With the Cougs tipping off Pac-12 tournament play with their contest against Arizona State (7-10) this Wednesday at 1:00, we take a look back at the promising ride that was the WSU 2020-21 men’s season.
Overall Notes
Starting at the macro level, the Cougs finished with their best record since 2011, winning 14 of their 26 games. While 7 of these wins came in a cupcake preseason slate, their 7-12 Conference record is their best since 2015, breaking a streak of three consecutive seasons finishing 11th in the Pac (woohoo 10th place!). College basketball guru Ken Pomeroy ranks WSU 106th out of 357 Division I squads, good for 9th in the Pac-12, ahead of Washington, Cal, and… Arizona State. We’re nearly fully immersed in the Kyle Smith era, completing back to back seasons of improvement after the valley that was Ernie Kent’s tenure.
They’re fueled by a defense that ranks 4th in the conference and in the 88th percentile nationally (best since 2011), spearheaded by Efe Abogidi, Noah Williams, Dishon Jackson, and Isaac Bonton. On the other side of the ball however, the Cougs rank 190th nationally, ahead of only the Dawgs in-conference.
The Cougs were without a noticeable change in effectiveness from their first to second meetings with conference opponents. They finished 3-5 in both first and second meetings but their margin of victory did rise from -4.8 to 0.6. Most notable was an improvement from a 61-91 drumming at the hands of UCLA to a 81-73 victory less than a month later. A better predictor of Cougar success than meeting number in these games was the venue, finishing 4-4 at Beasley Coliseum and 2-6 away from Pullman.
A win over Oregon (14-4) on the back half of conference play is not reflected in this subset because the Ducks never travelled to Pullman. This is however reflected in the Cougars’ net rank over time, courtesy of recspecs730 Basketball Central:
Their season can be split into distinct parts. The 8-0 streak against non-conference opponents and Oregon State started off an exciting season. This was followed by losing 7 of their next 8 conference games, followed by an inconsistent 5-5 finish to the season, with good wins over Oregon (1st in Conference), UCLA (4th), and Stanford (6th), and bad losses to Washington (11th), and Arizona State (9th).
Let’s look back at some notable games for the Cougs this season:
Best Comeback: Feb 20 vs Stanford (85-76 Triple Overtime Win)
After a Bryce Wills dunk with 1:29 left in regulation, the Cougs trailed 57-62 with an expected win probability of only 3%. Two Noah Williams three pointers in the final 69 seconds tied it up in regulation. The Cougs able to rally in three overtimes against the Cardinal, thanks in part to Stanford’s poor free throw shooting and national Player of the Week Williams's career high 40 points.
Biggest Upset: Feb 4 @ Oregon (74-71 Win)
The Cougs entered Eugene with only a 14% chance of winning but good shooting (10-22 3PT) and drawing fouls (31 Free Throw Attempts) increased their odds, trailing for only 9 seconds the entire game. Honorable mentions go to upset wins over Oregon State, @ Washington, UCLA, and Stanford.
Most exciting game: Jan 2 vs Arizona (82-86 Double Overtime Loss)
This thriller saw 16 lead changes and a real blown opportunity for the Cougs to make a statement in what ended up as their first loss of the season. With 49 seconds left in the first overtime, Noah Williams was fouled on a layup, already up three points with a 93% chance of winning. The 81% free throw shooter proceeded to miss both free throws in front of the cardboard cutouts at an empty Beasley Coliseum which opened the door for Arizona to later tie the game and win it in 2OT.
Biggest Disappointment: Feb 15 vs UW (63-65 Loss)
The only game this season in which the Cougs lost as initial favorites came against their cross state rival, unable to protect home court. In an ugly matchup without both Isaac Bonton and Quade Green, the Cougs lost the turnover battle 19-6 in a game that the Dawgs completely controlled.
Statistical Breakdown
Now let’s breakdown WSU's conference ranks during conference play in several metrics with their per game averages. The Cougs were last in the conference in two point shooting efficiency (45%), shot 72% on Free Throws (7th), and 36% on threes (5th).
The Good (Offense):
Offensive Rebounds: 11.4 (2nd)
Fouls Drawn: 18.2 (2nd)
Free Throws Made: 13.4 (3rd)
The Bad (Offense)
Turnovers: 15.3 (last)
Shots Blocked: 3.9 (last)
Assists: 12.5 (10th)
The Good (Defense)
Three Pointers Made: 6.1 (1st)
Three Pointers Attempted: 17.9 (2nd)
Three Point Percentage: 34% (2nd)
Steals: 6.2 (4th)
The Bad (Defense)
Fouls: 19.1 (11th)
Free Throw Attempts: 20.7 (9th)
WSU has an elite three point defense!!!
While the Cougs don’t assist often, it looks so pretty when they do! A line in a player’s color represents assists from that player to the player they are connecting to. Line thickness represents points produced from these assists over the course of the season. Some of the top connections on the year were Bonton to Abogidi, Andrej Jakimovski to Williams, and Williams to Jaz Kunc.
4 Cougs received All-Conference awards. We highlight them here with their conference ranks in various statistics.
Isaac Bonton -- All Pac-12 Second Team
Steals per game: 1.9 (1st)
Minutes per game: 35 (1st)
Usage: 31% (1st)
Points per game: 17.6 (3rd)
Assists per game: 4.0 (4th)
Defensive Win Shares: 1.3 (9th)
Noah Williams -- All Pac-12 Honorable Mention
Steals per game: 1.6 (4th)
Free Throw percentage: 81% (6th)
Defensive Win Shares: 1.4 (7th)
Usage: 27% (9th)
Defensive Box Plus/Minus: 2.9 (10th)
Efe Abogidi -- All Pac-12 Freshman First Team
Defensive Rebound percentage: 23.2% (2nd)
Defensive Win Shares: 1.5 (3rd)
Rebounds per game: 7.3 (4th)
Offensive Rebound percentage: 10.5% (4th)
Blocks per game: 1.3 (5th)
Block percentage: 5.8% (5th)
Defensive Box Plus/Minus: 2.9 (9th)
Dishon Jackson -- All Pac-12 Freshman Honorable Mention
Block percentage: 5.0% (6th)
Blocks per game: 1.0 (10th)
Statistical Model
If the preceding wasn’t nerdy enough, I created a model with specific factors to predict point differential in the Cougs’s conference games. The factors were:
Effective Field Goal Percentage: a measure of shooting efficiency weighing threes with their proper impact over twos
Offensive Rebound Percentage: the amount of available missed shots that were rebounded by the offensive team, creating extended possessions
Turnover Percentage: the amount of offensive possessions that result in a turnover
Free Throw Rate: How often the offense shot free throws as a ratio of their total shot attempts
These ‘four factors,’ borrowed from Dean Oliver’s Basketball On Paper do a remarkable job at predicting outcomes. Each factor was measured twice for each of the Cougs’s 19 conference games, once for the Cougs and once for their opponent. Using these 8 variables we are able to make predictions on point differential with 95% correlation.
The factor importance is depicted below. For example, each 1% increase in opponent’s effective field goal percentage resulted in about 0.96 points given up for the Cougs when controlling for all other factors. This was the single biggest predictor of their point differential, suggesting that when the Cougars can keep their opponent’s shooting in check, they have a good shot at coming out victorious. The variables decrease in importance from shooting (37.2%), to turnovers (29.5%), to offensive rebounding (29.3%), to free throw rate (4.0%), which is quite different from Oliver’s 40/20/25/15 rule from his book -- albeit on NBA data. The college game is perhaps more reactive to turnovers which does not bode well for the Cougs. The keys for success in the Pac-12 tournament for Washington State are to limit turnovers, force opponents into mistakes, and challenge shots. It will be a difficult road to the NCAA tournament, but they’ve shown all year that they’re capable of pulling off the unexpected.
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