Holiday break is thankfully behind us

 It has been a LONG time since we saw #mubb play but our nightmare is nearly over. #ScrambledEggs is back to talk the 2-0 start in the Big East, how things have gone, and what we've liked. Then we turn to the games ahead and discuss a road game against Providence and a home game against Creighton. We close out the pod with a discussion about confidence levels. Enjoy!

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The NCAA Tournament Must Expand or Die

NCAA President Charlie Baker is preparing for tournament expansion
Photo by Jamie Schwaberow | NCAA Photos

This week in an interview with Seth Davis, NCAA President Charlie Baker said they are looking at expanding the NCAA Tournament. Proposals are focused on expanding to 72 or 76 teams. Diehard fans may not like it but the reality is if the NCAA Tournament is going to continue to exist beyond 2032, it MUST expand. This is a simple economic reality. In 2022, we laid out a plan for expansion to 80. Given the recent news, it's time to revisit the topic.

Here are the topics we are going to discuss:

1. Explain why expansion is necessary.
2. Establish a target expansion number that fits within the current November-early April calendar
   
3. Retain automatic bids for all 32 leagues.
4. Practical implementation of an 80-team tournament.
   
5. Rebutting counter-points people will likely make.
   

Readers need to understand expansion is coming. This is not an opinion and going back to 64 is not an option (or rather, not in a way anyone wants, but more on that later). It is a simple fact that the NCAA Tournament field must grow. If it does not, the NCAA Tournament will not exist beyond 2032. This premise is the reality we begin this article with.

I write this as someone who has watched the NCAA Tournament fervently since I was a teenager. I love the Tournament, I love the pageantry and passion of college basketball. I love the underdogs and the wall-to-wall days of games. Everything included here is my attempt to continue the discussion of how to not only save the NCAA Tournament, but preserve the best things about it. If you too want to see the NCAA Tournament survive, I only ask that you read and share this article. Maybe if the conversation gets loud enough and is heard by those influential in college basketball, there's a chance we get a model that keeps the automatic bids, keeps the Cinderella stories, while acknowledging the reality that the NCAA Tournament needs to provide more profit to the high-major leagues to remain viable. This is not about whether or not the NCAA should expand the tournament, but determining the best way to do it when it does.

Why Expansion is Necessary

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was co-chair of the NCAA Transformation Committee that recommended NCAA postseason tournaments for sports with over 200 teams to invite 25% of their members as a guideline. Currently the NCAA Tournament invites 68 of 364 teams, just 18.7% of the teams. This is a far cry from the number the Transformation Committee called for and significantly less than in 1985 when the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams of 286 member institutions (22.4%). Sankey has also called for the NCAA to stop "giving away" bids to small conference teams. ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, Big 10 Commissioner Tony Pettiti, and Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark have all called for expansion. And while in 1985 the top-6 leagues (including Big East and Pac-12) had 55 combined teams the current P4 are comprised of 68 teams.

From an economic and ratings perspective, the NCAA Tournament needs the P4 members to continue participating if the tournament will be economically viable. NCAA Tournament ratings hinge heavily on who is playing. Andrei Greska at Paint Touches broke down the ratings from 2019-2023 based on who was playing. He broke teams into two categories which yielded three game types. The first were Power-5 teams (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC) and the second was Non-P5 (all other leagues including the Big East). After the grid, we will refer to these leagues as the Power-4 due to the contraction of the Pac-12 as a high-major league. Here are the ratings disparities for the three game types possible from those two groups:

This shows clearly that when two Power-4 teams play, they draw significantly more attention than when they do not. If there is only one P4 team, the ratings drop by 28.7% and if there is no P4 team the numbers are cut more than in half. Quite simply, in order to maximize the value of the NCAA Tournament going forward, they will need the P4 teams to be involved. The NCAA must keep the P4 in the fold so they do not break off to create a new playoff format that favors them even more over non-P4 teams the way they did with the BCS football playoff.

A breakaway tournament could have a 64-team field, which would appeal to traditionalists, and do so by inviting only their members. It might take a couple years for fans to get used to 16-seeds like Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Michigan, and Arizona State, but ultimately an underdog is an underdog if it's the best game on TV. Maybe they invite the Big East or a few mid-majors, but a new contract using P4 vs P4 ratings would make more money than the current NCAA Tournament setup and the money involved would ensure no one from outside the power structure would say no. Last year there were 56 P4 and Big East teams in the NCAA Tournament or invited to the NIT, and that's without going to the bottom of these leagues.

College basketball fans were happy to embrace N.C. State as an underdog
 Photo by Joe Sargent | Getty Images

Why would the P4 leagues want to establish their own championship where they control the money allocation and inclusion criteria like they did with the BCS? Quite simply, the NCAA Tournament is woefully compensated for its value. In 2016, the NCAA agreed to an 8-year extension of the existing NCAA Tournament contract. At the time, the contract was scheduled to end in 2024. There was no need to extend the contract at that time, but they doubled the existing length without significantly increasing revenue in that time period. From the outside, it looks like a fiscal mistake. Compare the value of the NBA television contract with that of the NCAA:

From the 1970s, the NCAA Tournament contract generally lagged slightly behind the NBA, but was relatively competitive from a financial perspective. But in 2016, when the NCAA was extending their existing deal, the NBA negotiated a new deal that nearly tripled their revenue. And while you see a slight uptick with the 8-year extension in 2024, the NBA will more than double their revenue again. In the time since the NCAA extended their contract, the NBA will have gone through two revenue spikes that increased their national revenue stream by roughly seven times. But it's not just the NBA:

Strikes and gaps in national broadcast contracts led to dropoffs in both the MLB and NHL, but in 2013, MLB and the NCAA Tournament were nearly identical, but MLB signed a new deal that more than doubled their revenue, and they again had a significant jump in 2021. The NHL had a minimal national contract that more than tripled in 2022.

The bottom line is this. The NCAA Tournament is massively undervalued. In the time period that other leagues have doubled, tripled, or septupled their media rights deal, the NCAAT has barely increased. Compare the percentage increases of the NCAA compared to other professional and collegiate leagues:

Currently the NCAA Tournament is worth about $1.1 billion per year. But in terms of audience, it often outdraws its closest peer, the NBA. From 1997 through 2021, the NCAA Championship Game outdrew the highest rated NBA Finals game in 14 of the 24 years:

So why is expansion necessary? Because the money generated by the NCAA Tournament is inadequate, the current TV contract ensures it will remain that way for 8 more years, the Power-4 Commissioners are all calling for expansion, the NCAA Tournament needs the P4 programs to drive ratings for leverage to increase the contract value when the opportunity comes up, and the P4 now have a large enough membership that they can put on a 64-team tournament of their own without additional NCAA member institutions. Outside of expansion, there is no other way for the NCAA to increase revenue as the P4 are demanding before 2032. As the title says, the NCAA Tournament must expand or die.

Expanding to 80

As mentioned above, the 1985 NCAA Tournament included 22.4% of the Division I membership. If the field went to 80 today, the inclusion number would be 22.0% of current Division I schools. To reach the Transformation Committee's 25% target, the number would be 91, which likely leads to a 96-team field. 80 is in alignment with the historic inclusion number and makes for a cleaner introduction to the Tournament.

The current format goes from 68 to 64 over two nights. Because of this, it allows for two games broadcast back to back on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Central Standard Time TV window is from 5:00 pm through 10:00 pm, with games tipping 5:30 and 8:00, barring games running over for delays or overtime. More First Four games would mean more First Four time slots. Using the current 30-minute delay between starts (typical for the First Round games) the schedule could change without really upsetting the prime time window much. Below, the first line shows the current approximate schedule, with two games getting about five and a half hours of programming. By increasing that to a total seven hour window, the NCAA could accommodate eight games per night on Tuesday and Wednesday with the vast majority in prime time:

On cable television, this would mean adding more channels. But while it might be difficult for cable, with streaming options this wouldn't be nearly as difficult. Whether it would be using Max, Paramount, Peacock, or a different streaming service, these games could be made available. And while no single app has the broadcast penetration of TruTV (about 90 million households) there are estimated to be slightly over 100 million households with high-speed internet. We are already seeing leagues put games exclusively on ESPN+, Max, and Peacock, there's no reason to think the NCAA couldn't do the same for the First Four sites, especially if there were at least one TV hub that could switch between games when they are in high leverage situations.

Charlie Baker has pointed out that stretching out the season beyond the first weekend in April is a non-starter because of the Masters. The current contract with CBS will not allow them to add an additional weekend, and even if they changed carriers after 2032, the NCAA would not want to compete with another major sporting event that takes up a full weekend when they would be trying to draw eyes to their most valuable games.

Give me more games like the 2022 First Four game between Notre Dame and Rutgers
 Photo by Jeff Dean | AP Photo

This is another reason why 80 is better than 96. In order to trim 96 to 64, you need to play 32 games, the same number of games played on the opening Thursday and Friday of the Tournament. Having Tuesday and Wednesday full-day marathons would tax all but the most diehard college basketball fans. An 80-team field allows the Tournament to stay with the prime time Tuesday/Wednesday schedule above while also giving more of a true NCAA Tournament feel to those days because it isn't just one game at a time.

Currently, the NCAA season fits nicely between the end of baseball in October and the Masters. While much of the season is competing with both NFL and college football, they are able to take center stage from mid-February through the first week of April before the Masters. It's done before the NBA or NHL playoffs start in full. The current schedule is perfect to maximize college basketball's impact while minimizing other sport competition.

Retain 32 Automatic Bids

We are including the soon-to-be-reformed Pac-12 as one of the automatic bids. That said, Greg Sankey has already floated removing the automatic bids from the field, even if that comment looked a bit silly after his SEC program Kentucky lost to Oakland out of the Horizon. Nonetheless, it's clear that while tournament expansion with more at-large bids for high-majors to potentially earn is a goal, getting even more bids by cutting out the low and mid majors is also a consideration. Take a look at the 2023 payouts by league:

Ultimately, while every round of the NCAA tournament has value to the teams and the leagues they represent, it is the deep runs that really shift money away from the big boys. It isn't the 18 conferences earning $1M each, it's the when CUSA, or the Ivy, or the NEC have one team taking multiple credits that hits the bigger leagues. With the reminder that this is about finding the best way to expand, and being cognizant that benefiting the P4 leagues is necessary for NCAA Tournament survival, continuing to split the First Four games between at-large and auto-bids is something that will need to continue. This serves three purposes.

First, it ensures the low and mid majors will be included, though the opportunity for deep advancement will be limited because by splitting the 32 teams playing at the First Four sites, 16 will be the lowest automatic bids and that means eight instead of two will be eliminated before the Round of 64. The same will be true for at-large teams, so while there will be twelve at-large teams added to compete with the current four at-large teams in the First Four, only eight of those will advance to the main bracket.

Second, because eight automatic bids will advance from the First Four, that means eight leagues earning two or more NCAA credits that otherwise would typically earn one (barring a double-digit seed upset). Financially, this is a win for the smaller leagues, even if it limits the number that can advance further.

Stories like FDU beating Purdue are only possible by maintaining the automatic bids
Photo by Michael Conroy | AP Photo

Third, it gives that additional opportunity to coaches, student athletes, and fans to enjoy earning a win in the NCAA Tournament. None of the teams that won games in Dayton ever looked sad at the end of the experience. And while thus far only Fairleigh Dickinson has gone from an automatic bid to Dayton and won a game in the Round of 64, that is the opportunity all of these teams will be playing for, and half of them will get that win. The NCAA Tournament isn't just to determine who the National Champion is, it's an experience that is shared by everyone who loves college basketball, and expanding the personal nature of that experience to more coaches, players, and fans to enjoy it when their team accomplishes something does not diminish the tournament itself.

Implementing an 80-team field

Ultimately, one of the biggest questions will always be "what will this look like?" To start simply, here is the 68-team NCAA Tournament field from 2024. Bear in mind Colorado State is out of order because they were moved to make the play-in games work.

In terms of seeding, a Field of 80 wouldn't change much. However, it would make some of the seeding guidelines more rigid. Ultimately, the bids will be based on 32 conferences as the Pac-12 is in process of reforming and will likely be given an automatic bid from its reformation. Here's a rundown:

• Seed Lines 1-10: These would be the top forty teams in the field. All of them would receive a bye to the round of 64. Eight of these would have to be automatic bids.
• Seed Lines 11-12: These would be the last sixteen at-large teams. These teams will always seed into the 11-12 lines and the winners will play the top eight non-protected seeds in the Round of 64.
• Seed Lines 13-14: These are the automatic bids who rate as 9-16 among auto bids. They receive a bye to the round of 64.
• Seed Lines 15-16: These are the last sixteen automatic bids. Winners will advance to play teams on the top two seed lines.

Here is what the 2024 NCAA Tournament would have looked like using the existing 68-team field, the NCAA's official First Four Out, and the top two seed lines of the NIT. St. John's (turned down NIT) and Providence (top NIT 3-seed) were also given bids.

The First Four games will be played at the same sites as the Rounds of 64 and 32. Dayton will no longer host all First Four games. So instead of one random site hosting First Four games with the teams then flying to various sites after their game, each site will be active for three dates of games. Sites will either be Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday or Wednesday/Friday/Sunday. This will ensure that teams winning late games on Tuesday/Wednesday will not need to travel for their Round of 64 game. It's worth noting that the only 16-seed ever to win a Round of 64, Fairleigh Dickinson, only had to travel 72 miles from Dayton, Ohio to Columbus, Ohio when they beat Purdue. Here's how a bracket with a Field of 80 would work, showing how there is one play-in added in each pod:

This scheduling will also work because each site is guaranteed two play-in games. Sites with a 1-seed will have a 16-seed play-in game. Sites with a 2-seed will have a 15-seed play-in game. Sites with a 3-seed will have an 11-seed play-in game. Sites with a 4-seed will have a 12-seed play-in game. This ensures that both at-larges and automatic bids will continue to participate in play-in games, the best non-high major automatic bids continue to qualify automatically for the Round of 64, and the entire NCAA Tournament fits within the current calendar.

The Indiana St./Seton Hall NIT Final deserved NCAA level attention
 Photo by Michael Conroy | AP Photo

This would also most likely allow the NIT to continue. While it would be diminished in quality, the NIT hasn't been a viable competitor to the NCAA Tournament for well over 40 years. The NIT is a fan service to the next level of teams and additional content for diehard fans who are hungry for college basketball on non-NCAA days. In this scenario, only nine of teams in the Field of 80 were 2024 NIT teams. There were twelve high-major teams not invited and the CBI Tournament had seven 20+ win teams that did not earn NIT invites. There are enough teams out there to fill that field even with a Field of 80.

Rebutting the Counter-Points

There will always be pushback, so here are some of the counter-arguments we expect:

I'm only in favor of expansion if there are auto-bids for regular season champions

This is a non-starter. That means you are guaranteeing as many as 54 spots in the tournament to non-HM teams. Currently, we have at most 40 bids available to the P4 schools (if they get their automatic qualifiers and all 36-at-large teams). Even if the field expanded to 96, the P4 are not going to be on board with expanding a field by 28 bids when they could receive as few as 2 of them. Maybe if the field expands to 128 or more, but that makes calendar issues more likely. Each league is guaranteed one bid and each league decides how they award that single bid. It's not feasible to consider otherwise.

I already don't watch the First Four, I'm not interested in two more days of games

Then don't watch it. No one is forcing anyone to watch any games. However this would give 12 more fanbases reasons to tune in, and I'm guessing no matter how much you dislike expansion, if your team is playing on Tuesday or Wednesday you will be watching. It would also make Tuesday and Wednesday night content quantity on par with a Thursday/Friday window. The First Four wouldn't feel like extra games tacked on to the front for money, it would feel like the tournament proper where you are flipping between channels or running the YouTube quad box.

No one is turning down two more days of the Quad Box
 Photo by @Matt_Snyder | Twitter.com

I'm fine with expansion, but make all the play-in games at-large teams and guarantee automatic qualifiers a spot in the Round of 64

This seems reasonable until you do the math. 16 teams need to be eliminated to get from 80 to 64. That means the 16 auto-bids need to be replaced with 16 at-large teams. Look at the Field of 80, start with 37-Nevada, and count up to 22-Clemson. That's how far you have to go to get 16 more at-large teams. When you shift the automatic bids up it also makes lines 11-16 all automatic bids. By doing that, the at-large play-in bids would fall on lines 7-10. This would be a logistical nightmare for cities that can host 8 fanbases but might struggle with 12. In addition, the best chance many of these lower leagues have of earning additional NCAA credits is by winning a First Four game. This would increase their odds to do so while trimming the overall number of one-bid league teams on Thursday/Friday to improve the odds the P4 can maximize credits. Money matters, and you need the P4, so this is just a casualty of that reality.

Most of the bids in the Field of 80 are going to high-majors, there should be limits on how many they can get

The whole reason for this model is to make sure the high-majors continue to participate in this tournament. That means fewer automatic bids advancing to the Round of 64, but at least they are still included. That means more high-majors earning bids and advancing, but that's the cost of keeping them in the field. We've already seen the college football postseason radically altered by money and power conferences trying to consolidate the spoils. They have the numbers to create their own tournament entirely or run their own tournament while only inviting a handful of non-P4 schools. Right now, we're trying to figure out a model that will make them happy while preserving what we love about the current tournament field. If everyone agreed on a limit to the number of teams from a single league in play-in games, I could see that, but the floor would probably be set at four (this Field of 80 has four Big East and Big 12 teams) and that doesn't seem like much of a limit.

Adding teams will dilute the field quality

If we use this model, this is mathematically untrue. By any metric, when we get to 64, the six advancing teams added from the at-large play-in games will be better than the six eliminated from the automatic bid play-in games. Further, the teams on the 16 line will be 15/16 seed quality, the teams on the 15 line will be 13/14 seed quality, and that will push better teams down the field to give better chances at more competitive first round games. From 1985 through 2010, 15 and 16-seeds were 4-204 (1.96% chance of victory) in the NCAA Tournament's first round with zero making the Sweet 16. Since the 2010 expansion, 15 and 16-seeds are 9-103 (8.04% chance of victory) with four making the Sweet 16. Expansion has already exponentially improved the quality of play at the bottom of the bracket, and further expansion would only escalate that faster. The field quality would improve and while there would be fewer automatic bids in the Round of 64, the ones that make it there will be better teams.

15-seeds Lehigh & Norfolk State winning the same day was brought to you by expansion
 Photos by Chuck Burton | Lehigh Valley Live and Doug Pensinger | Getty Images

The Tournament is perfect at 68, don't change it

Anyone who's been watching the tournament since before 2001 knows this isn't true. You can argue it was perfect at 64, but the only way the field goes back to 64 is if the P4 breaks away and kills the single-bid leagues in the process. Further, the First Four have never fully felt like the Tournament. That's why NCAA pools don't count those games in your scoring and why ratings spike by more than 50% when we get to day games on Thursday and Friday. The First Four has always been an add-on, but going to a full two-night slate with games in rotation, just like we have once the Round of 64 kicks off, will make those nights feel a lot more like the experience of the NCAA Tournament. 68 was never as good as 64, and going to 80 will feel a lot closer to the pre-2001 perfection than anything since ever has.

Ultimately, the reality is that without the P4, the NCAA Tournament cannot survive. Realignment has also put schools in a position where the P4 could viably break off using either only their own members or with minimal bids given to the Big East and other non-P4 football programs. If the NCAA Tournament and the emotions that come with it are to be saved, expansion has to happen and the changes made need to primarily benefit the programs that drive ratings. If they break off, whether grudgingly or willingly, fans will follow to a "perfect" 64-team P4 field because when you get to the second and third weekends, ratings are driven by the presence of the powerhouse programs. This model and plan is not an attack on what we currently have, it's an attempt to save some semblance of the Tournament we have all come to love over our lifetimes..

Well that was a bummer

We're back and unfortunately it's after an #mubb loss on the road. We, of course, have to talk about the loss to Dayton, especially after a bit of a collapse from the team. We try to project whether the team is figured out or if it was a fluke. We then sum up the non-conference season before looking at the conference as a whole. Then we close the podcast with a Butler/Xavier breakdown. Enjoy! 

 

Link to Podcast

 

 

We've Got a Basketball Jones

Kam Jones tied a career high with 32 points against Wisconsin

Photo by Stacy Revere | Getty Images

When Marquette had their first open practice of the Shaka Smart era on October 14, 2021, it stood out to me when Coach Smart introduced Kam Jones and said that he would leave as Marquette's all-time leading scorer. A year after Markus Howard had left, I knew the improbability of his reaching that scoring level, but wondered at the time if the skinny freshman guard would truly be able to carve his name as one of Marquette's all-time scorers. With names like McNeal, Hayward, Thompson, James, Lee, and Diener as the five that came after Howard, what were the odds this kid could match them? I'll admit, in that practice Jones, along with Olivier-Maxence Prosper, were the most impressive newcomers that weren't established college players. Most of the night, Jones was matched up with grad transfer Darryl Morsell, who dogged Jones on defense, fighting over screens and challenging Jones to do the same when engaging him in both offensive and defensive exercises.

My favorite interaction of the night came after Jones was a bit lazy trying to get to an inbound with Morsell hounding him.

Shaka: "Do that inbound again. You want the ball you gotta do a better job of getting open than that. Now get open."

Also Shaka: "Darryl, don't let him get open."#mubb

— Alan Bykowski (@brewcity1977) October 15, 2021

Two moments in that practice still stand out in my mind for Kam. The first was on a perimeter drill where the defender would have to go through screen after screen to stay with the man. Morsell's strength and slippery ability to go over screens allowed him to hound Jones relentlessly while the then-freshman was clearly gassed trying to keep up. The second was a one-on-one gauntlet drill against that pitted Jones against fellow freshman Emarion Ellis. At the time, Ellis had more recently committed and with a football background, felt like the one who would come out on top, but Jones bested him. Those plays and those interactions set the tone for the level of work Kam Jones would have to put in to become an elite college player. If Darryl Morsell wasn't going to make it easy on him in practice, there is no doubt that opposing guards wouldn't make it easy on him in games. 

Freshman Kam displayed a knack for scoring at the rim

Photo from jsonline.com

Jones' development has been impressive, as any Marquette fan can attest. He went from a Big East all-Freshman team to leading Marquette in scoring (15.1 ppg) as a sophomore on a team that won both the big East regular season and tournament championships, setting a program record for wins in a season, and earning the best NCAA Tournament seed in program history.

Jones quickly developed a truly elite ability to score at the rim. His sophomore year reminded me in ways of Markus Howard, when Kam's conversion rate at the rim improved vastly. They did it differently, but both achieved more at the rim success after proving themselves as long-range shooters. As a freshman, Howard made 45.4% of his shots inside the arc, but 52.5% at the rim. Because of his prodigious shooting ability, teams really tried to chase him off the line as a sophomore. While Howard's efficiency there didn't change (still shot 52.5% ATR) his frequency did. Howard took 17% of his shots at the rim as a freshman compared to 32% as a sophomore. This brought his overall 2PFG% to 53.3%, making him an interior threat as well. For Howard, this was a high-water mark. He would never again reach this level of ATR usage nor efficiency. Jones' trajectory was a bit different.

Kam Jones ATR Usage and Efficiency Progression

As a freshman, Jones had similar efficiency to Howard, but didn't go to the rim as often. While Howard nearly doubled his sophomore year rim usage, Jones nearly tripled his. But for Jones, that was just the beginning. I remember discussing with a Marquette fan how Jones would almost certainly not be as efficient inside the arc as a junior after his prolific sophomore season. Instead, he nearly maintained that efficiency while increasing his ATR usage. As a senior he has further increased both efficiency and usage to career highs. Consider that Jones is also doing this as a 6'5" point guard. Here's where he rates nationally according to Synergy:

The most efficient ATR scorers in the country, per Synergy Sports

Jones is the only back court player on this list and the shortest at 6'5". His at the rim efficiency is comparable to 6'10" and taller lottery picks like Queen and Newell, both of whom Jones and Marquette beat this year. Because of Jones' style, he will never be prolific getting to the free throw line. The way he contorts his body, maintaining control while avoiding contact to make finishes with the English of a billiards master, simply doesn't lean toward a high free throw rate. That said, his 19.9% free throw rate would be a career high and he's on pace for a personal single-season high-water mark in trips to the free throw line. He even drew a foul on a three Saturday, fading away to avoid contact but drawing it nonetheless as he completed a four-point play:

KAM JONES!!!!!!! 🤯
pic.twitter.com/WvneoMHg60

— ESPN Milwaukee (@ESPNMilwaukee) December 7, 2024

Not only that, but Jones is doing this while making 41.3% of his shots from deep as well. Jones is seeking to become the first Marquette player in the T-Rank database to make 60% of his shots inside the arc and 40% of his shots beyond the arc. He truly embodies the Marquette offensive philosophy of scoring at the rim and beyond the arc. To emphasize how good Jones is from deep, look at his Synergy ratings on the various three-point attempt types:

Note to defenders: do NOT let Kam Jones catch and shoot at the arc

Jones rates as excellent overall and in every aspect of catch and shoot jumpers. If he gets the ball on the catch, he is among the most deadly shooters in the country whether you guard him or not. Off the dribble he is merely good, but still above average as a shooter. The threat he poses from three means teams cannot leave him alone at the arc (1.75 ppp unguarded speaks for itself) which opens up the driving lanes that let him get to the rim and finish with the prowess he does.

Jones' passing vision rivals that of Tyler Kolek

Video from Wisconsin at Marquette | Fox Sports

What started the thought process for this article, however, was Jones' incredible Assist/Turnover rates. I was stunned to see after the Wisconsin win that Jones' 42.6% assist rate according to kenpom, currently 5th in the nation, was better than any individual season posted by Tyler Kolek. Not only that, but Jones is doing that with a turnover rate (9.3%) that is less than HALF of what Kolek's was (18.9%) as an All-American last year and accomplishing all that at a higher usage rate. According to T-Rank, here is the list of every player in the database to ever have a 40+% assist rate and below 10% turnover rate:

Hold on...the list of 40+% Assist Rate/sub-10% Turnover Rate is longer than this, right?

Wait, that can't be right. Kam Jones can't be the only player to ever have an assist rate that high coupled with a turnover rate that low. Let's check the filters and expand the range a bit. How about a 15% turnover rate?

What really stands out is Jones' other stats on this line compared to his closest "peers"

Huh...I guess it was right. Not only is Jones the only player with a 40+% assist rate and sub-10% turnover rate, but the closest player to matching him has a turnover rate that is more than 140% Jones' rate (Sidney Sanders). So not only is Jones the most efficient interior scorer at his size and a lethal three point shooter, he's creating for others without turning the ball over at a rate no one in the last 15 years has matched. In 2020, we wrote about PORPAGATU!, a metric from T-Rank that tallies overall player value. Filtered for 10 games played (to allow Jones to be compared to recent historic players) his current PORPAGATU! is third highest in the T-Rank database. Here are all of the players with season-long rankings of 7.0 or better. Those that are highlighted were Wooden Award winners at the end of the season. In the seventeen-year history of the metric going back to 2008, the #1 player in PORPAGATU! has won the Wooden Award eight times, the winner has been in the top-5 fifteen times, and only once been outside the top-7 (Obi Toppin in 2020). Here's how Jones stacks up:

T-Rank isn't the only system that loves Jones. The website evanmiya.com evaluates all players based on both offensive and defensive acumen, using the Bayesian Performance Rating, which quantifies overall player effect on the team using various box score metrics, play-by-play data, and historical information. Jones has the top Offensive BPR in the country at 6.07, and his overall BPR ranks third behind Johni Broome of Auburn and Zakai Zeigler of Tennessee. Miya's website also rates Jones as the #1 most indispensable player in the country and #1 in his MVP rankings.

Jones' defense has also been notable. His four steals against Wisconsin tied a career high and his 3.2% steal rate is the best mark of his career. Defensive acumen is notoriously difficult to assess even through advanced metrics, but Synergy likes what it's seen from Jones so far.

Jones rates well in the defensive actions he is most frequently called on to guard. Further, if you compare the number of possessions as the primary defender to the number of shots allowed, Kam allowed a shot on 48 of 69 possessions so far, just 69.6% of possessions. That's the lowest rate of any of Marquette's five starters, meaning Kam is either forcing the ball out of the offensive players' hands or forcing them into turnovers. This part of the defense is often a team effort, but it's another indicator Jones is doing his part on both ends.

Kam Jones is locked in on both ends of the floor

Photo by Foster Goodrich | Marquette Wire

 

Look back up at the BPR chart above. Jones' Defensive BPR of 2.14 might seem fairly average among the players there, but it ranks #143 in the country out of 3,291 players, putting him in the 95th percentile of defenders. Of course, it's tough to stand out as a defender when the other two back court starters (Mitchell and Ross) are in the 97th percentile. I would stress that defense is difficult to quantify, because good defensive teams will have low points allowed per possession, which will make everyone look good, but Jones has clearly developed into an above average defender.

Whether Jones can keep up his historic play is yet to be seen, and ultimately Marquette fans will likely judge his legacy with a heavy weight towards the performances in March (and April) than anything that happens before the New Year. But with 1,594 career points after the Wisconsin game, Jones is now alone in 15th place on the all-time Marquette scoring list. With 100 more points (5 more games at his current pace) he would pass Dean Meminger, Damon Key, Darius Johnson-Odom, Bo Ellis, Wesley Matthews, Tony Smith, Brian Wardle, and Travis Diener all the way to 7th place. By the end of the year, he is on track to become Marquette's second ever 2,000-point scorer, making Coach Smart's prediction look pretty good. And he's doing that while playing at a historically efficient rate in terms of passing, turnovers, and overall production. Further, Jones isn't just a positive defender, he's metrically one of the better perimeter defenders in the country. Just like Darryl Morsell, who put him through the paces in that first public practice more than three years ago..

Up and down week, but mostly Up

 Well #mubb fans the week could have gone better but it also could have gone way, way worse. Off the jump, pun intended, we talk about the emphatic win over Wisconsin this past Saturday. We also talk about the Iowa State game, Chase injury, etc. We then talk about the upcoming Dayton game (between Phil's rants) as a close out to the non-conference season. Enjoy! 

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Big challenges lay ahead, including #BadgerHateWeek

 Thanksgiving week went about as expected for #mubb, unlike the rest of the Big East. We talk briefly about the two buy games completed by the team mostly so we can talk about a good thing (Damarius Owens) and a bad thing(Zaide injury). We then chat about the rest of the Big East which is super bad right now. While it's fun to cheer against our conference mates, they are performing so badly it might end up hurting Marquette a touch. We then turn to the week ahead, which is a doozy. First we talk about the road class against a top 5 opponent in Iowa State. This will absolutely be the toughest test for Marquette to date. Then, of course, is #BadgerHateWeek and we discuss bizzaro Wisconsin who is great offensively but so so defensively. Will this be the year that Shaka breaks through against Greg Gard? We certainly hope so but time will tell. Enjoy!

 

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