First a bit of a prelude. As oscar continues to put his stamp on K-State basketball, I've adjusted my perceptions of what to look for as important going from game to game. Frank's system was built around the premise that K-State was going to out-tough and out-effort opponents on a night in and night out basis. That doesn't mean Frank's scheming and tactics were lacking, because he was still solid in both, but at the end of the day we had to have the effort and toughness to win consistently. So we all got used to watching oboarding, forcing turnovers, and getting to the foul line as the key factors. oscar has the carryover that Frank built into these players, so those still have importance, however oscar is much more a schemer and tactician, so the factors we look at as important have changed to an extent. His motion and movement have been talked about plenty, but what I've really enjoyed is seeing the subtleties and reads on the cuts and screens. I don't think its any coincidence that K-State has started to shoot the ball better in the last month or so as the players have become more and more comfortable with the system. And defensively the importance on forcing turnovers and bad shots remains, but with a mindset of allowing fewer easy baskets and reducing the foul calls (on the perimeter at least). This team is certainly not quite as tough as Frank's were, and the effort probably isn't quite the same, but oscar seems to be trying to make up for that with more sound decision making. In the last month that has worked great, we'll have to see the long term effects on not only this season, but the program as oscar continues to bring in his own players.
So the question becomes, what has changed?
With Frank I got used to looking at 45-40-25 as the keys. 45% for shooting (eFG%) and FT rate, 40% oboarding, and 25% TO percentage forced. If K-State hit on all 4, they were going to beat about anyone and 3 of the 4 was going to beat most. 2 of 4 would be in most games, and 1 or less was likely a loss. Of course, there are exceptions; great shooting games (50% or better), or oboarding games (45% or better), etc, but for the most part that was what I looked for.
With oscar the factors have changed a bit. This team has still oboarded well and is forcing turnovers, but offense, shooting, and how we score has become important. Frank's teams were tough because they were built to score different ways, but again the fall back was effort plays, transition baskets, 2nd chance, and the occasional really good shooting night. In many ways players generated shots much more than the offense generated shots. With oscar the offense is much more about the system and the offense generating shots. Better shooting points to this, but also a much higher rate of assists per made shots.
So now I look for factors of 35, 50, and 60, and just on offense. First 35; this is the percentage of shot attempts K-State needs from 3, the percentage we need to shoot from 3, and the percentage we need to rebound our own misses. If you look at the pattern in our games against decent teams this year, in wins we average those kinds of numbers. However, 2s are still important, namely shooting 50% on the 2s we do get. Early we not only struggled on 3s shooting the ball, but we were often awful shooting 2s. Finally, 60% of our made shots need to come off of assists. This means the motion offense is generating the shots and we are shooting the majority of our shots off of the pass.
Now to go with that we've got to have good defensive numbers; 25% turnovers forced, 30% oboarding allowed, and 45% or worse shooting allowed. We have played really well on defense when we get those numbers.
On to KU; I'd say against Top 5 teams usually you have to be better. We still need a balanced offense; 35% (or more) of our shots as 3s, but probably need to shoot from there in the upper 30s. However, the real challenge against KU will be approaching 50% on 2s and keeping our TO% on offense below 20%. Do that and K-State is looking good on offense, and those aren't impossible numbers. Then on defense at least match them shooting (keep them below 50% at least), but also get their TO% above 20 and oboarding below 35. To me FT rate has decreased in its role a bit, but still has some importance because we need to keep Angel and JO on the floor.
It will be interesting seeing oscar's system in action against Self. Frank got us 2 great wins, but he also had 9 losses. Nothing wrong with that because Frank did so many other things well, but KU was often a tough match-up for us because it become so tough for us to score in those games. Now we get to see if a different system on offense can be more successful.
With the way we are playing and the way KU is playing, I like our chances tomorrow night. I don't think we'll reach all the marks we need to, but I think we'll reach enough.
K-State 66 - KU 63
