USF's Frankie Ferrari.

By KEN LOCATI/Special to Cougfan.com

First of a two-part series

AS SOMEONE WHO has always valued advanced analytics and stats in general, Washington State's hiring of Kyle Smith -- a basketball coach known for his use of analytics -- is very intriguing. Most coaches use analytics to some degree. Ernie Kent tracked shooting statistics from all over the court in practices and graded players on various aspects, allowing that to influence playing time. Smith apparently takes it to another level, tracking 50 stats (“too many," in his words) and not only outcomes but how those outcomes were attained (i.e. both-feet-in-the-paint rebounds, etc.).

To evaluate a stats-oriented coach, it’s apropos to use advanced analytics in doing so. Therefore, I thought I’d take an analytical look at Smith’s O and D, in addition to reviewing his recent tendencies when it comes to recruiting.

I’ll preface all these statistics with the most important point: it’s more about the Jimmy’s and Joe’s than the X’s and O’s. As a coach, your job is to put your players in a position to succeed, but if Smith has his team with open looks in five-straight possessions and they miss them all he still looks like an idiot, whereas as if they make 3 of 5 then he’s brilliant. Same on the defensive side. You can have your guys positioned perfectly, but if you only have a 6-7 center or guys who are a step slow, your D may get scored on anyway. It’s a fickle game, separated by players who make plays.

Some caveats:

There is no perfect statistic (other than points per possession) that gets at the essence of a game, but you can look at key measures to help understand strengths/weaknesses and get a gauge on where teams have done well and poorly. In an ideal world, you’d see consistent trends which tell you the story, such as always running the same tempo or always being a good/bad rebounding team, etc. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. There is no universal way to grade recruiting other than by looking at the final results, although some teams do well with lesser recruits while some talented teams falls short (see UCLA).

I'm going tackle this in two parts. Here, in Part 1, we’ll concentrate on personnel. The biggest challenge at WSU hasn’t been X’s and O’s – WSU has had its share of good X’s and O’s coaches. It’s been finding the Jimmy’s and Joe’s to fit each coach’s preferred style. Can he attract Pac-12 talent? Can he uncover raw prospects who develop like a Kyle Weaver or DaVonte Lacy?

Here's the low-down on Smith:

While he has dabbled in the transfer market, most of his talent at USF is obtained via the high school and international circuit. His one JC player, the classically named Frankie Ferrari, is a kid who played at USF as a freshman under former coach Rex Walters and returned two years later due to the prodding of his former USF teammates. Smith’s one non-JC transfer, Khalil Shabazz, came from Central Washington University.

Smith’s spent some time recruiting in the Evergreen State, getting Shabazz, a former Rainier Beach player, and Trevonte Anderson, who just wrapped up his freshman season, out of Tacoma (Lincoln High and then Rainier). Neither has really played for Smith, with Shabazz redshirting and Anderson being the last guy on the bench this season, but he still has local ties.

Smith appears to have a Euro pipeline with USF pick ups from Estonia, Belarus and Finland. He also just signed a kid from Australia, which may go back to his St. Mary's roots or a connection via an Australian player he inherited on the roster from Walters.

Not that star ratings are the end all when determining the talent on a roster, it does provide somewhat of a general picture. The caveat being very few European players get rated, so three of his recruits basically default to 2 stars. USF’s average rating is 2.141, which is on par with USD, Santa Clara, LMU and even St Mary’s in the middle area of the WCC, significantly trailing BYU and Gonzaga. By comparison, WSU’s is 2.2, by far the worst in the Pac-12. Utah is next lowest at 2.8 and Colorado at 2.9, which would rank 3rd and 4th in the WCC.

Looking over his career, Smith’s teams tend to be among the taller ones in country, rarely ranking outside the top 100 and more so in the top 25 percent nationally while at USF. This is somewhat inflated by 7-0 Jimbo Lull (picture Connor Clifford), but several 6-8 and 6-9 guys are in his rotation as well to offset his 6-0, 6-4 and 6-5 main players.

By comparison, WSU ranks more toward the middle of the country in height (169th over the past three years), mainly due to an inability to find bigs who can contribute. WSU now has several 6-6 and 6-7 guys on the roster; you would think Smith’s main objective would be to find that 6-9 to 6-10 big to man the middle defensively if he’s to keep with his history.

Another key to understanding Smith’s success is looking at whether his teams are experienced and return players from the prior seasons. Overall, Smith’s teams have ranked around 200th in experience and 150th in minutes continuity, or in the middle range nationally. This tells me his players are a mix of upper and underclassmen over time, and they tend to return. That’s not to say he hasn’t been hit by the transfer bug hitting college basketball – he’s had his share of players transfer out, but usually due to a lack of playing time.

Comparing Smith’s USF teams to Ernie’s last three seasons, we see Ernie’s teams tend to be slightly more experienced. However, many of his upperclassmen tend to be JC transfers (i.e. first-year players in D1 despite being juniors), but Smith’s teams return a much larger percent of minutes from prior seasons. Smith’s better teams, such as his 2016 Columbia and 2019 USF squads, ranked in the top 20 percent nationally in experience, which is the same trend we’ve seen at WSU when the Cougas have been successful (see 2008).

Conclusions:

While Smith hasn’t brought in what appear to be Pac-12-quality players out of high school, he does tend to focus on the high school ranks rather than seeking quicker JC fixes and focuses on development. At WSU that may yield growing pains early but could pay off in the long run, much like 2005-06, as long as transferring is minimized. Smith's connections in Europe could be key to his WSU tenure if he can attract higher level players from Estonia, Belarus, Finland, etc. than he attracted to USF. In other words, can he be a poor man’s Gonzaga and Tommy Lloyd when it comes to Europe? The unknown is whether they are his connections or one of his assistants, and if the latter will he be bringing that assistant with him to WSU? As we’ll address in Part 2, Smith’s offenses feature a lot of ball screens and do not operate a “slow” pace which should help with player retention. WSU offers several players who should thrive in a ball screen action offense, including C.J. Elleby, and Aljaz Kunc is the long and lanky Euro-style player that Smith has recruited to USF. The question is whether WSU's current personnel can be molded into an adequate defensive man-to-man unit? Finding an Aron Baynes or even Josh Hawkinson-type will need to be priority No. 1, given Smith’s propensity toward taller teams. Kent and his staff had offered five JC bigs over the winter in hopes of landing one in this month's regular signing period. I also believe re-recruiting Jeff Pollard will be very important. He’s the type of player who IMO fits Smith’s schemes well, and WSU needs his experience and size.

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO OF THIS 2-PART SERIES: A LOOK INTO SMITH'S OFFENSE AND DEFENSE

About the author: Ken Locati is a 1985 WSU graduate who works in market research, giving him a background in statistics which serves him well as a sports junkie who is fanatical about advanced analytics. Ken’s perspective is shaped by his relationships with current and former coaches, especially while attending practices held under Tony Bennett, Ken Bone and Ernie Kent as well as Steve Fisher and Brian Dutcher in his hometown of San Diego. Ken has a deep history in WSU athletics and the Alumni Association and served as WSUAA executive board president in 2013-14. Ken is a longtime subscriber to Cougfan.com and presence on the CF.C message boards.

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