Wichita State scouting report...are the Shockers as tough as everyone says?
Wichita State has been very good at times...but not all the time
Wichita State, maybe more so than any team recently, seemed to be a victim of the divide between how the NCAA tourney committee evaluates teams and how analytics evaluate them.While the Shockers are a top-10 team in many computer rankings, they were rated the 38th best team by the committee. KenPom.com has them as virtually even with Kentucky, yet they play in the round of 32. So, what gives?
The answer lies in the fact that the computer rankings consider all of your games, and your margin of victory, very heavily. After Jan 17th, Wichita State went on an amazing run where they won only 1 game by less than 15 points. They even beat Illinois State (considered an NCAA bubble team) by 41 points! However, only two of those opponents were even in the top 100 as rated by KenPom.com, and none were NCAA teams. Wichita State lost to Louisville, Michigan State, and Oklahoma State, the only NCAA teams they played this year. So, while the Shockers rate very impressively in most stats categories, their strength of schedule is poor.
In order to project how they might do against UK, let's look at their toughest games. We'll use 7 games: UofL, Michigan St., Oklahoma St., 3 against Illinois St., and their 1st round game vs Dayton. Here's a snapshot of how a couple stats change:
Effective FG%
Full season: 54%, 34th nationally
Vs our sample: 44%
Effective FG% allowed
Full season: 44%, 4th nationally
Vs our sample: 48%
So right away we see that Wichita State's statistical profile this season is very different than what they've done against top teams. Against these top-50 opponents, Wichita State is +21 in 7 games; however, one of these was a 41 point win. So, Wichita State is -20 in the other 6 games. So, there's a huge disparity between how they played against NCAA-caliber teams and how they played agianst everyone else. For the rest of this article, I'll focus just on what they've done against the opponents I outlined above.
Strengths and weaknesses
Wichita State has not been a great shooting team against tougher opponents. They tend to put up an eFG% roughly equal to what their opponents allow this season. UK is a fairly good defensive team, so that's pretty good news. They make up for that shooting, however, by drawing a ton of free throws. They have done so even against teams who don't usually allow a lot of free throws, like Dayton. They have also mitigated their average shooting by being an excellent offensive rebounding team; they have exceeded what their opponents usually allow in nearly every game against anyone with a pulse. However, their defensive rebounding has just been average. They also had some issues allowing free throws earlier in the season, although they kept that in check against a Dayton team who usually feasts at the line.
Against their top opponents, Wichita State has been pretty poor in transition. Their eFG% in those opportunities is only 43%, while UK tends to hover around 60%. This is likely due to their defensive rebounding issues; those tend to lead to quality fast breaks.
Frankly, I was pretty surprised at how average Wichita State's stats have been against anyone with a pulse. These stats include a 41 point win, so you'd think they would be inflated. The interesting things is that their strengths (OReb%, free throws) line up with UK weaknesses, and their weaknesses (shooting, DReb%) line up with UK strengths. So, we may see an "amplified" version of each team in this game.
Key Wichita State lineups/combos
Maybe the most interesting thing about the Shockers is that they are very deep. 10 players play at least 10 minutes per game, with none above 27. This leads to a huge number of lineup combos, and nobody playing together very much. In fact, out of 473 possessions in the 7 games I tracked, only 1 lineup played more than 20 possessions...and they only played 37! That's 5 per game; for contract, UK usually plays their starters 15-20 possessions per game, and played them for 33 possessions in the NKU game alone! Ignoring the 41 point blowout, Wichita had a lot of lineups that played 10 possessions or more, and some of them did well while others were outscored:
These sample sizes are really too small to make much of a judgment about lineups. Instead, we can look at combos of players, and see if there is anything consistent. One thing that's noticeable is that Wichita State's performance against top teams falls off after a 6-man rotation of Shamet/Frankamp/Brown/McDuffie/Morris/Willis. Wichita usually plays Nurger/Kelly/Smith/Reaves fairly heavy minutes (and all 4 show up in the lineups above), but their performance falls off with any of them in the game. Their turnover rate spikes, and their adjusted scoring margin per possession drops dramtically:
Without any of those 4: +0.52 adj +/- per poss, 10% turnover rate
With Nurger: +0.07 adj +/-, 22% turnover rate
With Kelly: -0.01 adj +/-, 18% turnover rate
With Smith: +0.05 adj +/-, 16% turnover rate
With Reaves: +.01 adj +/-, 22% turnover rate
UK needs to capitalize when Wichita State goes to their bench, and use more defensive pressure. I'd expect UK to go on runs pretty effectively against Wichita's bench.
UK Strategies and Lineups
Wichita State's biggest strengths against quality opponents have been their ability to get offensive rebounds and draw free throws; these compensate for their shooting struggles. UK should focus on a strong performance on the defensive glass, and avoiding cheap fouls.
Over the last month, UK's most common lineup of Fox/Monk/Briscoe/Willis/Adebayo has done a great job at defensive rebounding and avoiding fouls; they weren't as good earlier in the year, but check out their split recently:
Before Feb 18th, they had gathered 71% of the opponent's missed shots, and fouled on 28% of possessions
Since Feb 18th, they have gathered 86% of the opponent's missed shots, and fouled on 20% of possessions
One less common lineup for UK that has also done both very well is Hawkins/Monk/Mulder/Willis/Adebayo. Against NCAA tournament-caliber teams, they have a 92% DReb rate and a 15% foul rate, both the best of any lineup with 10 or more possessions played. I'd like to see UK get this lineup some time together to rest Fox and negate Wichita's strengths.
So, UK has 2 lineups that I specifically think can see a lot of success against Wichita State. One is UK's most played lineup recently, and the other is a bench lineup that doesn't play a ton. If UK keeps leaning on the first, while finding some time for the 2nd, they could put together enough stretches to pull away from Wichita State today.
Thanks for reading my newsletter. If you have any questions, want to argue a point, or have some feedback, feel free to reach out via email at sean@hoopsinsight.com, or on Twitter @hoopsinsights. If you liked this, let me know as well, and tell your friends to subscribe at www.hoopsinsight.com.
You can forward this to others, but please ask them to subscribe as well so I can keep track of who's enjoying my insight and analysis.