Sports and Numbers - Historical Player Ratings: Kansas Basketball 2001-02

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Historical Player Ratings: Kansas Basketball 2001-02

Aug 16, 2007

In this series of articles, I'm going to rate the players from KU teams of this decade. I'll try to provide some context for the ratings. A couple of important caveats to this kind of analysis: 1) I'm using season-ending boxscores, which means that the ratings don't account for how well a player performed against specific opponents, and 2) There is really no way of knowing whether a team with a power rating of 90 one season is the same as one rated 90 in another, although from top to bottom in college basketball, there probability isn't huge variability in team strength averages from season to season.

Kansas Jayhawks Men's Basketball 2001-02

Overall Record: 33-4
Conference Record: 16-0
Conference Tournament: 2-1 (Runner-up)
NCAA Tournament: 4-1 (Final Four Semifinalist)
Final Sagarin Predictor Rating: 94.55 (#3)

Season Totals

(sorted by total minutes played)

NAME	GMS	MIN	FGM	FGA	FTM	FTA	3PM	3PA	PTS	OFF	DEF	TOT	AST	TO	STL	BLK	PF
Jeff Boschee	37	1161	168	358	48	61	110	237	494	25	72	97	89	37	49	5	77
Kirk Hinrich	37	1143	198	366	84	104	66	138	546	44	133	177	186	99	59	15	95
Drew Gooden	37	1119	285	566	154	204	10	36	734	126	297	423	73	108	65	53	91
Aaron Miles	37	1018	91	225	69	87	13	45	264	18	82	100	252	112	60	3	68
Nick Collison	37	991	245	414	84	146	3	8	577	124	183	307	64	93	39	83	108
Keith Langford	37	770	102	207	79	113	11	41	294	53	70	123	54	59	34	12	73
Wayne Simien	32	490	99	179	62	84	0	0	260	64	105	169	9	34	20	27	57
Jeff Carey	37	261	27	47	17	25	0	0	71	25	33	58	4	12	11	9	38
Brett Ballard	32	135	8	22	4	6	4	12	24	3	12	15	17	14	9	0	15
Bryant Nash	30	116	9	29	11	19	2	5	31	9	13	22	3	11	6	3	18
Michael Lee	27	89	13	33	2	4	5	10	33	4	7	11	8	11	2	0	16
Lewis Harrison	21	46	2	10	0	1	0	3	4	1	4	5	5	5	0	0	3
Todd Kappelmann	20	45	6	15	1	1	0	1	13	11	1	12	2	2	1	0	6
Chris Zerbe	20	43	6	16	8	12	0	1	20	6	11	17	1	3	2	0	4

Derived Statistics

(sorted by points per game)

NAME	MIN/gm	PTS/gm	eFG%	FT Rate	REB/gm	AST/gm	TO/gm	AST:TO	STL/gm	BLK/gm
Drew Gooden	30.2	19.8	51.2%	27.21	11.4	2.0	2.9	0.7	1.8	1.4
Nick Collison	26.8	15.6	59.5%	20.29	8.3	1.7	2.5	0.7	1.1	2.2
Kirk Hinrich	30.9	14.8	63.1%	22.95	4.8	5.0	2.7	1.9	1.6	0.4
Jeff Boschee	31.4	13.4	62.3%	13.41	2.6	2.4	1.0	2.4	1.3	0.1
Wayne Simien	15.3	8.1	55.3%	34.64	5.3	0.3	1.1	0.3	0.6	0.8
Keith Langford	20.8	7.9	51.9%	38.16	3.3	1.5	1.6	0.9	0.9	0.3
Aaron Miles	27.5	7.1	43.3%	30.67	2.7	6.8	3.0	2.3	1.6	0.1
Jeff Carey	7.1	1.9	57.4%	36.17	1.6	0.1	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.2
Michael Lee	3.3	1.2	47.0%	6.06	0.4	0.3	0.4	0.7	0.1	0.0
Bryant Nash	3.9	1.0	34.5%	37.93	0.7	0.1	0.4	0.3	0.2	0.1
Chris Zerbe	2.2	1.0	37.5%	50.00	0.9	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.1	0.0
Brett Ballard	4.2	0.8	45.5%	18.18	0.5	0.5	0.4	1.2	0.3	0.0
Todd Kappelmann	2.3	0.7	40.0%	6.67	0.6	0.1	0.1	1.0	0.1	0.0
Lewis Harrison	2.2	0.2	20.0%	0.00	0.2	0.2	0.2	1.0	0.0	0.0

Player Ratings

cPSAN - "Total Impact"

PLAYER	cPSAN
Drew Gooden	195.30
Nick Collison	170.47
Kirk Hinrich	168.63
Jeff Boschee	128.44
Wayne Simien	80.39
Aaron Miles	53.70
Keith Langford	48.14
Jeff Carey*	22.37
Brett Ballard*	5.01
Todd Kappelmann*	4.69
Chris Zerbe*	4.40
Bryant Nash*	-1.31
Michael Lee*	-3.40
Lewis Harrison*	-5.11

cPSAN70 - "Efficiency"

PLAYER	cPSAN70
Drew Gooden	6.23
Nick Collison	6.14
Wayne Simien	5.86
Kirk Hinrich	5.27
Jeff Boschee	3.95
Todd Kappelmann*	3.72
Chris Zerbe*	3.65
Jeff Carey*	3.06
Keith Langford	2.23
Aaron Miles	1.88
Brett Ballard*	1.33
Bryant Nash*	-0.40
Michael Lee*	-1.36
Lewis Harrison*	-3.97

* Rating not based on enough data.

Player Analysis

This was one of the most enjoyable seasons for KU basketball fans. After years of frustrations and early exits in the NCAA Tournament, this team shook off a season-opening stunning loss to Ball State and went on to play unselfish, thrilling and nearly flawless basketball most of the season. This was the first and only undefeated conference run in Big 12 history thus far. The junior trio of Drew Gooden, Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich had blossomed into All-American caliber players. There really were no weaknesses on this team. Hinrich and Boschee provided long-range bombing, while Collison and Gooden could rebound with the best of them, with talented freshman Wayne Simien ready to back up both. Miles was a dependable, steady and quick point guard at the helm. But twice, this edition of the Jayhawks was punched in the mouth hard enough to stagger. First, it was in a slugfest at the final of the Big 12 Tournament against Oklahoma. The second was in a higher-scoring affair against eventual champion Maryland in the Final Four. So, how did the players perform for the season?

It's hard to argue that anyone was really better than Gooden for the season. He averaged 19.8 PTS, 11.4 REB, 1.4 BLK while shooting 51.2 eFG%. He even led the team with 1.8 STL as a forward. Plus, he improved upon his FT% from the last season, making 75% of his team-leading 204 attempts. On possibly the most talented team in the country, Gooden was banging on all cylinders, although he again struggled with TO's. And just as Kenny Gregory had the season before, Gooden scored in double figures every single game of the season. This was one of the great seasons by any KU player this decade.

Leading off the Iowa boy paragraph and a solid second behind Gooden in the performance ratings is Gooden's frontcourt counterpart, Collison. He shot much better from the field (59.5%) than did Gooden and blocked more shots (2.2) but also struggled with TO and PF. Collison's averages of 15.6 PTS and 8.3 REB would have led the team the prior season. Meanwhile, Hinrich improved on a solid sophomore campaign by shooting a sizzling 63 eFG% including 48% from 3FG. He was a balanced performer averaging about 15 PTS, 5 REB and 5 AST.

Interestingly enough, the third-most efficient player of the season was Wayne Simien, but due to somewhat less playing time, he was only the fifth-highest contributor. After missing five early games due to injury, the freshman still managed to average 8 PTS and 5 REB in only 15 MIN per game. He wasn't much of a passer (never became one) and didn't block a ton of shots. But he did shoot efficiently from the field (55.3%) and FT (74%).

Jeff Boschee, the senior and team co-captain, capped off his KU career with another solid but not great season. He did average 13 PTS, 2.4-to-1 AST:TO ratio and clocked in a sensational 62 eFG% and 89 FT%. Having played the most minutes on the team, however, kept his efficiency down a bit. Even though he didn't turn it over much, he didn't have many other statistical contributions (REB, AST, STL, BLK) to go with his effective scoring. Make no mistake though, he functioned exactly as he was designed to function on this team. When you have players like Gooden, Collison and Hinrich, you don't need a Boschee doing much more than bombing from long range when necessary and keeping mistakes to a minimum.

Two other freshmen began their careers in the backcourt this season, but their performances were nowhere near the level of Simien. Miles was a starter and could be counted upon to provide speed, defense and create plays with the pass. He wasn't known for scoring or drawing much iron on his long-range shots. His 43 eFG% allowed opposing defenses to sag, thereby limiting some of his offensive options. Still, he managed to average 6.8 AST (2.3-to-1 AST:TO ratio), one of the highest averages in the country. Keith Langford, meanwhile, was an exciting slasher. He shot a respectable 52 eFG% and led KU regulars in FT rate (ability to get to and score from the FT line). Langford probably turned it over a bit too much as he was creating offense, but this was a solid freshman campaign.