@approxinfinity Can I add a thread for 3/22?
Scouting report and thoughts for the Stanford game tomorrow 3/23 at 1115.
More than 5 minute Scouting report on Stanford.
Kenpom is giving KU a 69% chance to beat Stanford 75-70.
According to Kenpom, Stanford’s pace ranks right at the D1 average. Right on par with KU’s
So we shouldn’t expect a slowed down, grind it out type of game from them.
That being said, Kenpom doesn’t have them locked down as a zone or a M2M team, which says to me that KU can expect many different looks on defense from them. They might press full court because they should know we are vulnerable to that type of defense and they will show us different zones and they will play some man to man.
They shoot the ball well as their Offense EFG% is 51.7 to KU’s 54.7 and their Defense EFG% is 48.1 to KU’s 47.2
Stanford doesn’t seem to turn the ball over much as their % per 100 possessions is 16.7 to KU’s 19.1 D1 ave is 18.3 but Stanford doesn’t force a lot of turn overs either.
Stanford is ranked 254 in offensive rebounding %, Way below KU’s rank of 20. So Stanford doesn’t crash the offensive glass to hard.
Stanford’s defensive rebounding is ranked #22 and KU’s is ranked right behind at 62. Their bigs can clean up our misses pretty good.
I might be reading the stats more but Stanford appears to foul more on defense than KU. This is good because KU plays up to 9 guys in a game where as Stanford uses 7 most of the time.
What concerns me most about Stanford is the matchup problems they pose.
Randle, their PG is 6-2 and it seems that his Assist/TO ratio is worse than Naadir’s I expect Randle’s length to bother Naadir.
Powell is a 6-10 240lb SF, He can’t shoot the 3 but his height and weight may bother Wiggins especially if he gets into the post. He has a pretty good rank for Defensive Rebounding.
Nastic is a 6-11 C. He is their rim protector. His block % per 100 possessions is 5.3%. Embiid’s block rank is much higher but we don’t have him for this game.
So far we have 3 match up advantages to Stanford.
Randle their PG and Brown their 6-6 SG can both shoot over 40% from trey.
Stanford relies more on the 3 ball than KU does. Stanford is more experienced and taller/bigger than KU in effective height.
What I don’t know is how we are going to beat Stanford. In Stanford’s losses, they have not shot well which implies tough defense on the part of the winner. KU’s defensive rating is nearly identical to Stanford’s per Kenpom.
KU scores about 80 PPG and allows 70ppg.
Stanford scores 73.5 PPG and allows 68ppg.
IF KU is going to win this game, they need to get Stanford’s bigs in foul trouble early and they need to not turn the ball over. They need Tarik and Jamari to play bigger and stronger than their match ups. I know Coach will start Wiggins at the 3. But Powell has 2 inches and 40 lbs on him. Will Perry be able to help him? I think Traylor is a better choice to bring in. Can Naadir keep Randle in front of him? I think Frankamp and Mason will have to play more minutes as well.
