled at Temple, I thought that might cut out Josh Brown's playing time. Instead Brown took the sophomore leap forward and became an efficient player. His emergence has given Temple a very solid core of four strong guards. North Carolina's Nate Britt's three point shooting is obviously better. And Virginia's Justin Anderson was playing like a player-of-the-year candidate until he was injured.

Jaron Blossomgame has become Clemson's most reliable scorer. That's not quite a Rakeem Christmas-level improvement in shot volume, but it is pretty darn close, and somehow Blossongame has improved his shooting while taking a lot more shots.

On a balanced Villanova team, a lot of people have written about Daniel Ochefu's emergence this year. And certainly Troy Williams and Dominic Pointer have been a key part of Indiana and St. John's resurgence.

Next I take a look at the most improved starters, players who played 61-77% of their team's minutes last year:

	Player	Team	ORtg 2015	ORtg 2014	Pct Poss 2015	Pct Poss 2014
1	Sanjay Lumpkin	Northwestern	113	82	11	12
2	Nick Zeisloft	Indiana	136	116	13	13
3	Levi Randolph	Alabama	119	101	22	19
4	Derrick Colter	Duquesne	117	100	20	22
5	Alonzo Nelson-Ododa	Richmond	109	91	18	17
6	Corey Allen	South Florida	103	96	26	19
7	Derrick Marks	Boise St.	116	103	33	30
8	Demarcus Holland	Texas	109	95	16	16
9	Rodney Cooper	Alabama	112	97	18	18
10	Hassan Martin	Rhode Island	113	107	19	13

This is an odd collection of players. How is it that Alabama can be such a disappointment and have two STARTERS who became much more efficient? Well, they did lose their PG nine games ago. Anthony Grant is the best coach that never seems to catch a break or win. But at some point, you have to make your own breaks to keep a head coaching job in a major conference.

I've written before about Texas' Demarcus Holland. Last year he couldn't shoot and he was labeled a defensive stopper. This year, he can shoot but he hasn't created any steals, and he is labeled a defensive liability. Go figure.

Sanjay Lumpkin is benefiting from the fact that Northwestern's talent level is higher than last year and the sophomore leap. Nick Zeisloft is benefiting from a lot of wide open shots in Indiana's offense.

Corey Allen and Hassan Martin have taken on much bigger roles with their teams and still improved their shooting.

Michigan St.'s Denzel Valentine and Baylor's Royce O'Neale narrowly missed the cut and deserve honorable mention.

Finally, here are some players who never left the floor last year (over 77% of their team's minutes), who improved this year:

	Player	Team	ORtg 2015	ORtg 2014	Pct Poss 2015	Pct Poss 2014
1	Kameron Woods	Butler	113	91	15	17
2	Kellen Dunham	Butler	122	102	22	25
3	Brandon Taylor	Utah	122	104	18	19
4	Ryan Boatright	Connecticut	115	106	27	22
5	Kevin Pangos	Gonzaga	133	118	18	20
6	Rayvonte Rice	Illinois	124	107	26	27
7	Kyle Collinsworth	BYU	113	106	26	24
8	Delon Wright	Utah	126	119	25	23
9	Yogi Ferrell	Indiana	126	115	23	25
10	Marcus Georges-Hunt	Georgia Tech	108	103	25	22

Butler and Utah are two of the most improved teams in the country, and both have a pair of key starters who are playing better than last year.  Connecticut's Ryan Boatright has taken his game to the next level, but that hasn't been enough for the Huskies. Finally, Indiana's Yogi Ferrell has been more efficient running a spread offense filled with shooters.