Was referring to Simpson’s ORtg dropping from 108 to 104 and shooting 24% from 3-point range in Tier A games on KenPom, but my bigger point was that I’m not a fan of splits like that because they slice the sample size so low over the course of a college season. And most people are less efficient in more difficult games, it comes with the territory – especially players who create their own offense.
I don’t think Cowan struggling in KenPom Tier A games last year has any sort of predictive value as far as what he’ll do as a senior. If anything, I’d flip it and say he only shot 29% from 3-point range in those games but he’s a career 35% 3-point shooter so I’d bet on his 3-point shooting regressing upward toward the mean.
The previous year, Cassius Winston had a 129 ORtg overall and a 108.5 ORtg in KenPom Tier A games. He only made 5 of his final 27 3-pointers. Those were sample size issues not reasons to downgrade him heading into his junior year.
I get what you’re saying, but the stats I quoted on Cowan were for 17 games, a decent sample size, and they weren’t just a bit lower (as with X and soph Winston), they were a lot lower, bad in general, and bad across the board (bad from 3 as well as from 2, and a ton of turnovers) against top 50 teams. Of course players do wise against good teams than they do against bad ones; that said, Cowan’s efficiency and shooting splits were pretty significant. I agree that Cowan will probably do better this year. Just my opinion though—when you’re coming off a season like that, 5 seems high to me (a friend (Illinois fan) and I did this while traveling to a golf trip a week and a half ago, and we had Cowan between 8 and 10).
Bad news for you, Cowan isn’t fifth. Although when we averaged out the numbers between the two of us, 2-3-4 had an average rank of 3, 3, 3.5 so it was very close.
I think Tillman puts up those numbers and will be a top 5 player. Frankly, he might be the second most valuable only behind Winston. In addition to everything else he does well, he started to take (and make) some outside shots last year and I’ll bet he expands that part of his game.
My take on Teske vs. Wesson is that Teske May have more all-around quality, but Wesson is a foundational offensive piece - someone you can anchor an offense on. Teske is obviously a more complementary player.
I am not down on Tillman by any stretch… he’s ranked 6th! But I think if he puts up those kind of numbers, he’s probably a B10 2nd Teamer. It is rare to have two guys from the same team on the Big Ten First Team and Tillman doesn’t have the kind of game that would really scream exception to that rule. The majority of his offense is going to derived by Winston. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just that he plays off of him as a ball screen guy.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa on Cowan–he has been fantastic. So too has Jalen Smith, one of the two I said I would have had above Cowan (Tillman was the other, and he has been really good as well), but Cowan has taken it to a different level, especially in terms of closing out games.
Although when we averaged out the numbers between the two of us, 2-3-4 had an average rank of 3, 3, 3.5 so it was very close.
