Will Ezekowitz (@wezekowitz) is a national columnist focusing on the numbers behind college basketball.

I have tried to project next year’s breakout players for several years now. Doing so is largely subjective and also generally requires team success, but I’m trying to answer the following question: “Which players are not getting the headlines now but who will be in February and March?” Last year, I gave you Markus Howard, Keenan Evans (bonus points) and, regrettably, Justin Jackson (negative points), among several others. This year, I have refined my approach by using the Projected Contributors tool at BartTorvik, aka free KenPom. Torvik’s site projects points, rebounds and assists for every player in college basketball, and I have included those projected totals below.

Ty Jerome is Poised for an Outstanding Season (USA Today Images)

• Ty Jerome – Virginia. 12.2 PPG, 3.4 RPG. 4.8 APG. Tony Bennett has the defense, Kyle Guy has the man-bun, and DeAndre Hunter has the lottery pick talent. But do not forget about Ty Jerome among these Cavaliers. After minimal playing time as a freshman, he showed flashes of downright dominance in his sophomore tilt even while often deferring to Guy. He’s a 41 percent shooter from deep, a capable creator and logged a better assist to turnover rate last season than even the great London Perrantes did during his senior year. His 6’5” frame at the point of attack is also a necessary key to Virginia’s incredible defense, and he ended last year with the highest steal rate in the ACC (3.6%). He should take on even more responsibility this year, and if he continues on his current trajectory, he can become the best point guard in a loaded ACC (and one of the best nationally as well).
• Sagaba Konate – West Virginia. 14.4 PPG, 8.0 RPG, 1.2 APG. Disclaimer: I am the official conductor of the Sagaba Konate Hype Train. Konate is an absolutely chiseled physical specimen who is the toughest dude on which any basketball court he steps. Quite simply, he’s the best rim protector in the country, but he’s also an elite rebounder. Last year he became the third major conference player in the last 15 years to log a block rate above 15 percent and a defensive rebounding rate above 20 percent (Kansas’ Jeff Withey and Mississippi State’s Jarvis Vernardo were the others). A big man usually must choose to either challenge a shot or corral it if it misses — Konate, somehow, is elite at both. On the offensive end, he improved from simply a putback artist who shot 56 percent at the line his freshman year into a legitimate post player who nailed 88 percent from the line in Big 12 play last year (second-best). After surprising scouts at last spring’s NBA Combine, Konate knows he needs a more refined offensive game to become a first round pick. Bet on him developing it and turning in an All-America season in Morgantown.

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For the first time since the 2014 Final Four in Arlington, Texas, the ACC was without representation during the season’s final weekend. Despite that disappointment, the ACC still finished the year rated as the second strongest conference via KenPom, with two of its nine NCAA Tournament entrants — Florida State and Duke — falling just a game short of a trip to San Antonio. That said, ACC regular season and tournament champion Virginia dominated the conference in stupendous fashion, winning the regular season by four games over runner-up Duke in large part thanks to the stingiest defense since the 38-1 Kentucky team in 2015. A convincing three-day run in Brooklyn left little doubt that Virginia was a worthy #1 overall seed heading into the Big Dance. We all know what happened next.

Virginia Became the First #1 Seed to Lose to a #16 Seed (USA Today Images)

• Biggest Surprise: What happened in Charlotte several weeks ago defied all the laws of common sense and conventional basketball wisdom. The ignominious distinction of becoming the first #1 seed to fall to a #16 will sting the Virginia program for years — perhaps decades — but given the passage of time we can also start to begin to appreciate a tremendous season submarined by an inexplicable 40-minute sample size. And while that upset alone is the exact definition of a surprise, a Cavaliers team that was picked to finish sixth in the preseason laying waste to the entire ACC for three months qualifies as a legitimate surprise on its own right.

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Preseason rankings — they are, in most sports, completely irrelevant when the postseason rolls around. But not in college basketball. When projecting Final Four teams, as we have covered in this space before, the preseason AP Poll is just as predictive as the current AP poll. The rationale for this is that preseason rankings account for things that the mathematical models struggle with (for example, coaching changes, big recruiting classes, injuries and suspensions, etc.), making them a surprisingly accurate projection system. So what about the handful of teams each year that are excluded from these rankings but go on to do great things in the regular season? Is it safe to assume that if you can’t crack the preseason Top 25, you won’t cut down any nets in March?

Can Virginia Break the Trend? (USA Today Images)

To answer this question, I looked at historical NCAA Tournament teams that were unranked in the preseason but were ranked in the final regular season poll (this one) to examine whether they came crashing down to earth when it mattered most. My findings indicate that these teams have in fact underperformed as a group in the NCAA Tournament. Since 2007, 106 teams fit the criteria. Just 37 of that group (35%) exceeded their seeds’ average win expectation (based on average wins for each seed since 2002), and the group as a whole won just 120 games. That mark is 30 below an expected aggregate total of 150 victories, a statistically significant difference at the five percent level. Furthermore, just one of 51 top-four seeds ultimately made the Final Four (Kemba Walker’s 2011 Connecticut squad), although they have collectively produced 11 Elite Eight appearances with Florida‘s run last year being the most recent example. The conclusion here is that, although a handful of teams in this group may turn out to exceed expectations, it is likely as a whole to underperform.

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What I’m about to write won’t make me very popular with the majority of new wave, analytically-obsessed fans, who comprise a majority of today’s young college basketball devotees. But forget what KenPom’s formula spits out. Use your eyes. Virginia stinks. Inexplicably, prior to its ACC quarterfinal loss last night — a game in which the Cavaliers were thoroughly outplayed by Notre Dame from tip to buzzer — Virginia was still rated seventh by KenPom’s analytical formula. After its 10th loss of the season, Tony Bennett‘s team probably won’t slide all that much. But if you watch Virginia play and can honestly tell me it is an elite team — and in this model that means the Cavs would be favored to beat all but Gonzaga, Villanova and North Carolina on a neutral floor — then fly me to Vegas with all the money you can get your hands on to take, let’s say, UCLA.

Tony Bennett and Virginia are still a very strong team, but not quite where they have been. (USA TODAY Sports)

I use UCLA as an example because, first, the metrics don’t care much for the Bruins (17th nationally, per KenPom), and second, they have pros. And while their defense leaves much to be desired at times, the Bruins have a roster full of studs who are not very far away from earning a handsome living playing basketball. And that matters at this time of year. A tremendous pack line defense and slow tempo can only get you so far. Who for Virginia can blow by his defender and get to the rim himself or create an easy opportunity for a teammate? The answer is as startling as it is obvious. Bennett has done a remarkable job in revitalizing a moribund program in Charlottesville by winning a pair of ACC regular season titles and making a trip to the Elite Eight, so it would be disingenuous for me to disparage the Cavaliers’ style of play without acknowledging that his teams have  all utilized an identical strategy. Still, successful systemic pedigree can only get you so far. This iteration doesn’t have a Justin Anderson or a Malcolm Brogdon on the roster, a pair of players who, by the way, are now NBA professionals. Read the rest of this entry »

Now halfway through the conference season, things are beginning to take shape around the college basketball landscape. As we advance into February, there are a number of overrated and underrated teams in the national polls. This week let’s dive into who some of those teams are and what makes them that way.

Overrated

Baylor Played Kansas Tough But Found an All Too Familiar Result (USA Today Images)

• Baylor, 20-2 (7-2), #2. The Bears earned some #1 votes in the most recent AP Top 25 for a reason — this is a very good team. But can Baylor keep it up for the next five weeks in the rugged Big 12? Wednesday night’s loss to Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse was perhaps expected, but what about upcoming road tests at Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech and a home date with West Virginia? Lastly, there’s that pesky issue that Baylor wasn’t ranked in the preseason, which matters more than you’d think. Since 2006, only one team that was unranked in the preseason and ranked in the pre-tournament poll has made the Final Four. That was Shabazz Napier’s 2014 National Championship Connecticut team. These Bears feel more like last year’s Iowa club or the 2014 Syracuse team, though.
• USC, 19-4 (6-4), NR. After a home upset of UCLA, the Trojans climbed up to a #8 seed in Joe Lunardi’s bracketology and sat just outside the Top 25 in this week’s poll (28th). But KenPom only rates the Trojans as the 59th-best team in college basketball and that’s probably closer to reality. USC is an athletically gifted team that maximizes offensive possessions by grabbing rebounds and avoiding turnovers, but its offense isn’t very efficient (52nd nationally) and its defense generally doesn’t pick up the slack (73rd nationally). Moreover, the bottom quarter of the Pac-12 is exceptionally weak this year, inflating win totals and otherwise artificially boosting all the numbers. The Trojans played well in the non-conference with good wins over SMU and Texas A&M, but if they can’t meaningfully separate themselves from the rest of the league over the last five weeks, they may be staring a bubble disaster right in the face on Selection Sunday.

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This year’s Sweet Sixteen is an odd group. The NCAA Tournament seems to have proven especially hard to predict this year, with lower seeded teams completely outplaying higher seeds, blowouts in games that should have been close, and all kinds of crazy endings. As we embark into the second weekend, what is left to hold on to as data analysts? How about offense? More than ever, the fickle filters of the Tournament have eliminated all but the very best offensive teams.

Iowa State’s Offense, Led by Georges Niang, Ran into the Sweet Sixteen (USA Today Images)

Look at KenPom’s offensive efficiency rankings and you’ll notice that just about every elite offensive team is still around. Kentucky (third in offensive efficiency) lost to Indiana (eighth), leaving top-ranked Michigan State as the only elite offensive team to get prematurely eliminated — we’ve since come to accept that loss for what it was and stopped trying to rationalize it. Even Syracuse, languishing behind the pack with the 52nd-best offense, has been playing extremely well on that end of the floor, rising 23 spots in the offensive rankings in just two games. This leaves buzzer-beating Wisconsin as the only other true outlier among the remaining teams, ranking 88th in offensive efficiency. What this tells us is that you need a great offense to survive the opening weekend, but is that anything new? Let’s look at the last five years to find out.

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On Tuesday, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino told the Louisville Courier-Journal that he had stripped junior star Montrezl Harrell of the Cardinals’ team captaincy. While Pitino claims that the decision was “no big deal,” it is yet another disappointment from one of the ACC’s two preseason AP All-Americans. Statistically speaking, Harrell has not regressed from his sophomore season, but he hasn’t really improved all that much either. His scoring is up about a point per game (14.0 to 14.9 PPG) and he is grabbing nearly an extra rebound per game (8.4 to 9.2 RPG), but while the junior shot the ball more efficiently last year, his level of impact looks and feels about the same. Still, Harrell turned down NBA Draft riches to return to Louisville, and expectations were that he would develop into elite impact territory. Perhaps the most concerning aspect of Harrell’s season has been his play against good competition; in Louisville’s three losses to Kentucky, North Carolina and Duke, Harrell scored nine, nine and 10 points, respectively — shooting 12-of-29 from the field in those games. With so much of the Cardinals’ offense dependent on him for success, it’s no surprise that Louisville lost each of those contests.

Montrezl Harrell hasn’t been the superstar Louisville hoped for this season. (Jamie Rhodes / USA TODAY Sports)

Harrell isn’t the only preseason All-American from the ACC who has been underwhelming this season. North Carolina guard Marcus Paige entered the year as the highest vote-getter in preseason All-America polls, returning to Chapel Hill following a stellar sophomore campaign in which he had often carried the Tar Heels offensively. Expectations were certainly very high for his junior campaign. Paige limped out to a slow start, shooting only 35 percent in North Carolina’s first four games, including an unlikely loss to Butler. And like Harrell, Paige’s statistics in the Tar Heels’ four losses tell the story: 15.0 points per game on 33 percent shooting. To his credit, Paige has been dealing with plantar fasciitis, and he may be turning the corner in conference play given his “clutch gene” play against Louisville and a 23-point, nine-assist outing at N.C. State. Still, Paige needs to find better consistency and efficiency to support his candidacy for any postseason award.

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The Atlantic Coast Conference looks poised to have a dominant season among basketball’s top conferences, boasting four of the nation’s preseason top 10 teams in Duke, North Carolina, Virginia and Louisville. After a short one-year stint in the American Athletic Conference, Louisville is the latest former Big East team to join the ACC, while the Blue Devils, Tar Heels and Cavaliers are ACC mainstays — each hopes to carry the conference banner to the finish line in March. Virginia wants to defend its conference title and prove last season wasn’t a fluke; Louisville hopes to send a message in its ACC debut; and the Tobacco Road teams are hoping to make it back to their rightful place in the Sweet Sixteen and beyond. Simply put, the ACC is going to be a war at the top of the standings, and each team has a major driver pushing it this year.

Virginia’s ascendance will only help the ACC’s argument that it’s the premier basketball conference (USA Today Sports)

This season marks the third time since 2002 that a conference has had four teams in the preseason top 10. Ironically, both of these instances came courtesy of the Big East. In 2011, the conference placed Connecticut and current ACC members Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Louisville within the top 10; and in 2008, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and another current ACC member, Notre Dame, topped the list. In each of those years, the ACC’s only two representatives were — who else? — Duke and North Carolina. This definitely speaks to the prestige of the basketball programs that the ACC has added in recent years, and it’s not implausible to think the ACC could place even more than four squads in the top 10 in coming seasons.

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Championship Fortnight is under way, and what better way to get you through the next two weeks of games than to break down each of the Other 26′s conference tournaments as they get started. Today, the Horizon League and Atlantic Sun tip things off.

Dates: March 4, 7, 8, 11
Site: First Round: Campus sites; Quarterfinals and Semifinals: Resch Center (Green Bay, WI); Championship: Campus site (higher-seeded team hosts)

What to expect: Green Bay was far and away the best team in the regular season, amassing a 24-5 overall record and notching a high-profile non-conference victory over ACC regular season champion Virginia. Led by 7’1’’ center Alec Brown — an NBA prospect with an outside shot — and high-flying point guard Keifer Sykes, the Phoenix should take care of business on their home floor. Brian Wardle’s bunch has been playing some of its best basketball of the season since losing to Milwaukee in early February, securing four its final five wins on the road and dominating opponents by more than 15 points per contest. Still, watch out for Cleveland State and its lights-out three-point shooting — fourth-best in the country at 40.8 percent — as well as defending champion Valparaiso; the Crusaders took down Green Bay earlier in the year. The top seed stumbling at home is not unprecedented for this tournament, but seems unlikely this time around.

Favorite: Green Bay. The team is confident, talented and playing at home. Put simply, anything short of a championship would be hugely disappointing for the Phoenix.

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There is no question that Virginia entered the season fully expecting to be able to count on senior Joe Harris to elevate the team to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012 and make a serious run at the upper echelon of the ACC. Harris was considered one of the surest bets not only on the Cavaliers roster, but in the entire new-look ACC. He made the all-conference first team last season and received preseason votes for ACC player of the year.  After a non-conference slate from which the Cavaliers emerged an uninspiring 9-4 with zero standout wins and whiffs in statement games versus VCU, Wisconsin and Tennessee along with a bad loss to Wisconsin Green-Bay, fans and analysts alike surmised the Cavs were having disappointing seasons from just about everyone on the roster. But Harris was actually the main culprit, with his scoring way down and, perhaps most puzzlingly, carrying an average of only seven field-goal attempts per contest.

UVA’s long-term fortunes are directly tied to Joe Harris (credit: associatedpress)

Now, four games into the ACC slate, it appears that Harris has finally found his scoring stroke at just the right time. Virginia, needing a strong conference record to offset its non-conference woes, has begun 3-1 in the ACC with only a tough loss to Duke at Cameron Indoor blemishing their conference record. It’s no coincidence that much of what glaringly ailed Tony Bennett’s team early on has seemingly been remedied. The defense is still suffocating; the frontcourt is back to providing secondary scoring options and commanding the glass; and the team is getting better shots as a result of improved ball movement and patience.

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