Click Here for Part 1

And now here are three players that some readers may not know much about.

-George Washington’s Patrico Garino missed a lot of cupcake games with injuries, but when he has played he has had a very impressive 4.2% steal rate. (He also scored 25 points this week against VCU.) And yes, Garino was in the lineup in the team’s win over Creighton. If these numbers are correct and the defense is this good with Garino in the lineup, George Washington has a legitimate chance to win the A10 title this year.

-I’m somewhat skeptical of these numbers for Oklahoma’s Je’lon Hornbeak. I don’t think he is quite that good of a defensive player. But when he was out, Oklahoma’s defense was really bad, including the loss to Louisiana Tech.

-Jordan Burgess’ ORtg is only 82 this year, so I’m not surprised the offense was better with him out. But at 6’5”, he is a large guard, and his size makes an impact on defense.

-I’m not one of those folks who believes freshman PG Jevon Thomas is this important to Kansas St. It seems a little hard to believe that  a player with an 85 ORtg could be fully responsible for this offensive turnaround. But PG is a critical position. And with freshman Nigel Johnson also struggling, there is no question that Thomas’ ability to step into the lineup and distribute has contributed to his team’s turnaround.

-Georgia Tech wasn't great before Robert Carter went down, and they are really bad now.

-Houston’s biggest win (over Connecticut) actually came with Danuel House out of the lineup.

-Hugh Greenwood isn’t a star, but he is a veteran player who knows where to be on offense and defense. New Mexico did miss him when he missed three games earlier in the year.

-Marshall Henderson’s suspension cost the team the game against Mississippi St. Obviously they were a much worse offensive team without him.

-South Florida is hurting offensively without PG Anthony Collins, but they’ve buckled down defensively since he has been out.

-This summer, I read so many previews that picked Temple fifth in the American Conference, and I kept putting up my hand and saying, “Um, Fran Dunphy has no depth. For this season to work out, everyone needs to develop and he cannot have any injuries.” And lo and behold Temple has been bad.  But they have been even worse now that the injury bug has struck. Daniel Dingle has missed six games, but Will Cummings and Mark Williams have also missed games during that stretch.

-I don’t think this split fully captures how costly it was for Oklahoma St. to lose Michael Cobbins. As we saw in the first half of the Kansas game, if Oklahoma St. gets in foul trouble against a team with good inside players, they could be out early in the NCAA tournament. Matchups will be extremely critical for them. But as the second half comeback showed, even if Oklahoma St. is a little worse, this is still a very good basketball team.

-I discussed this last year, but no coach seems more inconsistent on defense than Ed Cooley. He has stretches where he gets Providence to play at a high level, and then stretches where I think Keno Davis is still the coach. I am not sure Kris Dunn’s absence really caused the big defensive drop-off you see above. But I do believe the offensive change is real. With Dunn’s ORtg stuck at 70 this year (due to Dunn playing with injuries), the Providence offense has been better without him this year.

-Stanford’s defense wasn’t horrible against cupcakes, but against every good team they played (BYU, Pittsburgh), they couldn’t stop anyone. Then Aaron Bright left the team. Bright was an undersized spot-up shooter, who didn’t force steals. This split probably isn’t completely fair to Bright, but the Stanford lineup has been much taller without him, and even good offensive teams like Oregon aren’t torching Stanford nearly as much.

-I’m breaking my rule about two-game splits to show how terrible California’s defense was in those two games without forward Richard Solomon. If you think that is unrealistic, realize that Solomon has a 28% defensive rebounding rate, has a phenomenal steal rate for a big man, and he is the team’s tallest primary rotation player. Solomon matters on defense. Solomon was out in the Syracuse and Dayton games in Maui. If Solomon had played and California had defeated Dayton in the 3^rd place game, would their recent string of wins seem like less of a surprise?

Ricky Kreklow’s absence has been less of a concern. A lot of people want to point to Jabari Bird’s return as evidence that California is getting healthy, but he hasn’t played 20 minutes in a game since early December. California is winning despite Bird and Kreklow’s absence, not because Bird is getting healthy.

-Michigan St. struggled offensively when Gary Harris was out earlier this year (mostly in the Oakland game.) I’m not sure I quite buy that Michigan St. has been better without Adreian Payne. The home game against Minnesota went to OT, but because Minnesota kept fouling in the extra session, the final margin was pretty big.

-Washington lost Desmond Simmons and Jernard Jerrau early in the season and the Huskies were forced to utilize a 4-guard lineup. They weren’t prepared to play defense with that lineup early and they were totally uncompetitive in the non-conference season. Simmons has now returned. On the one hand, he’s playing less than 20 minutes a game, so his presence cannot explain the whole defensive turnaround, but I think it is still symptomatic of the overall situation. Players like starting forward Perris Blackwell no longer have to be completely passive on defense (to avoid fouls). And the guards are learning to play defense in a 4-guard lineup. The result is that Washington has been much more competitive in Pac-12 play.

-Finally, NC State’s defense was horrible in the first 4 games of the season against some inept offensive teams. But when the 7’0” Jordan Vandenberg got over his ankle injury and entered the lineup, NC State’s defense improved. Unfortunately, calling the defense good would still be a stretch, and against good offensive teams like Duke, they look particularly bad. But they were even worse without a 7’0” center redirecting shots in the middle.

New Injuries

-The injuries to Colorado’s Spencer Dinwiddie and Tre’Shaun Fletcher are too new to evaluate, but I will include a full evaluation of Colorado once we have more data.

-Pitt lost to Syracuse without Durand Johnson. Jermaine Marshall (groin) missed Arizona St.’s loss to Arizona. And SMU and Louisville have survived without Yanick Moreira and Chris Jones so far. But all four injuries will be worth exploring in a future column.

-Louisiana Tech and Southern Miss played this weekend in what should have been an exciting game between CUSA’s two top teams. But the injury to Louisiana Tech’s Raheem Appleby makes me question the value of the Southern Miss win.

-South Carolina’s Ty Johnson was also injured recently, and you have to wonder if the team would have held on to beat Ole Miss on Saturday if he had been available.

-Harvard Watch: Wesley Saunders injury is too new, so I will show injury splits for Saunders and Brandyn Curry in a future post.

Bullets

-Iowa’s Josh Oglesby deserves an extended discussion. He hit some huge threes in blowing open the Minnesota game on Sunday. But Oglesby has been playing sparingly this season, and it is hard to find an injury split for a player with his level of minutes.

-Boise St.’s Mikey Thompson missed the team’s two point loss to Wyoming. You can be sure that this will be on the committee’s NCAA information sheet from the MWC, but with Thompson scoring 9 PPG, will the committee care?

-Kansas St.’s Thomas Gibson missed the team’s opening loss to Northern Colorado.

-SMU’s Keith Frazier missed the team’s loss to Arkansas.

-Houston was actually without Danuel House, Tione Womack, and LJ Rose in OT loss to Louisiana Lafayette.

-Marquette’s Todd Mayo missed Arizona St. and Wisconsin losses (with ankle and off-court issues.) JaJuan Johnson missed the Ohio St. loss.

-Tennessee has been without Robert Hubbs, but the team hasn’t missed a beat, so I am not showing the splits. Given Hubbs limited offensive production, it is not a surprise that Tennessee could survive without him.

-I can’t bring myself to show the splits for USC or TCU, but suffice to say that when JT Terrell and Amric Fields were out, neither team was worse. I also can’t bring myself to show the splits for Mississippi St., but the team did miss IJ Ready when he was out, and Andre Applewhite’s departure has not been a huge problem.

-Devon Collier missed Oregon St.’s opening loss to Coppin St. Angus Brandt missed the Beavers’ loss to Hawaii.

-Due to various suspensions, there were a large number of players who missed the first 1-3 games of the season. Because Ken Pomeroy’s rankings put more weight on recent games, early November suspensions cause almost no bias in his rankings, and I didn’t include these splits above. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that Jarell Martin played 1 minute in LSU’s opening loss to UMass. Boston College’s Lonnie Jackson was out for the team’s three losses to open the season. And Georgia’s Brandon Morris also missed the opening three games of the season, and Georgia lost two of those games.

-DePaul’s Brandon Young and Charles McKinney missed the team’s loss to Arizona St. Nebraska’s Deverell Biggs was suspended for the Cincinnati loss. And Northwestern’s Drew Crawford missed the UCLA loss.

-I only listed Robert Carter’s injury for Georgia Tech above, but Georgia Tech has had numerous players out this year. Virginia Tech has also been a mess with various key players out all season. Finally, Rutgers has been shuffling players in and out. Most notably, Rutgers was without Kadeem Jack in the loss to Fairleigh Dickinson.