Show Me My Opponent, 2022-23: Gonzaga
sorta like getting the mini-Reese's cups instead of full size on Halloween but time is money
GAME INFORMATION
OPPONENT: Gonzaga (#1 KenPom ‘21-22, Sweet Sixteen, #3 KenPom ‘22-23)
LOCATION: Frisco, Texas
TIME: 9 PM ET
NETWORK: PPV dot com
SPREAD: uh it’s for charity
Originally, I was planning on skipping this because it’s an exhibition, but I’m at the point where I’m so beyond ready for actual basketball that I’m willing to offer a mini-preview. If you’ve never seen my work before, maybe consider this a teaser trailer for what’s to come this year. Anyway: onward.
Gonzaga is a basketball program located in Spokane, Washington. Maybe you’ve heard of them. They have a few different claims to fame - 51 straight weeks in the top 5 (third-longest streak ever), four consecutive top-two KenPom finishes, multiple Final Fours, etc. They are, by any measure, the best program of the last decade. The only problem is that the best program of the last decade typically has a championship to go with it.
This could be their year to do so, or it could be yet another run of March heartbreak and some of the most annoying people you have ever heard of coming out of the woodwork to declare Gonzaga a poverty program. We’ll simply have to see.
Gonzaga’s offense
Is good. Next.
Gonzaga’s def-
Sorry,
NOTE: all stats are from the 2021-22 season and are from pre-NCAAT
For four years in a row, watching Gonzaga’s offense has been most akin to watching a bulldozer mow down a Toyota Versa. Would it be more fun to watch this bulldozer wreck a Hummer or a bank instead? Of course, and sometimes, you get to watch the bulldozer do that very thing. Mostly, though, through no real fault of their own, the bulldozer plows over top of, like, a comically small MINI Cooper or one of those Little Tykes things every child has. Deaths usually come swift and mostly painless at the hands of these guys. A good basic starter is this four-minute video:
Because this is an exhibition, I won’t go too deep into what to watch for here; I strongly doubt Mark Few or Rick Barnes have any plans to pull out their best or even their fourth-best stuff here. The players will relish the chance to play real competition in front of real people, but this is most likely a thing where everyone is in third gear, to continue the hammy car metaphor.
If you have watched a college basketball game since 2018, you know who these guys are. Drew Timme (18.4 PPG, 6.8 RPG ‘21-22) is back for his likely final year of college basketball and will be a serious National Player of the Year contender. Most of what Gonzaga wants to do offensively runs through Timme, a truly generational (for college basketball) post player that can go to both left and right shoulders with ease and scored 20+ in 14 games last year. He’s recklessly efficient at the rim; literally any time you can get him to take a jumper instead will be a win (15-for-44 ‘21-22, 8-31 threes).
Who’s next in line after Timme for offensive usage is a little murky. The #2 scorer on this team last year, Chet Holmgren, was the #2 pick; the #3 scorer, Andrew Nembhard, was roughly 29 years old. From there, it falls to…uh, one of like four different guys. The best guess I have is returning wing Julian Strawther (11.8 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 66% 2PT, 37% 3PT ‘21-22), who predominantly featured off-ball last year as a shooter and paint-pressure guy but showed some chops as a ball handler. Past that, my next guess is Chattanooga transfer Malachi Smith (19.9 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 3 AST, 53% 2PT, 41% 3PT ‘21-22), a truly bonkers scorer on a team that needed him to score a lot of points who will be adapting to a new, on-and-off-ball role in Spokane.
Other guys you need to pay attention to: Rasir Bolton (11.2 PPG, 2.3 AST ‘21-22) shot 46% from three last year and is a near-lock to spend the entire year in the starting lineup. He’s excellent as a ball-handler but prefers to be a spot-up shooter. Anton Watson (7.3 PPG, 4.7 RPG ‘21-22) is more likely to come off the bench because Few wisely doesn’t want to start the game with multiple less-than-serious deep threats in the lineup, but he’s made a nice career as a right time, right place guy who knows how to cut off-ball to open space and is a quality screener. Nolan Hickman (5.1 PPG ‘21-22) is in contention to start at point. Former five-stars Hunter Sallis and Efton Reid (LSU transfer) could factor into things, too.
Basically: imagine that you have to figure out how to stop Tennessee football’s offense. Or Ohio State’s. Luckily for you this game counts for Literally Nothing, but it could still have some interesting pieces to it. If Tennessee holds Gonzaga below 55% on twos - something only seven teams did across 32 games last year - it’s a victory.
Gonzaga’s defense
NOTE: all stats are from 2021-22 and before NCAAT
Presumably because of how good their offense is every single year, Gonzaga’s high level of play on defense sometimes goes overlooked. However, that was the backbone of their 2016-17 title game run and was a key piece of the COVID year run as well. Other than forcing turnovers - both an intentional choice and sort of an admission they were low on backcourt depth - this was pretty much everything one would want from a college defense. This is the group that completely locked up UCLA - #12 offense in America UCLA - for a full 40 minutes:
And allowed four (4) opponents all season to top the 50% mark on two-point attempts. I genuinely do not care what conference they play in; to play at that level for nearly five straight months is crazy impressive. The problem for Gonzaga, if there is one, is that the guy in the above thumbnail now plays (in theory) for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The same base defense Gonzaga has is likely to still exist this year. I could see it being more versatile than last year’s given the unlikelihood of playing multiple big guys at the same time for the majority of games. Few made it work brilliantly with Holmgren and Timme, but I imagine he’s probably a little happy to go back to the old system of having Timme at the 5 and bigger wings like Corey Kispert as the stretch 4. Strawther is the most likely candidate to take over in that role. Timme will be spelled by Watson and they may play together at times (as would Reid), but it won’t be optimal because neither can erase a shot like Chet could.
The area I’m intrigued to see here is how these guys fare in isolation. Gonzaga’s had a fabulous pick-and-roll defense for a long time now and I doubt that’s going to change with a more versatile, likely more switchable group, but the best perimeter defender in Nembhard is off to the NBA, as is the best rim protector in Holmgren. Which player from this team is most likely to step up and shut down a scorer? Watson’s per-minute numbers are terrific, but he averaged 4.2 fouls per 40 last year, the highest of any rotation member.
How Tennessee matches up
Uh…hard to tell, man. We have seen zero (0) minutes of this team in public yet; while I have some concepts of what the lineup’s gonna look like and what they’ll try to do with it, I haven’t actually seen any of it with my own eyes. Instead, here’s five things I’d like to see from Tennessee:
Can Tennessee utilize Julian Phillips’ offensive versatility to create mismatches? Phillips has the chance to be the best wing Tennessee’s rostered in a long time. In the preview (coming out next week), I go into how his EYBL data suggests a player who’s more or less competent at basically every play type offensively. Will Tennessee feed him in the post? Will they let him handle the ball? Will he serve as a screener for Zeigler? I’m fascinated to see what Rick Barnes and staff can do with him over the coming months.
What does Tennessee’s shot selection look like? If you just took the stats from the players returning, Tennessee would be expected to take a hilarious 46% of their shots from three this season. For context, Alabama - Moreyball Alabama - was at 47.6% last season. With Timme lurking down low and a roster packed with shooting options, do they bomb away?
Can Tennessee limit Gonzaga’s effectiveness in transition? Tennessee got to play against this exact style in 2021 when they beat Arizona at home, but Gonzaga’s frankly a better team with better scorers. These guys really can burn you in seven seconds or less, so get back quick.
How does Tennessee defend Timme/Watson/etc. in the post? For all of his faults and goofiness, John Fulkerson was a very good and generally very smart post defender who largely avoided bad fouls. Olivier Nkamhoua can be that, but we need to see how he looks post-injury. This is the type of game where if it were in December I’d be fretting about why they aren’t playing Jonas Aidoo, but no need to do it here.
What’s the rotation look like, even in a scrimmage? I think we know Tennessee’s top six without having to think about it very hard: Vescovi, Zeigler, JJJ, Phillips, Nkamhoua, Key. We probably even know the seventh in Plavsic. Who’s eighth? Who’s ninth?
Three predictions
This ends up being a charity match between the #1 offense in basketball and the #2 defense in basketball come March;
Tennessee’s leading scorer in this game is Zakai Zeigler, which is no surprise, but the #2 scorer is Tyreke Key;
The range of acceptable outcomes in a literal charity match for me is basically everything, obviously including a Tennessee win, but if Tennessee loses I think everyone would prefer it to be by single digits. Regardless: exhibition game in an unfamiliar arena for charity. Take this exactly as seriously as that sentence implies.