Defense and Offense Under Self

The most basic comprehensive stat is the Points Per Possession. Most fundamental analysis of basketball teams comes down to their Points per Possession Offense, Points per Possession Defense and the derivative Points per Possession Difference or Delta. After all, the primary goal is to outscore the opponent. Each team generally gets the same number of possessions per game so whoever is most effective (highest PPP offense and lowest PPP defense) will win. One way of gauging a teams quality through the years is to look at these three PPP statistics. Below are charts of these three stats for the years since Self has been at Kansas. As you might expect, the 2008 team had the best PPP offense at 1.163 points per possession. But KU has had other teams that were very close. It will not surprise you to see that last years team was the lowest offensive PPP under Self at 1.050 PPP. That team really struggled to score. With roughly 70 possessions per game, the difference in scoring between the 2008 and the 2021 team is 8 points per game. That will win a lot of games. Now look at this years team. Of course, we likely will not stay at 1.218 PPP as the schedule toughens up. But even so, 1.218 PPP is stratospheric. This years team is quite effective offensively. And they are likely to get better although the competition will get tougher as well.

On the other side of the spectrum is PPP defense. Obviously we want this number to be as low as possible. By far the best defensive team was the 2006 Jayhawks. That team had many of the same cast that was on the 2008 NC team with the exception of CJ Giles who was a good rim defender and Julian Wright who was also a very good defender. Of course it was anchored by RussRob and Marion and Brandon with some help from Darnell and Sasha. In fact, the 3 best defensive teams under Self were the 2006, 2007 and 2008 teams. Well, the 2020 team with Devon and Udoka was right there with the 2008 team and actually slightly better. Those players were committed to defense and played brilliantly as a team. The 2013 Travis Releford/Jeff Withey team was a fine defensive team as well. But starting in 2014, defense has not been as good as it was before. Now recall, this is all by Jayhawk standards. We likely still ranked in the top 20 in the nation in most seasons. Now look at 2022. No bueno. This years team has not even hit the meat of the schedule and we already have a defensive PPP of 1.007. There is no other way to view that other than that is bad. This level of defense will lose us some games this year if we do not correct it. And for those who argue that teams are usually really good offensively or really good defensively that is just bull hooey. Yes, the 2020 team was outstanding defensively and struggled to score but that is not necessary. The 2008 was the best offensive team and the 4th best defensive team.

We heard a lot of talk about Self's dissatisfaction with this teams defense. This just lends credence to justify that dissatisfaction. This team really needs to get its defensive act together. I don't see this team as better than the NC team or the Morris twin teams in 2010 and 2011. Not do I think they are better than the Frank Mason/Devonte Graham and co. teams of 2017 and 2018. But I think we could be as good. So I think we could very possibly end the season with an offensive PPP of 1.15 or so. The real question will we be among Self's worst defensive teams or will we get it together and get down in the 0.925 range? We do not have the dominant rim protection nor the uber elite perimeter defenders like Mario and RussRob. So I am not expecting this team to get in the 0.875 PPP range on defense. But I am hoping we can improve to the 0.925 range. If we could do that (0.925 defensive PPP) and stay in the 1.15 range on offense, that would give us a delta of 0.225 which would rank us among the 5 best teams under Self. Let's hope we can do that.