The 2025 portal: a slasher film

Is the cure to male loneliness (or at least a starting lineup) a 6'7" wing that can drive *and* pass?

There is no perfect way to build a basketball team. If there was, we would all agree on it, and there wouldn’t be such different types of recent national champions in men’s college basketball.

• 2024-25: A Florida team that always played with two bigs, only one of which (Thomas Haugh) attempted more than 22% of his shots from deep, and started a three-pronged backcourt, all of whom could handle the ball and shoot off the dribble.

• 2023-24: A UConn team with a giant 7’3” center, two ball-handling guards, and two wings at most times of a game.

• 2022-23: A UConn team with a center who shot threes 11% of the time, one ball-handling guard, and three off-ball wings/guards.

• 2021-22: A Kansas team that alternated point guards with three wings and a non-shooting center.

• 2020-21: A Baylor team that started two bigs with zero combined made threes on the year, two ball-handling (and alternating) point guards, and one wing.

You’ll notice that all five of those are very different from the other, and it doesn’t include the runners-up (Houston was a coin-flip away from everyone adapting basketball-as-WWE) or other deep runs from favorite contenders (see: the widespread adapting of no-middle defense after Texas Tech’s run in 2018-19). If someone had truly solved basketball by this point, I think we’d have the exact same style of team win the championship every year. Not the case!

And yet: I do notice some minor commonalities. Of this year’s top 15 offenses, 12 started four or more players with an Assist% of 10% or higher. (The three that didn’t: Missouri, Purdue, Houston, the latter two of which had ball-dominant PGs that generated most of the assists.) After a long falloff from the heyday of the late 1990s through mid 2000s of high assist rates across college basketball, the D1 average has stumbled from a peak of 55.8% on all made baskets in 1999-2000 to a nadir of 50.7% last season.

You can hear the cries of traditionalists across our lands. Ballhog mentality is back. Wait, sorry: it’s not ballhog anymore, it’s heliocentric. Kids these days watch too much highlights and not enough full games. Get off’a my lawn!

Never mind that offensive efficiency has increased five straight seasons and reached an all-time peak of 106.2 points per 100 possessions this year, or that by pure PPG (72.8) this was the second-highest scoring season (73.6, 2017-18) since 1994-95. Or, heck, many other things: a record-high FT% (72.1%), a record-high 2PT% (51%), even the highest OREB% (29.8%) since 2014-15. Just ask our future presidential candidate, Stephen A. Smith, who will surely follow through this time and isn’t doing this for attention.

But! I have something to tell you that’s not about the future of the sport, if parity is eliminated, if it isn’t, if Stephen A. can get more than 5% of a primary vote. It is a mere fact: Assist% went up for the first time in four seasons. At 51.9%, it’s the highest recorded in an individual season since 2017-18. When combined with the second-lowest TO% ever, this season had the highest A/TO ratio I can find in basketball history, or at least as long as we’ve had stable turnover stats tracked (1996-97 to now).

Obviously, we know the plurality (if not majority) of these assists come from point guards, with assistance from combo guards. We know that centers, in general, will have lower Assist% and higher rebound numbers. But what about that toughest position to define, the wing? What do they do?

Over the last four seasons, just one of the top 15 players by Box Plus-Minus in college hoops (Tari Eason) was classified as a wing. Sort by Torvik’s PRPG! (more or less Points Above Replacement) and just five of the top 35 are wings. At the mid-major level, point guards (19 of the top 50) are the dominant force. Among high-majors, it’s players classified as centers or, at worst, PF/Cs (18 of 50). Taller wings - those between 6’5” and 6’9” and noted as Wing Forwards - make up just 3 of the top 50.

Yet the versions of wings (or, fine, taller off-ball guards) who can attack and kick, even just a little bit, are the connective tissue that makes great offenses go. Seriously: I looked into it. Of those 24 wings that did crack the top 100 since 2021, all but three had the same thing in common: they had above-average (11% or higher) assist percentages for their position. Here’s what I found, after the paywall break.

We know that, in general, the plurality (sometimes majority) of a team’s assists are generated by the point guard. To boot, Hoop-Explorer says that the top 37 players in Assist% this year were all exclusively point guards, with only Egor Demin (scored at around 60/40 PG/SG) keeping it from being a clean sweep amongst the top 70. Prefer Torvik’s positional designations? The first non-point in there is Liberty’s Zach Cleveland at 67th, who got to be the focal point of an unusual Liberty offense that essentially made him Point Forward. (There is no great NBA comp here, but if you’ve seen Alyssa Thomas play for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury it comes closest.) Even Synergy makes their top 45 a clean sweep for point guards, with Cleveland the first outlier.

None of this is news. The NBA’s numbers suggest that about 35% of all assists come from point guards, 55% of all assists from the 1 and 2 combined. Similarly, about 62% of an average college team’s rebounds come from the 4 and 5. We know what backcourts traditionally do: shoot and distribute. We know what centers and larger forwards do: pound the paint, suck up rebounds, screen, roll, and sometimes shoot. But we don’t always know what your traditional 3 provides.

Generally, we don’t often see wings play as stars at the college level, particularly those who largely function off-ball (save for their drives to the basket). I found it interesting that of those 24 wings inside the top 100, 10 (42%) had a Usage Rate of 23% or lower, suggesting impact that didn’t require them getting off the most shots on their team. As a comparison, that ratio for combo guards was 23% and just 11% for primary ball handlers/distributors. In fact, no other position on the floor came close to that level of below-average (for a star-like figure) Usage Rate.

Still, you can narrow down your success rates on finding the right style of off-ball, less-than-star-usage wing with this one simple track: can they pass a basketball? Filtering exclusively for players with a sub-24% Usage% (“Significant Contributor” or lower on the KenPom scale) post-COVID, I noticed this almost immediately, not even looking for defensive impact.

• P5 average of 6’5”-6’9” wings with 100+ rim attempts, 75+ three-point attempts, and an Assist% of 12% or better (39 players total): guards +3.3 PRPG!, +3.1 Offensive Box Plus-Minus, 52.7% 2PT, 33.9% 3PT, 111.3 ORtg on 21.4% USG

• P5 average of 6’5”-6’9” wings with 100+ rim attempts, 75+ three-point attempts, and an Assist% below 12% (40 players total): +3.1 PRPG!, +3.0 OBPM, 53.6% 2PT, 36% 3PT, 111.3 ORtg on 21.2% USG

Obviously, on face value, this looks like nothing. There’s a marginal difference between each group in terms of points above expected, overall efficiency, and even BPM. Yet there’s one thing that stands out here to me, even in a small sample: despite shooting 1% worse from two and 2% worse from three, the group that shot worse had the exact same ORtg and better underlying metrics thanks to garnering impact that wasn’t just shot-based.

If you narrow it down to the Group of Greats - 12 players total - who met the numbers above and were classified as Wing Forwards, not guards, it creates a pretty incredible list of hits.

That’s all nice and good, of course: we found a filter that finds almost exclusively good players at the P5 level. But what about what’s actually important right now? I’ve been heavily inspired as of late by the work of Nick Kalinowski, who has put together an amazing (and somehow free) resource for portal work, both for fans and coaches.

Something beyond Nick’s GitHub work has really intrigued me, though: his ability to find hit rates for up-transfers via some simple stats filtering. For instance, this on mid-major wings that transferred up to high-majors:

Or, alternately, this on undersized guards who transfer up. Pro tip: find one that can defend.

Nick’s work had me curious: can I apply my own logic, that of finding wings that can pass even just a little bit, and see if it has a high hit rate? Well, I did the work for you; the answer is a pretty notable ‘yes.’ Well, it’s also out of a 51-player sample size of players between 6’5” and 6’9” who had 100+ rim attempts and 75+ three-point attempts that qualified as wings, whether guards or forwards, so…you know, take it for all it’s worth. But I still find it really intriguing.

Success rates (+3 BPM or higher) at the high-major level the following year:

• Wings between 6’5” and 6’9” with an Assist% of 12% or better: 22 for 30 (73%)

• Wings between 6’5” and 6’9” with an Assist% below 12%: 12 for 21 (57%)

Look: you can take it for whatever this is worth, which is presumably not that much. It helps a lot if you had a good Box Plus-Minus to begin with. Actually, with that in mind, it helps narrow down things further in terms of that +3 BPM success rate:

• Wings between 6’5” and 6’9” with an Assist% of 12% or better and a BPM of +2 or higher: 17 for 20 in posting a +3 BPM or better (85%) at the high-major level

• Wings between 6’5” and 6’9” with an Assist% below 12% and a BPM of +2: 9 for 16 (56%)

The success stories of those 17 or pretty remarkable. Here’s a short list of guys you may know that sustained their play at the next level in this filtering: Matt Cross, Marcus Domask, Sion James, Grant Basile, BJ Freeman, Anthony Dell’Orso, Terrence Edwards, Jamir Watkins. Even guys who didn’t explode at the next level, like Saint Thomas, Ben Vander Plas, and Nate Heise, still added quality high-major level contributions to their future teams.

So: where does that leave us? Well, it’s an intriguing time of the year to be writing this. The portal closes on April 22, and for the most part, recruitments are either closed or near-closed. Yet as of the time of writing at Torvik, there’s five players who fit our guidelines: between 6’5” and 6’9”, listed as a wing on at least one service, and who have yet to publicly commit to a school of their choice. (Apologies to Alvaro Folguieras and Malik Thomas, who are correctly listed as stretch 4s or combo guards respectively.) (An additional apology to Tyon Grant-Foster, who may well be the most talented player listed in the back half of this article but was below a +2 OBPM. It’s also an open question of if he has eligibility.)

Here’s your five players that may or may not be talents waiting in the wings, as sorted by BPM.

JaKobe Coles, Grand Canyon (senior). At 6’8”, Coles is tied for the tallest of the wings we’re discussing here. He’s got all the goods I’d like to see: 65% on 148 rim attempts, 27 made threes, and 79 drives to the rim as listed by Synergy, apparently just short of being a true slasher. I toyed with if I should or shouldn’t include Coles on this list, because he has multiple P5 stops (TCU, Butler) prior and is clearly a P5-level athlete. But qualifiers are qualifiers, and with a +5 BPM (+3 offensive) and a 16.2% Assist%, he fits the profile of the exact thing this article is about: tall wings that can drive and kick.

Devin Haid, Central Connecticut (junior). Here is arguably the most intriguing, though smallest, person on our list: a 6’5” wing with a positive offensive (+3.0) and defensive (+1.7) Box Plus-Minus. He shot 69.5% on 118 attempts at the rim, 32% on 121 threes, and frankly, I’m always into anyone who shoots that percentage at the rim despite just 37% of the makes being assisted. Haid reportedly is down to a final three of Kansas, Texas, and Cincinnati. While smaller than my 6’7” target, it is indeed notable to me that the three most similar up-transfers statistically are DeVante Jones (Michigan), Saint Thomas (USC), and Denver Jones (Auburn), all three of which were fair-to-tremendous successes.

Kimani Hamilton, High Point (junior). Hamilton did play in the NCAA Tournament this year against Purdue, and while it was a really rough performance (2 points, 16 minutes, and a foul-out), it’s not representative of his season as a whole. Again, these are nice numbers for a taller (6’8”) wing: 62.2% at the rim with just 28% of his shots assisted, 26 made threes (31% 3PT%), and 37-69 in the midrange. Defensively he grades out as ‘fine’, and obviously, it helps matters that Hamilton was once an SEC athlete, a former Mississippi State deep bench piece. The problem with projecting anyone or anything out of High Point is that Hamilton played literally three (3) games against top-100 teams in two seasons. However! Worth noting that in his other top-100 game (North Texas on Dec. 6), Hamilton went for 19 points and 4 assists to help HPU steal a win. It seems like half of the Big East is trying to get him, FWIW. Hamilton had the highest Assist% (17.2%) of our five-person list.

Dre Bullock, South Dakota (senior). This is a name most people don’t know, and in terms of overall impact, Bullock is probably the least impressive on the list. He averaged just over 21 minutes a night for the #240 team in KenPom and graded out bang-average defensively. Why is he here? Well, a 114 ORtg on 24% USG helps, as does shooting 55% at the rim (with 17 dunks) and 33% from deep on 120 attempts. He also might be better than we’re giving him credit for. A +3 BPM (all of it offensively) is great work despite usually being the second option offensively, and I can forgive some less-than-excellent finishing and shooting when he shot 63% from two in the Summit League after overcoming an early-season injury. Now, projecting anyone from the Summit to do great elsewhere is always a major gamble, but at least here, the stats point towards a player greater than the sum of his parts. (Only high-major that seems to have interest: Vanderbilt.)

Owen Koonce, Cal Poly (senior). Koonce is the worst defender we have here, with a -1.1 DBPM; still, he scraped across our filters with a +2.0 BPM and a 12.3% Assist% against Division I competition. Plus, hey, best shooter on the list: 41.1% from deep on 168 attempts. Koonce really interests me: he was a former walk-on at Michigan State who left to get playing time elsewhere and might be a decent add for rosters in need of depth or a dart toss at the wing position. After three years at the D2 level with Colorado Mesa, he came with his coach to Cal Poly, where he had a pretty good year. However, I guess I care less about all of that and more noting the following: this is actually pretty decent against top-50 competition?

Like, nothing amazing or anything, and he’ll obviously play less if he transfers up, but even if you’re just getting a 15 MPG guy for his super-senior year, there are far worse options than a guy that shot 66% at the rim, 41% from three, and posted a 14.2% Assist% against Top 100 opponents, even if he does presumably struggle on defense.

Now, will any of these be hits? Hopefully, because I admittedly love being right about something even with a pretty small sample size. Will some be misses? Hopefully not, but statistically, probably one or two will fail to deliver at the P5 level. Still, with a little bit of a creative mindset, perhaps there is hidden value in the connective tissue of your team. You’ve just got to find the guy that finds the rim and the open man and can shoot it decently. Pretty easy, right?

Some other options that fit the list, but have already committed to a school of their choice: Devin Tillis (Virginia), Michael Rataj (Baylor), Jaron Pierre Jr. (SMU), Rashad King (LSU), Kendall Blue (Nebraska), Barry Dunning Jr. (Pitt). Here’s your 11 Guys to track in ‘25-26, I suppose.