Tag Archives: Stefan Nastic

Eight Observations From Inside Haas Pavilion

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From inside the Haas Pavilion for Cal-Stanford, I observed things. This is what I went home thinking about after an entertaining 69-59 Cardinal win.

1) Basketball Players are Big

I laud you to finagle yourself into excellent basketball tickets. They are a dish best served free so always say ‘yes’ when offered tickets. It remains my life’s greatest regret that I adhered to a study schedule (yes, that was a component of college life for me) rather than accept the owner (owner, as in: Man who shelled out cash to make decisions) of the San Diego Padres’ tickets. Of note, I did not study and watched the entire game on television. I digress. When you’re up close for a basketball game you get to see exactly how seven feet fills up a lane. Suddenly, ‘points in the paint’ isn’t a statistic, it’s a goddamn Purple Heart. Length isn’t so much a draft component, it’s the tentacles of The Kraken.

2) Adam’s an Architect

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How Very Stanford: Navigating the Circle of Suck

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By: Spencer Smith

The Pac-12 this year is Utah, Arizona and the field. And while pretty much no one expects the other 10 programs to challenge the Utes and Wildcats for a conference crown, there is still plenty to be played for.

There’s an amoeba of mediocrity in the middle (say that five times fast), one that starts after the aforementioned front-runners and ends at a much more uncertain place. Stanford, UCLA, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State are in there. Washington State is making a case for being in there. Washington, Cal and Arizona State are desperately trying to convince you they are still there. USC plays basketball. Continue reading →

Stanford Cardinal Basketball Preview: Chasson Margins

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I put a lot of credence in what Dan Hanner writes at RealGM. In his Pac-12 preview, he told us that Johnny Dawkins might have accumulated his best lineup yet (I kinda disagree) and that:

Dawkins actually has the worst track record of developing players on offense.

So if I’m piecing this together, then I’m noting that the Card lose two starters who were NBA draft picks including an All-Defense performer from the second best defensive team Dawkins has ever coached as well as their second leading scorer and is replacing them with two freshmen whom Dawkins will presumably struggle to teach offense? I like the roster, I’m just expecting a lot of…variance. Maybe that’s why Hanner notes that Dawkins has never finished better than 36th in scoring margin. F*cking math.

Why I Love Them:

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Fun Facts on the Pac-12’s Penultimate Day

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This weekend we’ll spring our clock’s forward which is something I don’t generally like. But think of it this way: we’re one hour closer to the tournaments! But before that, we must get through tomorrow’s regular season finale. There are still infinite permutations of what seed which teams will garner for Vegas and I’m not going to break it down. It’s insane. On Monday we’ll have our All-Conference teams announced and the madness will begin. Or has it already begun? The calendar turned three months old last Saturday and the Pac has been anything but predictable. Utah won on the road. USC won.

We’ve got one day left, here’s a quick run through some fun facts of what you can expect to see, not see, or prepare for:

  • Oregon State hasn’t been swept on the weekend at home this season. Doesn’t bode well for ASU keeping the three seed
  • The Pac-12 has a road winning percentage of 67%. Since March, Pac-12 that home win percentage is 45%. Doesn’t bode well for Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Oregon State, Cal, or Washington State.
  • The last time the Wildcats won in Eugene it was called Mac Court and the Pac-12 was a twinkle in Larry’s eye. Oregon has since built an entirely new arena. Doesn’t bode well for the Wildcats.
  • The last time I went to a Colorado-Cal game, Cal’s best player went 2-17 and still won. Doesn’t bode well for Justin Cobbs or Colorado.
  • Utah hasn’t won consecutive road conference games since visiting TCU and Wyoming in February 2009. Doesn’t bode well for the Utes.
  • In two hosting events of the Colorado Buffaloes, Cal has yielded an average of 49 points per game or 0.77 points per possession. Doesn’t bode well for the Buffs.
  • Dwight Powell, Josh Huestis, Stefan Nastic, John Gage, and soon-to-be-fifth-years Aaron Bright and Anthony Brown are all celebrating their senior night in Palo Alto, Saturday. Doesn’t bode well for the Utes.
  • USC is playing a game. Doesn’t bode well for the Trojans.
  • Arizona is +74 in scoring differential when playing a team for the second time this season (5-1). Doesn’t bode well for the Ducks.
  • I have an Arizona-Oregon bet with Matt. It’s cumulative points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks of Aaron Gordon vs. Mike Moser. The first match up lead to an underwhelming 16 (Moser) vs. 14 (Gordon). I’m not winning right now and Moser is averaging 18 & 11 during this 6-game winning streak by the Ducks. Doesn’t bode well for Adam.
  • There are six Pac-12 games to behold on Saturday. Bodes well for us.

What did I miss?

Week 5 Pac-12 Hoops Review

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I propose a study of the hematological anomaly that is Justin Cobbs. My hypothesis is that researchers would discover not a mixture of hemoglobin (red blood cells), leukocytes (white cells) and plasma, but rather ice water. Or something of that ilk. Inexplicably it is not blood delivering oxygen and nutrients through the body of Cobbs but the coldest water on record. This proposed study won’t soon fly with the Food and Drug Administration or Mike Montgomery, but it could shed light on how the senior from Los Angeles can hit fading jumpers with tenths of seconds remaining in the face of seven-foot behemoths. Seriously, ice, hielo, glace, 冰:

Leader in the Clubhouse: Once again we could award this to the 7-1 Arizona Wildcats who, despite sustaining their first loss of the season and news they’d have to make their run to Dallas without Brandon Ashley, are still playing the best defense in the country (unless it’s Justin Cobbs who has the ball). Context: These Wildcats are giving up just 86.7 points per 100 possessions in conference. The next best team, UCLA, yields 96.7 points per 100 possessions. The ten point difference between first and second is equal to the difference between second and ninth. Sean Miller coaches a defense of a different color. But we’re going to divvy the clubhouse leading love and this week’s leader was the Oregon State Beavers. Craig’s team defended Gil Coliseum from the Angelinos and put themselves surprisingly into third place (we’re ignoring the fact that it’s a five-way tie for third and that doesn’t include the two-way tie for second ahead of them). And defend they did. Despite being the 10th “best” defense in the conference, they limited the second best offense (UCLA) to just 67 points. For just the third time in conference play, they held a team to less than 1 point per possession (that includes a game against WSU, by the way). Yeah, I’m lauding the defensive efforts of a Craig Robinson team; the same team that conversely has the best in conference offense and who beat the aforementioned Bruins despite Roberto Nelson delivering the following pre-Super Bowl: 2-8, 12pts, 5r, 4a, 6TO. That was ten points off of his average and double his turnovers. I mean that guy ranks 16th in usage percentage yet the Beavers prevailed with him contributing five percentage points less than his normal usage. A team-ish effort.

Biggest Loser: I want to meet the VooDoo Witch who allowed Arizona to remedy their free throw issues in two-nights at the expense of a Nick Johnson’s jumper and Brandon Ashley’s bones? Not cool, but this is:

 

Of course beyond that I thought the Ski Skirmish on Saturday morning was going to be a back breaker one way or the other. Brandon Taylor wasn’t about to let that happen – ONIONS – but it unfortunately just falls into the growing lore of Utah’s road woes. My hypothesis won’t be proven until the Utes take the court again (Thursday hosting Washington) and I hope I’m wrong, but getting so close but so far can only sustain energy levels so long. For as much as we want to applaud the Utes – they’re climbing up KenPom’s ratings, they’re perceived as a tough out, Delon Wright is one of the five best players in the conference – the fact remains that they are 3-6 and 10th in the conference.

What We Learned: This weekend was further confirmation that winning on the road is a miserable task. So difficult, in fact, that Pac-12 road teams rank 26th amongst 33 D-1 conferences. Of the 54 conference games that have been played, just 17 have been won by the weary traveler. And this weekend did not deviate as only ASU and UCLA won outside of their respective homes with the former needing overtime to do it. Now this is an important point as we head into the second half of the season. There’s a log jam within the conference standings and someone is going to slip up. Additionally, what a scary proposition a Utah road win is!

In Defense Of: I’m going to do it here. I’m going to defend Stanford because they are 5-4 in conference and 14-7 overall with a nice win over UConn and a bad loss to Oregon State (despite everything I said above OSU is still barely in the KenPom and RPI top-100). That’s a resume in need of defending. It’s ain’t sexy in the eyes of the committee and I think this team is really taking note. Had you been in Maples last Wednesday you’d have seen a man possessed in Stefan Nastic. Dwight Powell, seemingly relegated to the role of facilitator on this team, scored 41 points this weekend. Josh Huestis flirted with back-to-back double-doubles against the desert schools. The theme I’m illuminating here is that these three seniors, half of Dawkins’ 2010 recruiting class without mentioning John Gage (116.7 ORtg on 14.7% usage), Anthony Brown (115.7, 18.2%), and the injured Aaron Bright. These seniors are beginning to realize their fleeting eligibility. This is a talented team and they have nine games to act like it. From my perch, they’ve already begun. But things aren’t about to get easy for them. They’ll kick off this latter half with three consecutive roadies beginning Wednesday at Cal and followed by a trip to Washington. It’s going to be tough to right this ship, but everything worthwhile is.

The YouTuber: Cobbs bookends this review:

Sophomoric Stats: A Look at When Players Make the Leap

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The point of this site has never been to deliver you overwhelming statistical analysis. That’s me being honest and directing you to the likes of Ken Pomeroy and Luke Winn or some of my go to pals, @jgisland and @ontheproviso.

These are gentlemen who excel at Excel. Knuckles.

Me? I’m really damn good at watching the game and knowing that four points per game is fewer than fourteen. A regular Bill James here folks!

But let’s focus a touch deeper. I’ve always been curious about when a player makes his biggest leap. When he goes from scrub to star, role player to role model.

And this has piqued my interest because the Pac-12 has some interesting pieces getting older. Players who’ve performed well or hardly at all to date and I want to know – essentially based on anecdotal evidence (i.e. what I like to call tempo-full stats) – who we can expect big things from? Who’s going to make that leap to leader and usher his team from a Pac-12 team to the Pac-12 team.

To examine such, I compiled an arbitrary list of 21 Pac-12 players who participated in at least three seasons. The list itself was fun to build. Example: Did you know Brian Scalabrine went for 14/6/2 in 31mpg as a pup? That’s ridiculous. Do you know what Colorado fans would give to get that from Josh Scott? Or what UCLA fans would do to get those minutes out of Josh Smith – a top-5 offensive player in the conference? Alas, not every incoming player will put up White Mamba numbers but that’s what we aimed to look at here.

I was disappointed to find that there weren’t ORtg numbers going as far back as I’d like so I ran with good old fashion points/rebounds/assists and gut analysis. That’s to say, I built the spreadsheet and looked at the numbers and thought,  “Yeah, those look better than those,” then highlighted the year in which the player’s numbers took the biggest jump.

I won’t spend any more of our time explaining the holes in this study and so without any further ado, the spreadsheet:

From this chart we find that 14-of-21 three year players showed their most dramatic statistical jump (most notably in points per game) from their freshman to sophomore year. Five players had their biggest jump from sophomore to junior and two players leapt into their senior year. One player had an arguably lesser sophomore season. Three players had arguably lesser years as juniors.

That’s the black and white look.

The Second-half-of-the-Wizard-of-Oz look (colorful) directs me to the Pacific Northwest and Abdul Gaddy. With this now senior, we find that his numbers didn’t quite high jump from FR to SO, but they did improve (4/1/2 to 9/3/4). But what I found most interesting is that his ORtg jumped 40 points – from 85 to 125. Ok, ok, it’s not fair to just throw ORtg stats into the equation all of a sudden but 40 is significant. It’s also not fair that Gaddy only played 13 games while recording that 125. But I’m not gunning for a Nobel Prize here.

I am, however, interested to see that guys like Patrick Christopher took his freshman year to develop into a consistent player. Dude put up essentially the same, very solid numbers for the three years following his debut at Haas. As did Arron Afflalo, the infamous Lukes, Channing Frye, and Darren Collison. Some terrific Pac participants.

What this says to me is that, above all else, players grow in confidence. Sure their minutes grow but I keep coming back to Gaddy and his improved output as an offensive player. He just became better at being a basketball player. He didn’t necessarily do more, he just did it better.

The numbers can also show us that this perceived confidence comes at different times. Look at Quincy Pondexter and Jerome Randle.

QPon perplexed and frustrated Husky fans during his tenure in Seattle but when push came to shove, he had a dynamic senior season. That’s the kind of stuff I love. That’s the fairytale stuff when the beleaguered vet wills his team to big things. He followed no traditional path but when you record 19/7/2 and lead your team to the school’s fifth sweet sixteen, you figured it out. And in the nick of time.

As for Randle – the conference’s POY in 2010 – he appears to have been the perfect recruit. He incrementally improved every year, stayed four seasons, and lead the school to a conference championship. What more could you ask for? OK, a national championship I suppose, but Randle did work year-in-year-out and it showed.

But I’ve been sidetracked from the topic at hand – biggest statistical leaps – and what we can learn from my spreadsheet.

My conclusion to this conundrum is that players make their biggest leap – as I suspected – from their freshman to sophomore season. Again, I’ll make no bones to the arbitrary nature of this analysis but I like my answer.

And you should be encouraged by my findings if you’re a fan of any of the following programs:

Colorado:

  • Askia Booker and Spencer Dinwiddie are two of the first names that come to mind as I looked over these numbers. This tandem put up 9/3/1 and 10/4/2, respectively, and will only have their 2012-13 roles grow in the absence of Nate Tomlinson and Carlon Brown.

Arizona:

  • At this point you know he can hop and defend and heard rumors he can shoot. But this is the year that all of those things should come together for Nick Johnson (9/3/2), Arizona’s presumed starting two-guard. He played confidently (reason #1 for anyone’s improved anything) in the Red-Blue scrimmage and is poised to shine.

California:

  •  What I like most about David Kravish (7/6/1) – and what I think is the most significant marker of his forthcoming FR-SO explosion – is he played his best ball when the Bears lost Richard Solomon. He closed the season averaging 8 & 6 in Solomon’s absence, including an 18 rebound performance at USC. Confidence gained as a successful contributor and the return of Solomon should allow the lanky big to thrive.

Washington State:

  • So…it’s going to be a tough one in Pullman unless this guy – DaVonte Lacy (9/2/2) – takes the leap. But he’s a got a great mentor as Brock Motum blew up into arguably the most efficient player in the universe (SO-JR). With Reggie Moore gone, Lacy is going to have plenty of chances to show off just how well his summer workout routine worked.

And that’s just to name a few.

I’m not mentioning the likes of Chasson Randle (14/3/2) orByron Wesley (10/5/2); two very interesting players. Randle is going to be good – scary good – and so I’m not going to bother reiterating that. Wesley is no doubt solid but finds himself in a completely revamped lineup and while my “study” took into account exactly zero extenuating circumstances, Wesley is playing in an extenuating circumstance.

I’d also keep an eye on Norman Powell (5/2/1), Angelo Chol (2/2), Stefan Nastic (2/1), and Jonathan Gilling (7/2/2); players with emerging roles on each of their respective teams.

Look, this conference is back. The stage is set for a lot of this talent to emerge and if you look at the crop of sophs in the league compared to what their predecessors have accomplished, it’s my impression that the good kind of parity is back.