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-SMU’s splits make a ton of sense. When Marcus Kennedy was ineligible early in the year, the team struggled. When he rejoined the team, they were playing at their peak performance. But after Justin Martin and Keith Frazier left, their current roster has been just a shade worse.

-It is tempting to say that Illinois is playing better basketball without Rayvonte Rice (and Aaron Cosby). And yes, the win at Michigan St. did take place with these two players suspended. But the reality is that Illinois has also had some close wins (home to Penn St.) and brutal losses (at Nebraska) with Rice out. The team will clearly be better when Rice’s suspension is over.

-The next three teams have been a bit of a mystery. Maryland was actually playing great offensive basketball early in the season when either Evan Smotrycz or Dez Wells were out. But since the full lineup has been available, they’ve been more mediocre. This doesn’t even include Sunday’s blowout loss to Iowa yet. Perhaps we should have seen that game coming. Maryland barely escaped at home against Northwestern, and the margin-of-victory numbers have been trending in the wrong direction for awhile.

-Miami (FL) got Davon Reed back from injury earlier than expected, but they haven’t been able to maintain their blistering pace from the start of the season. I have a hard time blaming the drop-off on Reed when he is shooting over 50% on his threes, but he is a relatively passive offensive player, and when he is on the floor, it may lead the defense to shade more towards Angel Rodriguez.

-Pittsburgh hasn’t really played better since Cameron Wright returned. Wright’s ORtg has fallen 11 points since last year, and the injury might be  part of the reason why.

-Seton Hall didn’t really fall apart with Isaiah Whitehead out. Now if only he could fix the team’s defense, which has become much more porous in Big East play.

-Stanford’s offense was better without Reid Travis. Perhaps this reflects the fact that Travis is one of the least efficient players on the team.

-San Diego St. had a few great offensive games early in the year when Matt Shrigley was out. In particular, BYU and Pittsburgh made the Aztec offense look legitimate. And even though BYU and Pittsburgh are terrible defensively this year, those games still hold up as the team’s best offensive games of the season. But ever since then, the offense has been bad. The team played its worst game of the season (a 36 point offensive outburst at Washington) when Aqeel Quinn was out of the lineup. And those most recent splits (without Polee) don’t even include Sunday’s loss to Boise St. where the offense was broken again. At least the defense is consistently good.

-Texas has been surprisingly consistent. They were a little better defensively when Isaiah Taylor was out. The other three games represent a non-conference game where Javan Felix and Taylor were out and Texas won big against a cupcake, a home loss to Oklahoma St. without Felix, and a road win at Kansas St. without Felix and Jonathan Holmes.

-The recent games weight still hasn’t quite caught up to how much better Temple has played since Jesse Morgan and Devin Coleman became eligible. The Owls are playing like the 42^nd best team in the nation right now, but Kenpom.com still has them at #60. It is also worth noting that Will Cummings missed Temple’s 31 point loss to Cincinnati.

-Jordan Loveridge is a bit of a forgotten man on Utah this year, but the team was playing worse when he was out.

-Georgia’s Juwan Parker played in one game (6 minutes) since his injury, but I’m counting that in the “since injury” category. The team has actually played better in Parker’s absence, and given that he was not an efficient player, that seems reasonable. But when Georgia’s second most efficient starter, Marcus Thornton was out for two games along with Parker, the team looked dreadful.

-I think Ricky Tarrant is Alabama’s best offensive player, but the Crimson Tide had one of their more impressive offensive performances of the season without him against Kentucky.

-VCU’s Briante Weber has now missed 3 games (including the season opener), and the team has been slightly worse without him. Notably Treveon Graham was also out in the St. Bonaventure loss.

-When forward Jernard Jarreau went down, Washington survived and actually thrived. But when center Robert Upshaw also went down and the team lost its super-elite shot-blocker, the defense began to fall off the map.

Omissions

There are a few more splits that I’ve run but I am not showing for space reasons. Oregon St. actually misses Victor Robbin’s offense. Creighton misses Isaiah Zierden’s offense. Penn St. has actually played pretty well since John Johnson was suspended. South Carolina’s splits don’t make a lick of sense. When Demetrius Henry (ORtg 84) was out, the team had one of its worst offensive games of the year at Arkansas. When Michael Carrera was out, the team smoked Oklahoma St. I still don’t know which forwards Frank Martin should be playing, and with the team now 2-8 in the SEC, it would appear Martin doesn’t have the right answers either.

Boise St. has actually improved since super-scorer Anthony Drmic went down. Illinois St. has had a couple of key players out this year (DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell and Deontae Hawkins), but they actually played better when they were out. BYU has played only slightly worse since Nate Austin left the lineup. And it is notable that Iona has continued to play well without Isaiah Williams, while Valparaiso has stayed on the winning track without Keith Carter.

Bullets

This weekend brought some new injury news. Virginia’s Justin Anderson broke his finger and will miss several weeks. Memphis Austin Nichols hurt his ankle in the team’s loss to Temple. Oklahoma’s TaShawn Thomas was poked in the eye and may miss the team’s next game. And Matt Carlino missed Marquette’s win at Seton Hall with concussion symptoms.

Marcus Foster and Malek Harris have missed Kansas St.’s last two losses, at home to Texas, and more disturbingly at Texas Tech. Larry Nance Jr. missed Wyoming’s 23 point loss to Air Force this weekend due to an illness. Devin Williams missed West Virginia’s loss to Oklahoma last week. Marc Loving was suspended in Ohio St.’s loss to Purdue last week. And Jalyn Patterson had a concussion which caused him to miss LSU’s loss to Mississippi St.

Rodney Purvis missed UConn’s one point November loss to Texas. Connecticut’s Omar Calhoun missed that same game, along with the team’s losses to West Virginia and Yale. I keep hearing people mention Michigan St.’s early season loss to Texas Southern. Well, it is worth mentioning that Branden Dawson did not play in that game. Tony Parker missed UCLA’s road trip to Oregon and the team lost to both the Ducks and the Beavers. Rysheed Jordan missed St. John’s four point loss to Butler. Dwayne Benjamin missed Oregon’s loss to VCU.

I’m not going to run a split for Baylor’s Kenny Cherry because he was out early and the rankings already reflect how good the Bears are playing. But it is worth noting that Cherry was out in the game where Baylor lost to Illinois. I’d run Florida St.’s numbers without Aaron Thomas, but he only played in six games, and Devin Bookert was out at that part of the season.  We never really got to see Florida St. at full strength this year.

Similarly, I’m not running splits for Texas A&M without Danuel House, as he missed the first four games of the year and the recent game weight correctly evaluates the Aggies. My only comment is that A&M would have loved to have had House in the team’s one point loss to Dayton. Jalen Jones also missed the Aggies losses to Alabama and Kentucky, the later game in double OT.

Dorian Finney-Smith missed Florida’s loss to Miami (FL). I could have done a split for Florida’s Eli Carter, but he missed a bunch of games sporadically, and with the exception of the Kansas loss, Carter mostly sat out wins against cupcakes. I thought I’d be running a split for Florida’s Alex Murphy at this point, but surprisingly he’s played limited minutes since becoming eligible.

If Florida wishes they had Finney-Smith in the Miami (FL) game, these things tend to go both ways. Wake Forest was without both Cornelius Hudson and Mitchell Wilbekin in the Demon Deacons’ loss to the Gators.

Harvard’s Angunwa Okolie missed the team’s one point loss to Holy Cross. Evan Wessel did not play in Wichita St.’s loss to George Washington. Goodluck Okonoboh missed UNLV’s loss to New Mexico. Pepperdine, a team that has swept BYU and defeated St. Mary’s in the WCC, was without Amadi Udenyi in the team’s two point loss to Gonzaga.

Finally, I’m not going to show the splits for UC Irvine’s 7’6” Mamadou Ndiaye, because he’s barely played and barely been healthy this year. But with their big man fighting through injuries, UC Irvine’s defense has been much worse than last season.