The Changing of the Season
After an early unexpected conference loss, Bill Self has made three changes that have quickly changed the fortunes of this year's team.
The news broke during Bill Self’s press conference last Friday afternoon: Johnny Furphy was going to be in the starting lineup against Oklahoma. It’s something that some fans have been hoping for since early in the season when Furphy showed flashes of being the lead scorer off the bench. After two lackluster showings from Elmarko Jackson to start conference play, even more fans were calling for a minutes adjustment among the freshmen. Advanced metrics gave these voices additional support, with CBB Analytics rating the Harris/McCullar/Furphy/Adams/Dickinson lineup as the top Kansas lineup based on Net Rating.1 Kansas’ offensive rating (higher is better) is 124.6 when Furphy plays with the other four starters and 112.8 when Jackson is on the court with the other four starters. On the defensive end, Kansas’ defensive rating (lower is better) is 83.5 with Furphy and 95.8 with Jackson. These numbers indicate that Kansas is better on both ends of the floor when Furphy is being used as the fifth option.
Additionally, analyst Evan Miyakawa recently tweeted that his Bayesian Performance Rater put Jackson as the 64th best fifth starting option in the country. In other words, there were 63 other teams whose fifth best starter rated higher than Jackson according to Miyakawa’s performance rater. Eventually, Self also decided it was time to make a change. The impact was immediate against Oklahoma, with the new starting five coming out with more energy than fans had seen since the Connecticut game in early December. Whether it was the insertion of Furphy into the starting lineup or the embarrassment of the loss to UCF, Kansas finally looked locked in at the start of a game.
While Furphy started against Oklahoma, he did get into foul trouble as Oklahoma made a concerted effort to attack him with quicker guards.2 This gave Jackson a chance to play important minutes during a Kansas run in the second half with the two ending up playing similar minutes for the game, Furphy with 19 and Jackson with 18. Against Oklahoma State, Furphy stood out by matching his career high with 15 points and going 3/4 from 3 in 33 minutes. Jackson only played 12 minutes, but flashed his court vision with a jaw-dropping pass to Furphy for an open corner 3 about ten minutes into the game (look at the 0:23 mark of the video below).
In the second half, Jackson was able to beat his man to get to the paint and threw a beautiful lob pass to Parker Braun that Braun wasn’t able to finish. Those types of plays were missing from Jackson’s game in the first two conference games, and his ability to break down his man could help him earn more minutes moving forward given the lack of that ability among the rest of the Kansas players. For now though, Furphy seems to have solidified himself as the fifth man in the lineup.
The Dickinson Adjustments
Self’s two other adjustments have come in the form of how Kansas is utilizing Dickinson on the offensive and defensive end.
Defensive
Self often tinkers with how he utilizes his centers on the defensive end. Udoka Azubuike made a leap in terms of lateral quickness his senior year, allowing Self to have him step up and hedge strong on ball screens in the middle of the court. David McCormack eventually reached this point after starting the season dropping under screens in the 2021-22 season. It looks like Dickinson is now being used in the same way that those two were at the end of their Kansas careers. The basic idea is the center moves to cut off the driving lane of the ball-handler coming off a screen and push them towards the wing until the defensive player involved in the screen can recover. Backside help defense should tag the roller on the screen eliminating an easy bucket at the rim. Dickinson’s size alone makes him tough to move or pass around. As long as he reads the screen and moves aggressively to get in front of the ball-handler, this has been effective.
The first two clips are plays where Dickinson defended poorly when hedging against Oklahoma. In the first clip, he doesn’t hedge hard enough and gets caught in between his man and Harris’ man. His hedge doesn’t pressure the ball-handler or give Harris enough time to recover and allows the ball-handler to have an unabated pass to an open player on the wing. Furphy was correctly in help defense on this play, but Dickinson’s passive hedge gave Oklahoma time to make the pass. The second clip shows Dickinson playing too aggressive on the hedge and attempting to take a shortcut to where the ball-handler was going to be. This space allowed the ball-handler to turn the corner and split Dickinson and McCullar. Kansas gets bailed out by Furphy making a great defensive play, but this could have easily led to two points for Oklahoma.3
Dickinson turned a corner in the Oklahoma State game. In the third clip, he hedges, but it’s not hard enough to allow Harris to recover before the ball-handler finds an open player on the baseline. This was early in the game, and the second half shows Dickinson hedging harder and moving his feet better than he has all season.
The fourth clip is the first example of Dickinson doing exactly what he’s supposed to do. He forces the ball-handler to the wing, but Harris takes too long to recover. Adams moves out of help defense before he should, which allows Oklahoma State to get an easy bucket. However, Dickinson’s aggressiveness on the hedge was what he should do and a prelude to what he shows us in the fifth and sixth clips.
In the fifth clip, Dickinson hedges hard while “tagging” the screener as he does. This eliminates any space the ball-handler could have had to split the defenders like we saw in the Oklahoma game. Adams steps over in help defense to take away the roller, and Harris recovers quickly putting the ball-handler in a tough position. The sixth clip is very similar with Dickinson giving Furphy enough time to recover. The length of the two players forces the ball-handler into trying to slide a pass into non-existent space. This leads to a deflection that Oklahoma State was lucky to catch on the wing.
Dickinson took some major strides over the last two games, and, even more importantly, within the game against Oklahoma State. This looks like it will be a key piece of the defense’s success through the rest of the conference slate.
Despite the improvement and success we’ve seen from this adjustment over the last two games, there are three main situations where teams could attack this adjustment:
If Dickinson doesn’t step up aggressively enough, the ball-handler can turn the corner coming off the screen and immediately attack. Dickinson attempting to stay in front of a quicker player is a difficult task, and this either puts him in a position where he could rack up fouls or help defense has to step in leaving a shooter open in the corner.
If the ball-handler makes a quick enough read, he can get the ball back to the screener with space to take a dribble and attack the backside helper. There were a few instances against Oklahoma State where the backside defender doesn’t move quickly enough off the offensive player in the corner which leaves the lane open for an easy bucket. A decisive point guard who can make a pass around Dickinson and the recovering guard isn’t common, but Iowa State and Houston feel like two conference opponents who could find success in this situation.
The most concerning situation for Kansas fans where teams could find success against this aggressive defense would be when Dickinson is defending a shooting big. If the screener pops to the top of the key off the screen, it’s unlikely the help defense could recover in time to challenge a shot. This would again require a good pass from the ball-handler, but he would have to pass over the top of the defending guard (usually Harris) instead of finding space between the defending guard and Dickinson. The conference actually has a general lack of shooting bigs this season, but it is something that could be an issue against tournament teams.
In other words, there are ways to attack this adjustment from Self and Kansas, but it will take skilled players. Opposing coaches in the conference will undoubtedly have specific sets designed to attack this strategy from previous seasons and tape will show further areas of weakness in this year’s iteration. It’s something to keep an eye on over the next few weeks, but Self has used this defensive strategy with two of his best teams of the last ten years. It’s promising he feels like this team can handle this adjustment. As long as Dickinson continues to execute, the Kansas defense will continue to be one of the best in the country and give this team a high floor.
Offensive
There have been times where Kansas’ lack of spacing has stemmed the flow of the offense. Most of the issues are due to the Dickinson and Adams pairing as post players surrounded by a lack of shooting. Dickinson was playing near the basket for the majority of non-conference season, and Adams lack of shooting ability was allowing teams to leave him to clog the paint. Playing Dickinson near the basket understandable as he feels like a cheat code at times when he catches the ball in the post. However, his ability to make jump shots is an important piece of the puzzle Kansas hadn’t utilized much during the first half of the season. In the few weeks, Self has worked to put Dickinson in positions where he can take jump shots or 3’s within the offense. While Dickinson’s 3 point shooting has regressed over conference play, he showed the ability to knock them down earlier in the season.4 If he can get closer to the 50 percent mark he was at heading into Big 12 play, he’s borderline unstoppable. On top of his shooting prowess, Dickinson has shown the ability to to make accurate and timely passes to cutters. His ability allows him to provide multiple options for Self when designing sets, and the creativity has started to show in games.
One of the most interesting uses of Dickinson over the last two games has been Kansas clearing out one side of the court and having Dickinson set a screen on the wing. He’s done this for Harris, McCullar, and Adams. Self used this twice near the end of the Oklahoma game with Dickinson popping out off of the screen for open 3’s. Even though he missed both, it’s likely Self will use this action again because of how open the looks were. On the side screens for Adams and McCullar, we’ve seen the screens most often used create looks for themselves, whether it’s at the rim or pulling up for a jump shot. If their defender steps over to stop the drive, they have the option to find Dickinson for what has been an open jump shot. The video below shows some of the ways Kansas used Dickinson’s ball screens on the wing to create looks against Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
The first clip shows something we hadn’t seen much prior to the last week: Adams and Dickinson running the pick-and-roll. In this play, Dickinson sets a screen for Adams allowing Adams to dribble to the middle of the paint which is where he has been most effective this season. Dickinson understands that Adams needs space in the paint so instead rolling hard or pushing to the rim, he stays in his space which keeps his man a few steps away from Adams. Ideally, you’ll see Dickinson take a step or two further out in this scenario moving forward, but the way he shifted after the screen on this play still gave Adams enough space to get his shot away.
The second and third clips show how the threat of a Dickinson screen can freeze the defense long enough for Kansas to get a good look. The second clips plays on the natural motion of the Kansas offense. Kansas often uses the “weave” motion at the start of possessions to force the defense to move side-to-side and force defenders to switch onto players they weren’t originally matched up against. In this situation, Dickinson chooses not to hand the ball off to Furphy. McCullar’s man, anticipating the hand-off from Dickinson to McCullar, overplays to the three point line, giving McCullar space for a back cut. Dickinson is skilled enough to make the pass which gives Kansas an easy layup to tie the game.
In the third clip, Kansas posts Adams on the block and moves Dickinson towards the wing for what the defense reads as a ball screen for McCullar. This movement pulls Dickinson’s man up just enough that McCullar can make the entry pass to Adams. If Dickinson’s man had stayed under Adams, Kansas has a ball screen with McCullar getting a look off a screen from Dickinson. In both of these situations, the threat of a Dickinson screen on the wing would help create clean looks for Kansas.
The final clip is the set Kansas has started using more frequently by clearing out one side of the floor for a Dickinson pick-and-roll. At the end of the Oklahoma game, Kansas ran this with Harris to get open looks from 3 for Dickinson. In this situation, McCullar doesn’t read the defense quickly enough, but Dickinson was open for a jumper near the free throw line. He had already made a similar shot earlier in the game. These sets will continue to either give a Kansas ball-handler a chance to go downhill towards the basket or an open jump shot opportunity for Dickinson. Both of these options are high-value looks for Kansas.
One increasingly noticeable benefit of Dickinson stepping away from the basket is that it opens up space for Adams to work inside. The offensive adjustment has correlated with Adams’ increased rebounding numbers. Self began tweaking some pieces of the offense as early as the Wichita State game. Adams has had double-figure scoring in the last four games and has averaged 3.0 offensive rebounds per game since that point and 8.4 rebounds total. He’s been able to crash the glass more frequently with Dickinson’s man being pulled away from the basket as it opens up space in the paint. This also has the added benefit of Adams being more likely to get a less contested shot after an offensive board.
Overall, spreading the floor with Furphy and Dickinson has fixed some of the issues that plagued the Kansas offense over the last month and a half. The defense has improved thanks to how they’re defending ball screens. While the change in the starting lineup has seemingly sparked Kansas at the beginning of games, the loss to UCF most likely served as a wake-up call for an experienced team.5 Not wanting to relive the experience, they looked like a different team against Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. With tough games against Cincinnati, Iowa State, and Houston over the next few weeks, they’ll have to maintain this level of play in order to stay at the top of the league standings.
This data was pulled on January 17th, after the Oklahoma and Oklahoma State games, which gives the Furphy lineup an even greater boost.
Furphy is arguably the best NBA prospect on the Kansas team. His two main areas to improve are in his lateral quickness defensively and his strength, both of which can be improved over the summer and with another season at Kansas.
While not pertinent to the play, if you look at the Kansas bench when Dickinson goes to dunk, you’ll see Jamari McDowell jumping with him. McDowell saw some unexpected minutes early in the year but is mostly out of the rotation at this point in the season. However, he has been the most engaged player on the Kansas bench for the entire season. Every time the bench is in the camera shot, you can see him clapping or encouraging the players on the court. It’s not the most important piece of information, but it’s something that I appreciate from a player who isn’t always impacting the game on the court.
Dickinson is 3/11 in Big 12 play after going 13/25 in non-conference games.
UCF beating Texas on the road gives them two marquee conference wins in their first month in the Big 12. It also gave us an epic Rodney Terry reaction and press conference. My favorite part about this is Texas won’t receive any preferential treatment when they head to the SEC next year. If one of the faces of their university is upset by something as mundane as an opposing team celebrating with the “Horns Down,” then they aren’t ready for what the SEC will bring. Terry was also most likely just frustrated with how the conference portion of the season has started and letting off some steam.