Chief’s Briefs - Kansas Edition

[StllH8L8ner]

Speaking of Mullins and my habit of associating states/towns with current and former Huskies whenever I’m with my kids, we’re watching previous seasons of Stranger Things in our house on our way to watching the new season and one of the older episodes shows them driving past the Indiana state line:

Me: “You know who’s from Indiana, right?”

Son: “Larry Bird?”

Me: “No! Braylon Mullins!”

I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning but I can remember that Eric Hayward is from Alexandria, LA.

Great game! Carry on.

 

[jdb50]

Reibe helped key our comeback vs Arizona with his 2-4 from 3. Last night he never looked to take a 3. He has done a nice job fitting into the offense and just taking what's there. Does not force things. Also doing a good job trying to defend the rim.

 

[Hoops91]

The great thing about this team is you don't know who the leading scorer is going to be on any giving night. Teams can't game plan against one or two players. They share the ball. That is a formula for championships, exactly what they had in 2023 and 2024.

 

[Son of Robert]

It takes a team effort to beat Kansas, everyone contributed on some level. Defense, rebounding, offensive movement, assists, and putting up points.

Reibe keeping it simple, playing real well. Does not turn the ball over and is not letting fouls become a problem. Made some timely baskets, rebounded, helped keep Kansas off the glass.

Karaban always dangerous, playing clutch, keeping his cool, leading the team, minutes leader on this team.

Mullins bringing all that game to Storrs. Can flat out play, changes this team for the better immediately and substantially. Mullins, Ball, and Karaban on the floor at once is a handful for anybody.

Solo Ball starting to look like a pro out there. His mid-range opening everything up, getting better by the game.

Demary and Smith handling that 1 spot, defensively tough, both playing complete games. The better they are the better we will be.

Early in the season, but we are playing like we have the potential to be a final four team, and we're still waiting on Tarris to be 100%.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Agee with Chief's points on who balled out for UConn. Mullins and Reibe were huge. AK woke up just in time and Ross did some very important work on D and the boards. He was aggressive. Solo was solid on the offensive end.

Comments on what surprised for Kansas.
Bidunga about as expected. Council better on offense than expected, some of that may have been Solo's meh defense. Elmarko Jackson flashed the talent he has, but he's an enigma. I usually hesitate to mention him because you can't expect anything. Tiller was a massive disappointment. I don't know whether to credit Alex's defense or maybe the lights being a bit bright. Tiller not playing well meant that Kansas played small, and that is when Alex started to score against Tre White at the rim. Tiller defended Alex well earlier in the game.

 

[nomar]

Speaking of Mullins and my habit of associating states/towns with current and former Huskies whenever I’m with my kids, we’re watching previous seasons of Stranger Things in our house on our way to watching the new season and one of the older episodes shows them driving past the Indiana state line:

Me: “You know who’s from Indiana, right?”

Son: “Larry Bird?”

Me: “No! Braylon Mullins!”

I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning but I can remember that Eric Hayward is from Alexandria, LA.

Great game! Carry on.

Mentioned this a few months ago but for some reason we all knew the hometowns of every player. I think it was because they always listed them in the papers and on TV when they showed the guys. Federal Way, WA. Sandy, UT. Dalzell, SC. Etc.

 

[Palatine]

Anyone who comes on this board and say they were right about Mullins being great is the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. Hurley has been saying this since day one. Yes, it was nice to see it with our own eyes. But Hurley has talked up Mullins from day one so the WHOLE WORLD knew it. Duh.

 

[CL82]

Speaking of Mullins and my habit of associating states/towns with current and former Huskies whenever I’m with my kids, we’re watching previous seasons of Stranger Things in our house on our way to watching the new season and one of the older episodes shows them driving past the Indiana state line:

Me: “You know who’s from Indiana, right?”

Son: “Larry Bird?”

Me: “No! Braylon Mullins!”

I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning but I can remember that Eric Hayward is from Alexandria, LA.

Great game! Carry on.

Yeah, I still give your son full credit for his answer. How old is he?

 

[CL82]

Reibe helped key our comeback vs Arizona with his 2-4 from 3. Last night he never looked to take a 3. He has done a nice job fitting into the offense and just taking what's there. Does not force things. Also doing a good job trying to defend the rim.

As I'm fond of saying about new players, since both Reibe and Mullins are still new to college basketball, it's likely that we are looking at the "worst" versions of them. So far, each game gets a little bit better. I'm excited to think about what they both might look like come March.

 

[JSB60]

Mullins is our best player, seriously.
If we get a little more from the PG spot it will go a long way.
Ross> Stew
Mullins> Ross I think he is in the starting lineup from now on.
DOOMED!!!

I hope you’re right. Danny can be pretty hesitant to change the starting lineup. I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a Samson Johnson/Reed kind of thing where loyalty to the guy who stayed when he could have left trumping on court performance

 

[superjohn]

At one point last night Mullins had 15 points in 15 minutes, so given his gifts and talent I don’t know if we can evaluate him like most players - as I have been saying since August he’s a truely special talent - the guy who had zero nervousness on his game sealing foul shots at Kansas. After just 2 games I can’t pretend to put my arms around all that but I will sit back and pinch myself and enjoy it while it lasts. Being a UConn fan is really special.

My favorite part of the postgame was when the reporter asked Mullins if he was nervous on the free throws and Mullins said no we do the ft game all the time in practice. Follow up question about how he performs in the ft game and Braylon says, some days it doesn't go too well. Hurley and Karaban start laughing and they both say he always makes them. Hurley calls him a humble Indiana boy.

 

[Mets1432]

Mullins looked legit and healthy. He needs to be in the starting lineup Friday. Its time to let him loose. Idc about loyalty to Swewart, he did not make the jump from last year we were all hoping. Hes a good piece to have off the bench with Ross.

Also to my untrained eye, Malachi took over the PG spot in the 2nd half from Sylas. A lil surprising and i dont think it was all from foul trouble. Sylas had a bad game but a monster offensive board and put back late in the game.

I can't wait to see this team 100% humming and healthy. Please no more injuries.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

How do u read / interpret this stuff?

@husky429 got the most important broad-brush take-home message from all of the metrics shown in the grid.

To go a little more in-depth on some of the items:

Here's descriptions from the Hoop Explorer website (Team / Lineup Stats Table Explanation)

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Yeah, I still give your son full credit for his answer. How old is he?

He’s 12…and ironically has pretty much the same hairstyle as Braylon.

 

[NJHusky]

@husky429 got the most important broad-brush take-home message from all of the metrics shown in the grid.

To go a little more in-depth on some of the items:
View attachment 114167

Here's descriptions from the Hoop Explorer website (Team / Lineup Stats Table Explanation)
View attachment 114168

Even the cheat sheet is complicated. Lol

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Even the cheat sheet is complicated. Lol

What are the more confusing parts?

The Pts per 100 possessions just allows you to better compare "apples to apples" for how efficient their offense/defense operates by normalizing it to a standard number of possessions. This adjusts for teams that play at faster vs. slower paces. You might think that a team that averages 70 pts per game has a "better" offense than one that averages 65 pts per game. But if the team averaging 70pts operates at a fast tempo and gets 20 more possessions per game than the slower-tempo 65 PPG team, the first team actually has a "worse" offense than the 2nd team.

The adjustments attempt to take into account the quality of the teams that have been played to get those data. Team 1 may have 130 pts per 100 possessions, but if they are doing it vs the worst teams, in D1 that needs to be adjusted to honestly compare that team to Team 2, who may have 115 pts per possession, but did that versus a gauntlet of Top 10 teams.

FYI, the KenPom ratings just rank teams on the Net Rtg, which is ORtg (Adjusted Pts per 100 possessions) - DRtg (Adjusted Pts/100 possessions). He adjusts similarly, but also has his own proprietary "statistical sauce" especially early-season, where there's some consideration of the previous season's data, but you'll find the KenPom Net ratings track fairly close to the ones on Hoop Explorer (which is free to use, for now) once you get into December:

Once you get past those first 3 columns in Hoop Explorer, the rest is just fairly basic hoop metrics (eFG%, with offense on top, defense on the bottom, TO rates, rebounding rates, shooting % for team and opponents in different zones of the court, etc.)

 

[alphasigko]

Ross and Stewart are lossing minutes to Mullins. Neither of them has made the statistical leap we needed.

Suggest caution because you just might piss off HW611!

 

[Gurleyman]

Anyone who comes on this board and say they were right about Mullins being great is the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. Hurley has been saying this since day one. Yes, it was nice to see it with our own eyes. But Hurley has talked up Mullins from day one so the WHOLE WORLD knew it. Duh.

As a rooster, what I have been pushing back on is that he wasn't some scrawny shooter who would get out-matched physically and get pushed around in the Big East. There was a fair amount of that here. He's not a guy we are going to be subbing out for defense on late game possessions.

In fact, yesterday on Kansas' last play, they tried to go at him - pick on the new guy sort of thing, and Mullins fought over the top of the screen exactly the way you would want up by 3 ... running his man off the line and funneling him into Reibe (and then covering the dump down pass to Reibe's man). They'd have been better off attacking anyone else we had out there.

When we signed him, I figured we had our next great shooter. And when I watched him score two points in the McD's game and do a ton of other good things, I knew we had much more than just a shooter.

 

[Spaceman213J]

The great thing about this team is you don't know who the leading scorer is going to be on any giving night. Teams can't game plan against one or two players. They share the ball. That is a formula for championships, exactly what they had in 2023 and 2024.

Much like the 23-24 team. I think they had like 8 different leading scorers in their first 8 games or something like that. It's what quality depth does. A few guys can off an off night, but a few others might be on and that could be enough with the way Hurley's teams usually play defense.

 

[NJHusky]

What are the more confusing parts?

The Pts per 100 possessions just allows you to better compare "apples to apples" for how efficient their offense/defense operates by normalizing it to a standard number of possessions. This adjusts for teams that play at faster vs. slower paces. You might think that a team that averages 70 pts per game has a "better" offense than one that averages 65 pts per game. But if the team averaging 70pts operates at a fast tempo and gets 20 more possessions per game than the slower-tempo 65 PPG team, the first team actually has a "worse" offense than the 2nd team.

The adjustments attempt to take into account the quality of the teams that have been played to get those data. Team 1 may have 130 pts per 100 possessions, but if they are doing it vs the worst teams, in D1 that needs to be adjusted to honestly compare that team to Team 2, who may have 115 pts per possession, but did that versus a gauntlet of Top 10 teams.

FYI, the KenPom ratings just rank teams on the Net Rtg, which is ORtg (Adjusted Pts per 100 possessions) - DRtg (Adjusted Pts/100 possessions). He adjusts similarly, but also has his own proprietary "statistical sauce" especially early-season, where there's some consideration of the previous season's data, but you'll find the KenPom Net ratings track fairly close to the ones on Hoop Explorer (which is free to use, for now) once you get into December:

View attachment 114169

Once you get past those first 3 columns in Hoop Explorer, the rest is just fairly basic hoop metrics (eFG%, with offense on top, defense on the bottom, TO rates, rebounding rates, shooting % for team and opponents in different zones of the court, etc.)

Thx for posting it. For someone that doesn’t follow it closely, you need to spend time to understand the data. It’s not as simple as ppg,rpg etc. I just look at the colors as a trend. Lol

 

[HooperScooper]

Mentioned this a few months ago but for some reason we all knew the hometowns of every player. I think it was because they always listed them in the papers and on TV when they showed the guys. Federal Way, WA. Sandy, UT. Dalzell, SC. Etc.

But we still can't spell our former and current players' names right. 😂

 

[bendm]

This calls for an updated rotation projection:

Silas 25 / Smith 15
Ball 30 / Silas 5 / Mullins 5
Mullins 25 / Ross 15
Karaban 35 / Stew 5
Reed 25 / Reibe 15

35: Alex
30: Silas / Ball / Mullins
25: Reed
15: Smith / Ross / Reibe
5: Stew

 

[HooperScooper]

This calls for an updated rotation projection:

Silas 25 / Smith 15
Ball 30 / Silas 5 / Mullins 5
Mullins 25 / Ross 15
Karaban 35 / Stew 5
Reed 25 / Reibe 15

35: Alex
30: Silas / Ball / Mullins
25: Reed
15: Smith / Ross / Reibe
5: Stew

What about 2026-2027?

 

[M.S.G.]

Very pleased with the performance last night. 9pm is too late for me, so I rolled out of bed at 3:57 to come downstairs and watch the boys before work..

Mullins is exactly who I expected him to be, I was very impressed with his on-ball defense in the exhibition way back, I expect we will see that attention to detail on defense when that ankle is truly 100%. Shot looks outstanding, and my knees would have been knocking at the FT line but he nailed them.

Karaban looked very athletic going to the rim and finishing, very pleased - I felt he slowed down as the season went on last year.

I fought the Jayden Ross stuff for 3 years now, I did not think he was good enough to play at this level and I couldn't have been more wrong. The 3 against Arizona was a big time shot, he also had a great layup to finish there as well. He seems to be the glue guy that Stewart can't seem to be. I've been a fan of Stewart from jump, I just wish he could be more consistent and fill the stat sheet a bit better.

Reibe impresses me more every time out. Considering the age and situation, he was phenomenal last night.

I said to my wife this morning (a Duke honk) that I truly don't know who beats this team when we are fully healthy.

Can we get fully healthy?