Kansas State Basketball: Drake Preview

Drake University: 9-0 – KenPom #73

Basic information

Location: Des Moines, Iowa

Type of school: Private

Mascot: Spike (costumed) and Griff II (a real bulldog)

Head Coach – Ben McCollum

Seasons at Drake: 1

Drake record: 9-0

Other Head Coach Jobs:

Northwest Missouri State: 395-91

Overall balance: 403-91

Achievements

Division II National Championships: 4 (’17, ’19, ’20, ’21, ’22’)

Regular Season Conference Championships: 12

Division II Tournament Record: 32-7

Kenpom game style

() = National Ranking per Kenpom

attack

Adj. efficiency: 109 (127)

Avg. possibly length: 21.3 (362)

defense

Adj. efficiency: 98.5 (45)

Avg. possibly length: 16.2 (28)

tempo

Adj. tempo: 64 (348)

Kenpom 4 factors

() = National Ranking per Kenpom

attack

Effective FG%: 54.1 (73)

3 points %: 32.8 (189)

2 point %: 57.4 (42)

Sales volume %: 22.6 (352)

Out of. Reb. %: 37.9 (19)

Free trade agreement/FGA: 50.1 (6)

defense

Effective FG%: 48.9 (124)

3 points %: 29.1 (37)

2 point %: 52.2 (210)

Sales volume %: 22.4 (21)

Out of. Reb. %: 23.9 (15)

Free trade agreement/FGA: 40.9 (314)

staff

Drake on offense

Welcome to the Bennett Stirtz Show. Drake’s dynamic, tireless point guard was the tournament MVP of the Charleston Classic after leading the Bulldogs to the tournament championship despite Oklahoma State, Seton Hall, Vanderbilt and Miami packing the field. Get to know the name, folks, because a P4 school will break the bank for him next season (unless he decides to transfer, of course).

The attack is not complicated, but it is deadly efficient. They place their shooting guard and small forward on the wing, elevate either the power forward or center to create high ball protection in the middle, and utilize the big man in the “dunker” position on the low block. It’s a simple 4-out basketball, but they execute it perfectly.

If you love the middle ball screen, prepare for your own personal Valhalla because Drake is running it to death. They constantly attack the “1” side of the court (the side with the dunker on the block) and look for an advantage on the back side. They let the wing defenders decide whether they want to mark the jumper or stay with the shooter. When they switch, Stirtz hits the shooter. If they stay, he either tries to score or draws in the defense to get a dunker dump or a shot for himself.

Four of Drake’s five starters played for Coach McCollum at Northwest Missouri State last season. It goes without saying that their offensive continuity is far superior to that of a team cobbled together out of the transfer portal. These guys not only know how to play, but also how to play together. Drake will be patient, complete his sets and not let the shot clock bother him. They expect the defense to make a mistake at some point within the allotted 30 seconds – they don’t care whether that mistake occurs in the first 5 seconds of the shot clock or the last.

As a team, they aren’t particularly good at shooting from behind the arc. This isn’t one of those mid-majors that needs to hit 20 3s to win. However, security guard Mitch Mascari is an assassin from the perimeter. He is currently shooting 50% from 3 on 23-46 and along with Stirtz is making this offense work. They constantly force the defenders to make decisions. Opponents either help Mascari to stop Stirtz and leave one of the best shooters in the country open, or they stick with Mascari and let Stirtz hollow out the defense with straight-line attacks to the basket. It kills teams that rely on help on defense, which is most of college basketball.

My suggestion for the Cats is to make Stirtz a scorer. Don’t get me wrong – he can score. On December 12th he reached 29th place at Valpo and 21st at Miami. Still, that’s better than what he did against Vandy, when he had 16 points and 11 assists. I’d like to see K-State switch the (multiple) middle ball screens, hug Mascari at the rim and see if the Bulldogs can beat you two points at a time. Valpo did just that, giving them a better game than Vandy and Miami – despite a 6-point loss – by playing traditional help defense and allowing Stirtz to both score and set the table for his teammates.

Drake on defense

The Bulldogs are an interesting team. They are slow and methodical on offense and aggressive on defense. Their average time of possession nationally is 362 (the higher the number, the slower the offense), but their average time of possession on defense is 28.

They stay with the shooters and ensure that the teams beat them by two points each. They don’t let teams get into their drive-and-kick game, which relies on defensive rotation. They would rather give up a contested two-pointer than an open three-pointer. You can see that in their defensive strength. The teams are shooting 29% (37th nationally) from behind the arc, but hitting 52% (210th) from beyond the arc.

Another key to the Drake defense is forcing turnovers while limiting assists (you can do this by guarding your own opponent). Miami limited its turnovers to nine, but still couldn’t achieve a positive assist-to-turnover ratio due to only eight assists. Vandy fared worse, turning the ball over 15 times and providing just eight assists. Vandy point guard Jason Edwards scored 26 points but had five turnovers and no assists. Nijel Pack (I can’t believe he still plays college basketball) had a good game against them, scoring 17 points, five assists and only one turnover, but the rest of the Miami team combined for three assists and eight turnovers.

Drake wants to see if your best player is good enough to beat him on his own. Edwards and Pack, despite exceptional individual play, couldn’t do enough to win because Drake was eliminating everyone else.

K-State needs to be smart on offense and wear down the Bulldogs. This is the way forward for the Cats. Drake plays with eight, but their substitutes essentially rotate at two positions (shooting guard and center). Against Miami, Stirtz, Mascari and Abreu played a combined 119 of the possible 120 minutes. If the Cats move the ball and give good looks early in the game to good looks late in the game, they can wear down the Bulldogs. You have to make them work on defense because they will make you work on defense. There’s nothing more demoralizing in basketball than defending for the entirety of the shot, watching one of your teammates take the first available shot on offense, and then having to run around the court on defense for another 30 seconds.

Drake will work to get a great shot on every offensive possession, and they will tempt you to take the first good shot available when you’re on offense. Great shots tend to come quicker than good shots, and the more you make the opposing team play defense, the less they want to play defense.

Another way forward is to get Bennett Stirtz into foul trouble. I would mention this before, but no one has done it this season. He committed three fouls against Miami and three against Valpo, but still managed to play the full 40 minutes in both games. Stirtz has missed a minute of action this season against teams not named York (NE) and St. Ambrose. I’m not sure why he sat on the bench for a full minute against Stephen F. Austin, but he hasn’t done that since. If I were Jerome Tang, I would try to be the first team to bench Stirtz by attacking him in the first half, regardless of who he was guarding. If he’s guarding Hausen (which I think will be the matchup), Hausen needs to put away the 3-point machine gun, put the ball up the court, and see if he can punish Drake’s star. The goal for the first half should be to get Stirtz into foul trouble by any means possible. If he’s not on the court, it’s theoretically a different Drake team, but I can’t say for sure because no one has been able to bench him this season.

In total

I haven’t written much about K-State basketball this season, but I’ve been watching and…ooooof. I’m a connoisseur of good basketball and I enjoyed watching Drake’s film more than anything I’ve seen from K-State this season (against a team with a pulse).

Drake does the little things at an elite level. Meanwhile, the “Cats” don’t know the big things well enough to even talk about the little things.

They have more talent on paper than Drake, but coach Tang has yet to prove he can read his players all from the same book, let alone on the same page. This will be K-State’s fourth game of the season against a team ranked in the KenPom Top 100. They are currently 0-3 in those games. This would be the absolute perfect time for the Wildcats to get their first win of the season, as they have only played top 100 games by the end (Wichita State desperately holds onto the top 100 with 98).

forecast

KenPom

Kansas State – 69

Drake – 67

Drew

Kansas State – 65

Drake – 77

Pessimism is my new optimism. I don’t like this matchup for Kansas State. They are essentially a pickup team playing against a group of guys who have played and won championships together (admitted at the DII level).

My fear is that Drake will frustrate K-State with its offense and the Cats won’t have enough cohesion to avoid falling into the rushing trap on the other end. I hope I’m wrong.