Tag: Kendall Marshall

Assist Tracker: Dec. 29

Keegan Bell (G, Chattanooga) — Bell got to play against Longwood last night and he took advantage of the situation going off for 16 assists, 10 points and nine rebounds in the 85-50 win. Eight of Bell’s assists were for threes and the Mocs only made nine. He also assisted on five layups and three dunks. The player distribution was pretty even five of Omar Wattad’s six baskets came off assists from Bell. Wattad was Chattanooga’s leading scorer with 18 points.

Matthew Dellavedova (G, St. Mary’s) — The west coast Gaels welcomed BYU into the WCC with a convincing 98-82 win in which Delledova played magnificently. He had 18 points, 12 assists and six rebounds in the win. Stephen Holt, who scored 21 points, was the greatest beneficiary on the night. He got four assists from Dellavedova. Half of Dellavedova’s assists went for layups as St. Mary’s just dissected the Cougars’ defense.

Neil Watson (G, Southern Miss) — Southern Miss is 12-2 after trouncing Alcorn State 80-49 last night. In that game Watson had 10 assists off the bench. None of those 10 assists were on a shot near the basket. He recorded assists on four threes and six jumpers. You don’t see that very often. Credit his teammates Jonathan Mills (19 points, 7-13), Darnell Dodson (16 points, 6-12) and LaShay Page (10 points, 3-11 — all makes off Watson assists) for knocking down the shots.

Scott Machado (G, Iona) — Yes, Machado ended up with 10 assists last night, but he also had five first half turnovers and really struggled with foul trouble. Half of those assists went to Mike Glover. Those five resulted in two dunks, two layups and a jumper. Momo Jones got three of the others. Three of Machado’s 10 assists were on jumpers as Hofstra’s defense forced him to pass out instead of in for most of the game.

Dwan McMillan (G, Hofstra) — Part of the reason for that was the pesky play of McMillan. He had nine assists in the game. Just one of the eight assists were for a basket around the rim (a layup by Mike Moore). There were five jumpers and three threes in the mix as well. Moore (24 points) and Nathaniel Lester (21 points) each knocked down three shots off passes from McMillan.

Kendall Marshall (G, North Carolina) — Marshall had eight points – on a perfect shooting night – and eight assists in 22 minutes as North Carolina rocked Elon 100-62. His eight assists included three dunks, two layups, two threes and a jumper. John Henson got two of the dunks. Harrison Barnes had the third.

Trey Burke (G, Michigan) — Freshman Burke had 13 points and seven assists – though the play-by-play says eight – and held Tim Frazier to four assist and five turnovers in Michigan’s 71-53 win over Penn State. (Note: Frazier did have 20 points.) Playing in John Beilein’s offense it’s not surprise that five of Burke’s assists in the play-by-play went for threes.

Kenneth Ortiz (G, Wagner) — The Seahawks have eight wins over non-conference opponents, the most in school history after a 72-61 victory over Air Force. It was Wagner’s most efficient offensive game of the season and Ortiz had 10 points and seven assists. Unfortunately there’s no play-by-play on ESPN for the game, so I can’t break them down. But I thought his performance should be noted here.

Assist Tracker: Dec. 21

Saah Nimley (G, Charleston Southern) — The 5’8″ freshman from Atlanta, GA had an excellent game on Wednesday against Stetson. He dished out 12 assists in an 83-79 victory. Just one of those were a jumper too. Nimley also had 23 points. Before the game against Stetson scoring had been more of his role, so it’ll be interesting to see if he appears on this list again.

Brad Tinsley (G, Vanderbilt) — Tinsley had 10 assists as the Commodores beat Lafayette 89-58. Lance Goulbourne benefitted the most from his passes, with five baskets off Tinsley assists. John Jenkins also had four. Seven of Tinsley’s assists went for threes as Vanderbilt shot 15-30 from beyond the arc in the win.

Scott Machado (G, Iona) — Machado had a rare double-double with 10 rebounds and 10 assists in the Gaels’ 83-65 win over William & Mary. He missed a triple-double by two points. Three of his five turnovers came before he even recorded an assist, but once he got his first with 9:09 remaining in the first half it was off to the races. Machado’s first six assists were threes and the total was well distributed amongst all the players on the team. Interestingly enough, backcourt teammate Momo Jones had three baskets from Machado, the most of any Iona player.

Kendall Marshall (G, North Carolina) — Marshall thoroughly outplayed Myck Kabongo in North Carolina’s 82-63 victory over Texas. Marshall had nine assists in 36 minutes – the most of any Tar Heel. Consistent with what we’ve seen before three of his assists came on jump shots. There were also two dunks (by Tyler Zeller and P.J. Hairston). On Wednesday night it was Reggie Bullock who benefitted most from Marshall’s passes converting three of them into baskets.

Jordan Theodore (G, Seton Hall) — Eight assists and just two turnovers from Theodore helped Seton Hall go to Dayton and get a key victory, 69-64, over the Flyers. While Herb Pope was on the receiving end of Theodore’s first three assists, foul trouble limited him to 29 minutes. Thus Theodore passed to other people, including Patrick Auda. Both of Auda’s threes came off assists from Theodore.

Isaiah Canaan (G, Murray State) — The guy for Murray State, Canaan struggled a little bit shooting just 1-4 from the field, but he went 8-9 from the free throw for 10 points and also dished out seven assists in Murray State’s 78-54 win over Tennessee-Martin. All three of Canaan’s assists to Ed Daniel were for dunks.

Tim Frazier (G, Penn State) — The fascinating life of Frazier continued in Penn State’s 74-67 slip past Cornell. Five of Frazier’s six assists went for threes. The only one that wasn’t was a layup by Jermaine Marshall. Frazier also led the Nittany Lions with 17 points and 11 rebounds.

Halil Kanacevic (F, Saint Joseph’s) and Royce White (F, Iowa State) — Both of these forwards had eight assists in their teams’ victories. So I thought it would be appropriate to look at them together. Here’s a breakdown of assists by type and then by the position of the player they passed to:

Kanacevic:

1 jumper
2 threes
5 dunks

1 swing
1 guard
6 forwards (5 to C.J. Aiken)

White:

1 jumper
1 dunk
2 layups
4 threes

2 forward
5 guard (3 to Scott Christopherson)
1 center

You can’t really have two more different games passing the ball than these two guys did. I think it really displays the differences in their games and how the offenses of their two teams are structured.

Assist Tracker: Dec. 19

Damier Pitts (G, Marshall) — Pitts had a double-double with 19 points and 11 assists in the Thundering Herd’s 87-86 victory over Belmont. DeAndre Kane scored 29 points to lead Marshall and six of Pitts’ 11 assists went to him. Also, seven of those 11 assists were for layups.

Grant Gibbs (G, Creighton) — It’s easy to get assists when you’ve got one of the most prolific scorers in the NCAA on your team. That’s what Gibbs has to work with in Doug McDermott. Against Tulsa on Monday Gibbs had 10 assists. Seven of those assists went to McDermott. Two of Gregory Echenique’s four made baskets came from Gibbs.

Eric Atkins (G, Notre Dame) — Atkins’ nine assists against Sacred Heart came in the Fighting Irish’s 106-65 victory and he distributed them pretty evenly. There were three layups, two jumpers and four threes. Both of Alex Dragicevich’s threes came from Atkins assists.

Keith Appling (G, Michigan State) — Two of Appling’s eight assist in the Spartans’ 89-54 win went to Draymond Green, who also had seven of his own. Appling had three assists for threes. Two of them went to Brandon Wood.

Draymond Green (F, Michigan State) — None of Green’s six assists went to Appling, but he did have two to Wood and two to Branden Dawson. I find it interesting that just one of his six assists was for a three. I’d expect a post player like Green to be passing for assists, but he’s hitting cutters in the lane.

Kendall Marshall (G, North Carolina) — Marshall upped his dunk percentage in Monday’s 99-49 victory over Nicholls State. Four of his seven assists went for dunks. That’s probably the advantage of playing a team like Colonels. I believe this is the first game this season that Marshall didn’t have an assist on a jumper.

Tyshawn Taylor (G, Kansas) — Last Sunday Taylor had knee surgery. Today he was playing in Kansas’ 80-74 loss to Davidson. He had seven assists (and five turnovers) in his first game back. Those assists went to three people: Thomas Robinson (3), Elijah Johnson (2) and Jeff Withey (2). I’d really like to watch this one on ESPN3 replay if possible and see if the turnovers were committed while trying to pass to one of them, especially because Robinson and Withey are true post guys.

Assist Tracker: Dec. 17

You might know that I’ve been fascinated with assists this season and have been working on tools to make capturing and analyzing them even better. Well, I thought to help promote that I’d do a daily assist tracker. My goal here is to take a quick look at all the players in the country that had more than 10 assists on the night and then maybe highlight a few others on light days. I’ll look at who they’re passing too, what the resulting baskets are and any other interesting trends we might be able to pull out of the data. Most of these I posted on Twitter before coming up with this idea.

Kendall Marshall (G, North Carolina) – Four more “jumper” assists for Marshall today against Appalachian State out of 13. Five assists went to Tyler Zeller, leading to 10 of his 31 points. Marshall also sets John Henson up for a lot of dunks.

Lorenzo Brown (G, N.C. State) – Six of Brown’s 13 assists against Syracuse went to C.J. Williams. Three of his assists came in a four-possession span in the first half as the Wolfpack took an early 12-4 lead.

Neil Watson (G, Southern Miss) – He was just one of two players off the bench for the Golden Eagles in their 86-82 victory over Ole Miss. Only 10 of his 13 assists are available in the ESPN play-by-play, but five of those came on jumpers.

Michael Bizoukas (G, Missouri State) – The former DePaul guard is playing well with the Bears and had 11 assists against Kennesaw State in a 78-55 victory. Four of his 11 assists went to Kyle Weems. Christian Kirk was the only other player to receive more than one, he got two. Of Bizoukas’ assists nine were either threes (5) or jumpers (4).

Junior Cadougan (G, Marquette) – I know that someone liked the fact that Todd Mayo was inserted into the starting lineup. Five of Cadougan’s nine assists went to the freshman, including three threes and 13 points in total. Cadougan’s typical favorite target, Jae Crowder, only completed two buckets from the Marquette point guard.

Peyton Siva (G, Louisville) – Continuing with his trend, all of Siva’s nine assists in Louisville’s 95-87 win over Memphis were either threes (6) or layups (3). He distributed the assists pretty equally between Russ Smith (3), Rakeem Buckles (3), Chris Smith (2) and Kyle Kuric (1).

Brian Voelkel (F, Vermont) – He had eight assists for Vermont in a 73-72 loss to Iona. Four went for threes, three layups and one jumper. All the layups went to Luke Apfeld. Voelkel was the only forward to finish in the Top 10 in assists during a busy day of college basketball.

Who does more? Looking at assists

Everyone thinks they know the best way to rack up a bunch of assists: Play fast, surround yourself with a bunch of talented scorers and let the dimes pile up like Scrooge McDuck’s vault. The best playmakers though don’t just benfit from the talent around them. They also raise their teammates up. Who is doing that this season?

Let’s take a look at the top eight players in assists per game from BCS conferences and try and figure it out. The list: Kendall Marshall, North Carolina; Jordan Theodore, Seton Hall; Tim Frazier, Penn State; Vincent Council, Providence; Peyton Siva, Louisville; Myck Kabongo, Texas; Shabazz Napier, Connecticut and Junior Cadougan, Marquette.

Looking at the individual tendencies of the Top 8 BCS assist men

Marshall leads the group at 10.2 assists per game, but he’s getting a bunch of help from his teammates. Of the eight players in the survey Marshall has the highest percentage of his assists that result from jumpers at 31.4%. Combining that with the 23.5% that have resulted in threes thus far this season means he’s needed a teammate to knock down a shot 54.9% of the time.

Surprisingly, that isn’t the highest mark of the eight point guards. Drive-and-kick guards like Kabongo, Cadougan and Frazier have very high percentages of their assists result in threes. Since 56.3% of Frazier’s assists have ended up being to shooters behind the arc, he’s actually helped out in some way on almost 60% of the Nittany Lions’ points this season. Thus PSU is incredibly reliant on their junior point guard, which is probably why he’s played fewer than 34 minutes in just two games.

Frazier has another quality that makes him stand out as well; no point guard on this list spreads the ball around to different teammates as much as he does. Thus far this season Cammeron Woodyard has gotten 21.3% of Frazier’s assists. That pales in comparison to the percentage Jae Crowder has gotten from Cadougan (44.9%) or Bryce Cotton (43.8%) has received from Council.

Another player that does a good job spreading the ball around is Texas’ Kabongo and he’s a freshman. While J’Covan Brown gets 31.1% of the Canadian’s assists, six other players have also received at least eight percent.

Then there’s the fascinating case of Napier. The Connecticut point guard is 18th in the nation in assists at 6.2 per game. The best part is a whopping 32.1% of those have gone for dunks. Consider that no other player has had more than 16.7% of their assists go for dunks (Marshall, mostly thanks to John Henson) and it’s even more stunning. That’s the benefit of playing with Andre Drummond, Alex Oriakhi and Jeremy Lamb.

Siva though tops Napier’s close basket percentage. This is a product of the Louisville system and the finishers he plays with. If it’s not a three or something near the rim Rick Pitino doesn’t want it. And really, who on the Cardinals is going to be dunking on a regular basis? That means Siva has the highest layup percentage amongst his peers at 43.5%. Interestingly enough he doesn’t have the lowest jumper percentage.  That belongs to Theodore at a miniscule 6.1%. The Seton Hall point guard is putting his teammates in great positions to make plays with the basketball.

Because Marshall is relying so much on jump shots from his teammates, it’ll be interesting to see if he can sustain a double-digit assist total throughout the season. At some point the shooters are bound to go cold. Then the UNC point guard will have to rely on the pace at which the Tar Heels play and the elite finishing talent he has around him, like Henson, Tyler Zeller and Harrison Barnes, to get easy assists. He’s got enough talent to sustain it.

What about the players like Frazier, Theodore and Council that don’t have the elite talent around them? Well, Theodore (37.9% to Herb Pope) and Council (Cotton) have done a good job of identifying the elite scoring talent around them and getting the ball to those guys. Frazier doesn’t have that luxury and whether or not he can sustain the ridiculous do-everything pace he’s on going into Big Ten play remains to be seen. Still, he’s certainly a special talent that is doing more with less.

This post is going to be cross posted on College Hoops Journal.

A better way to find assists

Tracking where assists go and what types of baskets they create is becoming more and more important in college basketball analysis. Dave Ryan did a great post the other day about Scott Machado’s assists. Everyone has also seen the great graphics that Luke Winn does in his Power Rankings. This week he even went and checked for erroneous assists (see the North Carolina section). But whenever someone wants to do analysis of assists they have to go over the box score by hand. (At least I think they were.) I’m hoping to eliminate that effort.

Continue reading “A better way to find assists” →