Injuries are never fun, regardless of the time, place, or person. Texas Tech and BYU fans have learned that more than any other college basketball team over the last month as both JT Toppin and Richie Saunders suffered season ending injuries.
The immediate question goes to "how do they figure it out?" The immediate response to that should be along the lines of "well, you can't really replicate one for one what they do." This is probably more true for Texas Tech as JT Toppin was having an All-American type of season, but the loss of Saunders can't be discounted for BYU.
We've started to see a bit of the formula for these two teams as they've tried to figure out how to close out the season with a roster shakeup.
Starting with Texas Tech, they've gone 2-0 in the games since Toppin got hurt, although two home wins over Kansas State and Cincinnati doesn't necessarily guarantee everything's fine going forward. Regardless, it was a positive to see the Red Raiders be able to respond after losing to Arizona State, a game they let slip away in the last few minutes.
JT Toppin was putting up video game numbers, averaging 21.8 points, 10.8 rebounds (4.2 offensive), 2.1 assists, 1.7 blocks, and 1.4 steals a game while shooting 58.9% from 2 in 34.8 minutes a game.
Based on the query above, focusing on rebounds, passing, and defense, only 3 players in the country met the criteria, one of them being JT Toppin. So before even getting into Toppin's incredible ability to put the ball in the hoop, there's going to be lasting impacts everywhere else.
During Big 12 play, Texas Tech has had 141 minutes without Toppin. Albeit, the same size isn't super large, but it's what we have to work with.
Above shows the on/off splits for Texas Tech during conference play. Again, small sample, and it probably won't stay exactly this way, but the offense has actually been a bit better with Toppin off the floor (hanging 100 on Kansas State in the first game without Toppin is probably helping inflate this number a lot). However, the defense has been significantly worse.
Texas Tech has been a smaller team all season long, playing a lot of JT Toppin (6'9) at the 5 with Luke Bamgboye (6'11) as the only backup big. In the last two games, Marial Akunetok (6'11) and Josiah Moseley (6'8) have gotten back into the rotation. In limited action, both have shown the ability to rebound and defend the rim. Bamgboye has had 3 blocks each in the two games without Toppin, and he has one of the highest block rates in the country.
So in that sense, Texas Tech still has the personnel to try and hang on defensively, especially given Bamgboye's athleticism. However, this teams was built as a team that's elite offensively and just good enough defensively to be a very good team overall. Bamgboye seems like he can give 20-26 minutes a game, and in those minutes, Texas Tech still has a lot of their core identity defensively. However, Texas Tech now has fewer options to go big, and they still have to figure out how to manage the 14-20 minutes without Bamgboye on the floor.
As a team who has really struggled to defend pick and rolls, it may become even more difficult. HOWEVER, the reason for optimism that this team won't just fall of the face of the earth resides primarily in the hands of Christian Anderson.
In Texas Tech's first game without Toppin, Texas Tech won by 28 against Kansas State and basically was able to coast after the first 10-15 minutes of the game. It's great for the Red Raiders, but tougher to try and fully understand how they'd operate moving forward. I think we saw more of what to truly expect in their 12 point win over Cincinnati, a ton of Christian Anderson.
Against Cincy, Anderson had 31 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists, and 6 turnovers, against a top 20 defense in the country. He took 19 shots (8/11 from 2 and 3/8 from 3), and he also went 6/6 from the free throw line. He had a usage rate of 39% per Kenpom, the highest in his career. He also did it while playing all 40 minutes, although that part isn't anything new for Anderson. It was only the 5th time this season that Anderson had a usage rate of over 30%, but that does feel like it should be expected. When on the floor, Toppin took 32% of Texas Tech's shots. Going back to his averages, Texas Tech essentially now has to replace 17 shot attempts and 4.3 free throw attempts per game.
A lot of that usage is going to go to Anderson. Texas Tech has always been a very high pick and roll usage team, just the shots are going to be different. Toppin was used as a roller more than any player in the country, and although some of those looks will go to Bamgboye and LeJuan Watts, a lot of those attempts simply are going to go to Anderson as the ball handler. Against Cincy, Texas Tech ran 35 pick and rolls, and 20 of those were shots or turnovers from the ball handler. The Red Raiders still mixed in hitting rollers and also kicking out for three, but the heavy dosage went to the ball handler. The only other game Texas Tech got that many attempts from the pick and roll ball handler was against Duke, a game that Anderson had 27 points and took 14 shots.
It's obviously not as simple as play Bamgboye more and give the ball to Anderson a bunch. LeJuan Watts, the do-it-all, undersized forward is going to have more responsibility, both creating for himself and others. Atwell and Petty, two great shooters on high volume, have to be able to continue to knock down shots, especially Atwell. This team may have to buy in a bit more to simply winning shootouts, but the Red Raiders do have a clear 'alpha' to fill Toppin's role, even if Anderson does play the opposite position.
In contrast, BYU still has their superstar in AJ Dybansta, but Richie Saunders was probably the next most important player for BYU.
In the 4 games that BYU has played without Saunders (including the game where he got hurt in the first minute), BYU finds themselves at 2-2. They beat Colorado in overtime and Iowa State at home while losing at Arizona and to UCF at home.
Above shows the Box Plus Minus (BPM) for the BYU players this season. It's an all-in-one metric that's supposed to show the value of a player, and it's divided into offensive and defensive categories. Although not a 100% perfect stat, it does show just how much Saunders has impacted BYU. He's 2nd on the team, only to AJ Dybansta. Saunders gave BYU the perfect Robin to Dybansta being Batman, forming an elite scoring duo.
On the season, Saunders averaged 18.0 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 1.7 steals while shooting 63% from 2 and 37.6% from 3 in 31.4 minutes a game.
Similar to Texas Tech, BYU has started running more pick and rolls since the injury. Both Robert Wright III and Dybansta have been the go to guys, and although Saunders was primarily an off-ball scorer this season, his usage and shot attempts still have to go somewhere. He averaged 12 shot attempts a night, along with four and a half free throw attempts.
Dybansta is a very high volume, efficient scorer, so he hasn't had much difficulty taking on some of the usage. He's put up 20, 35, 29, and 29 points in the 4 games since Saunders got hurt.
Between Dybansta and Wright, BYU still has enough scoring punch to be competitive. It is worth noting that in the 4 games, BYU has shot the following from 3:
- Colorado - 11/22 (50.0%)
- Arizona - 5/19 (26.3%)
- Iowa State - 7/25 (28.0%)
- UCF - 9/27 (33.3%)
That averages out to 34.4% from three, just a bit below BYU's season average of 35.2%. However, this team may be an even streakier shooting team going forward since Saunders was a great shooter while averaging the most attempts per game. BYU is still taking about the same amount of threes per game as they were before the injury.
During conference play, BYU has been MUCH better offensively with Saunders on the floor, although they've also been better defensively with him off the floor. 3 of BYU's 8 worst offensive performances of the season have been in the last 4 games, and the other one was right around average.
The Cougars have opted to go bigger since the Saunders injury, starting 6'10 forward Mihailo Boskovic. BYU wasn't a super deep team to begin with. Aleksej Kostic has been in and out of the rotation all season long, but he's played double digit minutes in 3 of the last 4 games, and he went 4/9 from three against UCF. For the offensive role specifically of Saunders, Kostic seems to be the one potentially able to fill it.
With Saunders being a solid defender, BYU doesn't have anyone that can be the two-way player he was. They now have choices, do they want to be more of a larger defensive lineup with Boskovic, or do they want more shooting with players like Kostic?
It hasn't felt like BYU has changed their identity much defensively, other than simply playing a bit bigger. This team has struggled in large part this season defensively anyways, and losing Saunders' ability to force turnovers isn't going to help.
These two Big 12 teams both still have post season aspirations, and both still have the star power to be able to go on a run in March. Their margin of error has decreased significantly though, and both are going to have to figure out the balance between offensive and defensive lineups going forward.
At the time of this writing, Texas Tech is currently a 4 seed and BYU a 6 seed per bracketmatrix. Those seedings may not stay quite as high, especially given the committee seems to take injuries into account, but they're still going to be wearing home uniforms most likely in their first game of the tournament.
Texas Tech has @ Iowa State, TCU, and @ BYU left on the schedule.
BYU has @ West Virginia, @ Cincinnati, and Texas Tech left.
BYU had already started to slide some, losing 4 of 5 before Saunders got hurt. However, they showed the high level talent they could be during the non-conference. Texas Tech has had some of the best wins of the season, including @ Arizona, a neutral against Duke, and home against Houston.
Why can't we just turn off injuries?
