Kenau Continues to Tear It Up!!

[Minnesota Ute]

I was a little surprised after his performance against Arizona not to see much of him in the first half. I’m not sure how much he played, but once again Keller was the first big off the bench. I am still trying to figure that one out, as it apparently wasn’t just a Craig Smith thing. But it seemed like he played most of the second half and ended up with 23 minutes total. Not nearly as much as I would like to see and what he deserves. Pull Keller’s 11 minutes and give it to him and he’d have 34 minutes and much more productivity as Keller continues to provide a negative BPM week after week with limited Game Score, and Offensive & Defensive ratings that are near the bottom. But I digress, as this isn’t about Zach.

Keanu in his 23 minutes delivered 6 of 9 (67%) from the field, 3 of 4 from the line for 15 points along with 11 rebounds including 3 offensive boards, 4 assists, 1 steal and 1 block. He did have 2 turnovers but so did Ezra and Gabe, but otherwise it was a pretty clean game. His Game Score was a whopping 16.5, just behind Mike at 16.7 and Ezra at 18.9. BUT his BPM is 12.3, behind Mason at 16.8 and Mike at a stellar 20.1. While Ezra’s BPM was 4.3 good for 6th place behind Lawson and Erickson.

Now you could argue that since Ezra started and played 29 minutes with the majority of those minutes in the first half that ASU had fresh legs and Keanu just had the opportunity to mop them up. But to that I’d say that on the season, he is first in Defensive Rating at 98.9 and also first in Offensive Rating at 131.8 (I’m not counting any players that don’t actually play). By comparison, Ezra’s numbers are 103.5 (lower is better, he is 4th) and 109.3 (higher is better, he is 7th), respectively. Hell you could make a strong argument that Ezra & Keanu should be starting together because Lawson’s ratings are worse in both categories.

However, ORtg & DRtg are stat based measurements, they don’t entirely measure the impact you have on the floor if you are someone who does the little things that don’t show up in a stat line. The stat that does a better job of this is the BPM, and for that Keanu is again #1 at 8.2, ahead of Mason at 5.6, Jake at 4.8, and Lawson at 4.5. We find Ezra way down in 7th place at 3.1.

I know I’m sounding like a broken record, but I just don’t quite understand why he isn’t consistently over 30 min per game. Yeah he had 3 fouls, but if aren’t stating him, and are already content on him playing him 20 to 25 min per game, why would you be worried about his foul count.

I know it sounds like I’m complaining after a blowout win, but realistically I am very concerned that Keanu will leave, and I think you can make a very compelling argument that he is at the top of the list of players you don’t want to lose. I put Ezra up there too, but for some reason I have the feeling that he is gone regardless and there is nothing we can do about it.

[Yergensen]

Mason Madsen is the other beneficiary of the coaching change.

In the 2 games since the change KD has averaged 16.5 ppg and 10.5 rpg. MM has averaged 9.5 ppg.

You and I had called out Smith here for grossly underutilizing these 2, primarily because they led the team in BPM or productivity, yet were in bottom half of team minutes.

Goes to show that coaches have blind spots or even principles that they’ll die on a hill for and while there were much bigger reasons for Smith losing the job, some not his fault, his inexplicable rotations and underuse of talent didn’t help him.

[Minnesota Ute]

I’ve never understood the blind spot. I’ve relayed on this board many times how that touched my family with my son’s high school career. Coincidentally, when I saw Robbie Benson in last week’s episode of Severance, it reminded me of the movie One on One a 1977 classic basketball movie where the dickhead college coach essentially blackballs Henry Steele, a small town basketball star who he thinks is too big for his britches. Even more coincidentally, my son that had all the issues middle name is Steele (after one of my great uncles).

I would have some more sympathy if the numbers were even a little bit questionable, but at least for Keanu, whenever he gets the minutes, he puts up the production.

[Ute Dub]

Box Plus Minus = BPM. I had to look that one up. More commonly, I’m used to seeing Plus/Minus.

[Roy Rangum]

My brother in law goes to church with Keanu’s grandma. And he told me that his grandma was saying that Keanu was unhappy with Smith and was indeed thinking of leaving if there wasn’t a coaching change.

That said – hopefully now that we have a coaching change we can convince Keanu and others to stick around.

[TomahawkCruise]

I would say KD is priority #1 this coming off season. It’s clear that he offers the most upside and is a very talented player.

Thankfully, he’s getting more time now that Smith is gone – and if they hire Jensen for HC I can’t see how KD could possibly leave with such incredible excitement coming in like that. Especially, as it’s been said again and again, because he grew up a massive Runnin Utes fan.

If the coaching situation improves, as there’s every reason to believe it will, and he’s satisfied NIL wise, which there’s every reason to believe he will be, there will be no danger of losing KD to another program.

[AZUTE]

It’s gonna take more than a coaching change to keep him around. He’s gonna want and deserves a significant raise for next season.

Thankfully IF they hire Jensen there will be significant funds to hopefully keep him around.

He’s gonna get some serious offers in the off season.

[Minnesota Ute]

Isn’t that an interesting irony…

On one hand, kid was struggling to get off the bench for Craig.

On the other hand, he is pretty much in our top 3, if not our top guy, that we want to retain for next year and will be getting significant offers from other programs.

Maybe Craig was just stupid?

[Author]

Posts