Bill Self looking for more from Kansas’ bench

In KU’s 95-67 drubbing of Missouri, the bench only contributed 9 points (3 of those from Michael Jankovich) in 41 minutes. Four of the starters played 32+ minutes despite being in control of the game most of the way. Clearly Self doesn’t trust his bench.

https://247sports.com/college/kansas/Video/Bill-Self-looking-for-more-from-Kansas-bench-11512994/

KU’s bench has not been great, to put it mildly. The starting 5 has all had big moments in the team’s 9-1 start, but little production has come from the reserves. Sure, there are moments. Bobby Pettiford’s put-back reverse lay-up to beat Wisconsin comes to mind. But those were his only points of the game. M.J. Rice showed some great skill with his recent 19 point game, but that came against an overmatched Texas Southern squad (currently #253 on KenPom). He hasn’t been solid against the better teams on the schedule. Joe Yesufu is having a better season than last year, but he is clearly still playing at a level below the starters at the guard/wing positions. The various bigs have shown some skill, but nothing consistent enough to earn minutes. One game Udeh looks good, the other he doesn’t. And so on down the line.

Without further ado, I decided to rank the benches at KU by season. Before doing so I made some predictions on who would be the worst. My prediction was that the 2023 team will be second-worst, behind the 2012 team. But I also wanted to find out which benches were the best, and how 2023 compares to historic norms. To quantify this, a few rules are put in place. First, the main five starters will be deemed the starters, while anyone else is a bench player. Starting rotations can fluctuate, but for basically all seasons a starting 5 will emerge for Self during February and into March. Second, the quantitative measure will be total bench WAR over total team games played. This is to normalize the metric by number of games. Third, to make the number stand out better, we will convert it to a 36-game schedule. Last, the time period will be the Self-era (2004 through 2023). 20 seasons is good enough.

Results:

*The 2019 team lost Azubuike (to injury) in early January and Vick (personal reasons) in early February. Still, the starting 5 was clearly those 5 before these issues arose, so despite starting at the end of the year, guys like Agbaji and McCormack are considered “bench players.”

**The 2015 team lost Alexander (to eligibility) at the end of the year, and Lucas was the starter into March. Traylor actually made more starts than Lucas, but down-the-stretch it was Lucas as the starter. Traylor and Alexander are considered “bench players” for this exercise.

With the caveats out of the way, the Norm. column is what we want to focus on. It shows, per a 36-game schedule, how much bench value was provided that season. The average KU team provides 1.59 WAR off the bench over the course of 36 games. Most benches provide positive WAR on the season (14/20 or 70%). We see trends, with Self having better benches during the early years. The next chart will be the same as above, just sorted from best to worst.

My initial projections on the worst benches were close. The 2023 team has had the worst bench in the last 20 years, however this is only after 10 games. Expect this number to trend closer to 0 as Self continues to be more selective in who he plays. The 2004 team had the second-worst bench. The best bench player that year was a partial-starter in David Padgett. Others off the bench that season were Michael Lee, Bryant Nash, Jeff Hawkins, Christian Moody, and Moulaye Niang. Not a lot of great choices there.

The 2012 team is the team which had the most success while having a negative-value bench. The national runners-up relied heavily on the starting 5. Bench guys like Conner Teahan and Kevin Young provided small, positive WAR, but the others (Tharpe, Wesley, and the walk-ons) caused that number to drop below zero.

On the flip side, both the 2007 and 2008 teams had tremendous benches. The 2008 National Champions played essentially 7 starters. Collins and Kaun had great seasons off the bench and would have been starters almost anywhere else around the country. Even the 8^th and 9^th men on that team (Rodrick Stewart, Aldrich) added value. 2007 was similar, with Collins coming off the bench. In addition, posts Arthur and Jackson (who would win starting roles that following year) played great as reserves.

Getting back to 2023. The player with the most value off the bench is Michael Jankovich, who has scored 8 points on 3-4 shooting in 13 minutes. This is a far cry from say, the 2011 bench, which had T-Rob and Mario Little filling in nicely for the Morris twins.

If the 2023 bench doesn’t show signs of improvement, Self will likely rely on his starters even more. K.J. Adams, despite playing out of position, has given KU five consecutive above-bubble performances (and 7/10 this year) as he has settled into a non-traditional 5-man role. Kevin McCullar’s last two games have been his best on the season, and his offense and defense have started to fit in nicely to what KU wants to do. Jalen Wilson, Gradey Dick, and Dejuan Harris have been consistently solid. It’s apparent when any of those guys are off the court, so I expect them to play around 35 minutes each in close games, leaving little time for their backups.

Last, here is the WAR for the 2023 team. The top 5 are starters, below that, the bench: