The Tao of Tugler
Is Houston's valuing of wingspan over height a sign of the future or a team finding their outlier niche?
There is a thing that happens 5.5 times in an average Houston game. This is an increase from the last two years, when this thing happened 4.8 and 4.9 times per 40 minutes. Every seven minutes or so, on average, this specific event will happen. Against one opponent, it happened 11 times. It has happened 465 times in the last two-and-a-half seasons. The blocked shot, a staple of the Houston defense, is this event you know so well.
In what has become a yearly tradition, Houston currently ranks #1 in opponent 2PT%, #1 in Block%, and #1 in schedule-adjusted defensive rating. They’ve finished top ten five years in a row in all three categories and top five the last three seasons. Post-COVID, they’re the very best defensive program in the nation, which is high praise when systems like Tennessee’s and Iowa State’s exist. The number of those who disagree, particularly when Houston was a member of the AAC, diminishes daily.
I have written about the Houston defense several times before. Numerous other, smarter people have as well. But in all of my work and in others, I have seen the elephant in the room almost never mentioned: Houston’s actually pretty small. Well, not small, but with a lower average height than an average Division I team.
Their average center height ranks 304th this year, per KenPom, alongside teams like Delaware and Sacred Heart. The only position they’re taller than the national average at, with any serious consistency, is point guard (6’4” Milos Uzan). In fact, for three straight seasons, Houston has had one of the shortest frontcourts in the sport, per KenPom. This matters for two reasons:
There’s a fairly positive correlation (+0.4) between your opponent 2PT% allowed and your average center height, which would tell you the obvious: taller centers generally force worse shots.
Houston is one of 23 teams with a top-50 Block% and 2PT% allowed. They are the only one of these teams to not have a single rotation player taller than 6’8”.
The last player for Houston to get serious minutes that was taller than 6’8” was Josh Carlton, who last played a game for the Cougars in March 2022. Since then, the average Houston center has come in at 6’8”, which is considered on the smaller side for a power forward in the NBA these days. And yet: despite this, Houston has more combined blocks and steals (1,281) over the last 2.5 seasons than any other program and ranks fifth in total blocks.
How do you do this despite having an objective deficit in terms of pure height? It’s easier said than done, but here are some numbers to ponder: 7’3”, 7’5”, 7’6”. These are the wingspans of Houston’s main frontcourt options, all of whom register as 6’8” on the official roster. (I mention this because more independent measurements have two of these options at 6’6” or 6’7”.)
The main number to ponder is the biggest at 7’6”, but the smallest by high school measurement. As a local kid, Joseph Tugler - preferred name JoJo - was a 6’7”, 215-pound power forward who committed to the Cougars with a full year of high school left. At that time, he languished in the mid-200s of his class. Houston’s main competition was Georgia Southern and Lamar. A huge senior year pushed him into the top 100, but guys in this range don’t often put out a huge early impact in college.
Today, Tugler is Houston’s starting center, the shortest starting center in the Big 12. Yet Tugler is #1 in the nation by a mile among high-major players in terms of Block% (16.5%; next-closest 12.1%), is #1 in Defensive Box Plus-Minus (+7.9), and lineups with Tugler at center are allowing a 48.3% FG% at the rim (second-lowest of any starting center in America, behind Hofstra’s Michael Graham) and a 41.1% 2PT (lowest in America). What Houston and Tugler are doing is something we pretty rarely see.
Has Houston identified a path forward for teams that can’t find a Donovan Clingan or Charles Bediako (or, yes, Zach Edey) to protect the rim, or have they simply found three aliens that are irreplaceable and unrepeatable? Size matters, but length may matter more. No gutter-minds allowed on this newsletter!
BEHIND THE WALL ($): Length over height. Also, why couldn’t we get the Houston/Purdue game we deserved last year?