I just decided to look at VU historically since Ken Pom has been established just to see what this yrs team looks like. While I expected it to be bad, I was actually surprised to see how bad this team is. Of note, Ken Pom first yr at least in terms of their historical data is 2001/2002 yr.
First, lets look at all the yrs that had VU players on it that CBD has coached. So, that goes back to the disaster of a yr where half the team left, got injured, or got kicked off in the summer or very early (Bright, Jeter, KJ, McClellan, Henderson and maybe another). Most I'm guessing would say that was the worse VU team in the time frame of Ken Pom. Well, if you said that, at least according to Ken Pom, you are wrong. Following are the relevant yrs I want to discuss (of note, if not listed, just trust me, VU was much better than the current yr). *Season not complete. Off = Offensive Rank; Def=Defensive Rank; SOS = Strength of Schedule; 327 teams in 2001/2002; 353 teams now
YR -Overall- Off - Def - SOS -Tempo -Luck
*18/19 - 126 - 164 - 110 - 39 - 152 - 343
17/18 - 91 - 29 - 219 - 10 - 289 - 336
16/17 - 33 - 48 - 38 - 13 - 285 - 292
15/16 - 25 - 40 - 23 - 40 - 184 - 346
14/15 - 37 - 20 - 103 - 71 - 233 - 345
13/14 - 109 - 196 - 59 - 65 - 302 - 134
12/13 - 98 - 173 - 58 - 77 - 328 - 249
08/09 - 80 - 93 - 68 - 94 - 173 - 194
02/03 - 90 - 135 - 69 - 7 - 68 - 278
1st, lets look at all the yrs that had VU players on it that CBD has coached. So, that goes back to the disaster of a yr where half the team left, got injured, or got kicked off in the summer or very early (Bright, Jeter, KJ, McClellan, Henderson and maybe another), as Luke Kornet was on that team as a freshman (ruined his redshirt yr).
Most would say that was the worse VU team Ken Pom's time frame. According to Ken Pom, you are wrong unless this yr's team makes a big jump, as its the 2nd worse team, this yrs team takes the honor, which even I was surprised about.
Last yrs team with the experience was a really good offensive team, but a really bad defensive team. This is very puzzling to me, not that I think it should of been a great defensive team, but why was it so bad compared to this yr. Besides Roberson, no doubt the guys you lost were not great defenders (Riley, Baptiste, Obinna, MFD). You gained, well, 2 players in particular that many say are not good defenders in Shittu and Ryan. Nesmith I think is good to very good, but is he an upgrade over Roberson? So, that leaves maybe Brown playing more 5, and Yanni. I guess that is it, VU was SOOOO bad at post defense last yr, Shittu is even an improvement, but Yanni is pretty solid at post position defense, and Brown has emerged as a somewhat capable rim protector, so there you have it I guess. Maybe Ryan and Riley offset somewhat, but, regardless, defense at least has improved from last yr, but offense has more than offset the defensive improvement. Why is that? You had Riley, Roberson, and MFD before injury carrying the load, now you have Lee, Nesmith, and group effort between Simi, Ryan, Toye I guess. Riley was a really good offensive player, as was Roberson, and a true freshman just can't make up that gap, and Lee has upped his pnt per game average, what, 2-3 pts?
In other words, I think last yr and this yr are mostly explained by players and youth on offense, why last yrs team was so bad defensively I believe is mostly due to post defense and why reports of Yanni being by far the best post in practice last yr was probably very accurate.
Comparing CBDs first yr with CKS last yr, comparable and when considering they lost Jones and Baldwin and had Riley and Willis as your only 2 PG options, not surprising there was a dip in ranking but not much, and arguably had a better season with quite a bit less talent, and against a quite a bit tougher schedule.
The other 4 yrs I list think is where the comparison becomes more interesting and more alarming at least when comparing to CKS.
13/14 - As mentioned, what we thought was rock bottom type yr, as lost all those players, 2 walk ons got significant minutes many games, and yet that team currently ranks overall more efficient than this yr's VU team (and record wise was t 15/16, and just under 500 in the SEC I think).
12/13 - This was a very young team following the departures of Jenkins, Taylor, Festus, Goulbourne, Tinsley, and Tchiengang. Only Kedren the prior yr had gotten much playing time I believe. A very young, very limited playing time team. Lost to Marist early in season by a wide margin. But, that team really improved, winning 2 games in SEC tourney including knocking KY out of the NCAA's, and I think was really set to have a very good yr the following yr before, again, that disasterous summer. Now, how would that team had of been if it lost Kedren Johnson (he did battle a shoulder injury quite often the 2nd half of the season, but he always played), probably not near as good and may have approached this teams futility, but we won't know. Regardless, that was a young team that really showed improvement and finished off strong.
08/09 - This was another young team, led by the 4 top 100 freshman of Taylor, Tinsley, Goulbourne, and Tchiengang. What this team had, though, that the current team doesnt was 2 major contributors from a good prior team, both of who started on a 26-8 team in Beal and Ogilvy. Yea, they were young everywhere else (and Ogilvy was a marked man on this team without Foster), but the talent of the freshman, especially Taylor and Tinsley, along with Beal and Ogilvy, made this a solid team that just missed the NIT, and I could argue maybe underachieved a little. Also, surprisingly, this team was a better defensive team than offense (a trait is young teams seem to be better on defense than they are offense, at least the numbers say that with VU).
02/03 - Ah, the 11-18, 3-13 VU team, that the following yr made the sweet 16 with little addition. What is alarming here, when compared to this yrs team, is 2 fold. One, team was not as bad per the numbers as this yr team, currently by a pretty significant 36 spots. 2, while a terrible record, they did manage to win 3 SEC games, and their SoS was a whopping 7th in the nation (32 spots better than this yr's team). It would be kind of like looking at last yrs VU team, except pretend Riley, Roberson, and MFD were arll jrs last yr (well, and a much much better 2nd oldest group as that team had Corey Smith, Jason Holwerda, and David I think as the 2nd line of oldest players, but going off of memory).
General thoughts/observations:
CKS was a better defensive coach with young teams than I realized, as his offenses apparently struggled much more, maybe due to the complexity of them (but, being more simple hasn't helped this yrs team), but maybe its a trait of youth, I dunno.
CKS did better with youth in terms of on court efficieny's than CBD
CKS was an underrated recruiter, as I've always said.
VU has never had both Offense and Defense efficiency rank below 69 in the same yr since KenPom, they are set to smash that this yr
This season is worse than I thought.
I want to say, as I've said before, I want CBD to succeed, I love his personality, what he stands for, he was truly a breath of fresh air when compared to CKS.
But, the last 2 yrs are not good, not good at all, and like I kept saying, I think eventually most will look back, and outside of more NCAA tourney success, the CKS yrs will be looked upon as VU having really good basketball teams (as I said, most of the yrs I omitted are the best yrs in KenPom). And, I know, he had a losing record in the SEC, but, that was driven mainly by his early yrs before he got things rolling. And, I also said its not easy to find a really great coach, and that was what VU would have to find to improve on CKS, anything less would be the same or probably worse than what we had.
And, this is not to say things can't be turned around, and this season isn't even over (though, I'm not optimistic at all about this season), so these numbers for this yr can improve. But, I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm much more worried now than I was before the SEC started (though, I've always worried about the offense they have run outside of the last 2 months of CBD's first season).
CKS coached under both Gene Keady and Roy Williams. And, while Homer Drew had a very solid career at Valpo, I think most would agree he's no where close to either Keady or Williams. I am starting to wonder (though, many coaches that have coached under great coaches have been terrible head coaches, and for instance John Beilein has never even been an assistant at any level,and he's done ok I'd say) if CBD not having experience under a "great" is hurting him right now, but again I just gave examples of where that is not a good barometer at all.
I'll finish: I want CBD to succeed, and I'm not ready to say 1 way or the other what VU should do, I like to post what I call objective posts, or if I give an opinion I try to base it on facts and the whole picture and give both sides. I think this team's talent was way overrated, but, until I looked I never thought it was worse than the 13/14 VU team. And, I debated on posting this because I didn't want to have more CBD must go remarks, but, I consider this just factual info for folks to look at, the subjective part is how you gauge the talent (and, that is talent at each position & experience) on the teams, and also their schedule (how good of teams they play, where&when they play). That is where the real debates could be.
