Image and Style present The Effy: the slightest equivocal and least prestigious postseason awards in college basketball. Each award depends on proficiency or other advanced metrics. No voting—just analytics. Part I of The Effy covered coaching awards. Part II covered offense. Part III, beneath, covers defense. Victors based on a mix of individual and team analytics, as individual data once in a while recounts the whole story of a defender’s image.
Effy Defensive Team of the Regular Season: Gonzaga
The Zags drove the country in balanced defensive proficiency, permitting 0.863 points per possession, and they were sufficiently miserly in the marquee, non-conference games and the NCAA tournament to quiet any individual who asserted their defensive analytics were overinflated by West Coast Conference blowouts. They played 88.8% man-to-man, utilized a 2-3 zone as an effective changeup and once in a while applied full-court pressure. Gonzaga flourished to a limited extent, since it generally had a world class edge defender at center, regardless of whether it was 7’1″ Polish goliath Przemek Karnowski (who remained vertical and adjusted shots) or his backup slender, one-and-done 7-footer Zach Collins (who exceeded expectations at the art of the cover square).
The flexibility of power forward Johnathan Williams III enabled them to switch 1-4, and in addition, relegate him to watch first class wing scorers. The Zags’ restrained pick-and-roll scope and their emphasis on restricting three-point attempts constrained opponents into a lot of terrible, challenged jumpers. It was no fluke that they positioned No. 1 broadly in powerful field goal rate permitted. Their three-guard lineups—with a blend of the 6’3″ Nigel Williams-Goss and Josh Perkins, and the 6’4″ Jordan Mathews and Silas Melson—sufficiently contained size to abstain from running into crisscrosses on the wings. Some of Mark Few’s past Gonzaga teams had extraordinary scorers who were suspect defenders—Kyle Wiltjer and Adam Morrison being the prime examples — however, this was a squad with no glaring defensive liabilities.
Effy Defensive Team of the NCAA Tournament (minimum four games played): Gonzaga
The Zags completed with the top balanced defensive proficiency rating of the standard season and the NCAAs. Over their six competition games, they permitted a balanced 0.837 PPP; national champ North Carolina came in second, at 0.874 PPP. It was a smidgen dreamlike to see Few—a mentor who, when Morrison Fever was at its crest in ’05-06, managed the country’s 170th positioned D—storm into the 2017 competition with such a forceful defense. In the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, individually, Gonzaga held West Virginia and Xavier to their second-most noticeably awful offensive exhibitions of the whole season. What’s more, in the title game, the Zags turned into the main group to hold North Carolina to under 1.000 PPP (at 0.961) in March or April. Collins’ rim protection and Williams III’s flexibility were their greatest weapons through the span of the NCAAs.
Defensive All-Effy Team: The Elite Eight Forwards/Centers (least half of minutes played)
Jordan Bell, 6’9″ junior PF/C, Oregon
The eight shots he swatted in the Elite Eight against Kansas launch him into Twitter memedom, yet Bell’s defensive esteem was about more than pieces. He was the only significant major-conference player this season with a defensive-board rate of over 20.0 (he was 21.8), a block rate over 8.0 (8.4) and a steal rate over 2.0 (2.6).
Ben Lammers, 6’10” junior, Georgia Tech
A master of rim protecting without drawing shrieks, Lammers completed 21st broadly in block rate (at 9.9) yet No. 1 in blocks for every foul (at 1.47. His interior D is the most compelling motivation; the Yellow Jackets challenged ACC-basement desires and made a run to the NIT finals.
Reggie Lynch, 6’10” junior., Minnesota
It’s no extend to call Lynch the absolute best shot-blocker in college hoops. He positioned No. 1 broadly in block rate in each of his two seasons at Illinois State, in ’13-14 and ’14-15, and after that was No. 2 (at 14.5%) in his presentation year with the Gophers. Their barrier was a full tenth of a point for each possession better when he was on the floor (0.92 PPP) than when he was sitting (1.02 PPP).
Przemek Karnowski, 7’0″ senior., Gonzaga
Big Shem was an under-the-radar, world class defender who needed noteworthy blov=ck details however idealized the craft of the vertical, space-eating shot-challenge. Zags rivals shot only 39.5% on twos when he was on the floor, and he helped them rank No. 1 in overall in effectiveness. (His backup, Zach Collins, was a more customary rim defender who would’ve been in thought for this list, on the off chances that he hadn’t fallen beneath the 50mins threshold.)
Tacko Fall, 7’6″ sophomore., UCF
The Golden Knights’ defense was worked to channel drivers toward the incomprehensibly tall fall, and they held rivals to only 39.9% on twos—the most reduced rate in the country. Fall’s blocks were likewise held by UCF (instead of being offensive-rebounded) 67.7% of the time, which was the best rate of any of the country’s top 20 shot-blockers.
Ethan Happ, 6’10” sophomore, Wisconsin
His uncommon mix of turnover-creation and glass-cleaning helped the Badgers rank No. 9 broadly in balanced defensive effectiveness. The main other significant conference frontcourt player in the previous decade, with rates of no less than 20/4/4 in defensive boards/squares/steals (Happ had 25.4/4.7/4.0), was Colorado power forward Andre Roberson in ’12-13— after which he was chosen in the first round of the NBA draft by the Thunder.
Mikal Bridges, 6’7″ sophomore, Villanova
He’s not a great frontcourt fellow, but rather respecting Bridges here on the grounds that he’s one of the country’s ideal, 1-5 switchable defenders. He went up against a hefty portion of their most imperative, border defended assignments, and he filled in as the leader of their 1-2-2 press, yet when he was called upon to defend contradicting posts, his hustle and length made up for the Wildcats’ absence of interior height. Extensions was a fundamental piece of them positioning No. 12 in balanced proficiency, regardless of playing a portion of the smallest lineups of any world class group.
Isaiah Wilkins, 6’7″ junior., Virginia
The Cavaliers’ D took a recognizable hit when he became ill—first with strep throat, then “mono-like side effects”— in late February and early March, restricting him to only five minutes of playing time in the NCAAs. Preceding that, Wilkins was a high-affect frontcourt defender. Part time at the 4 and 5 spots, he gave a comparable (yet lesser) mix of defensive boards, blocks, steals and deflections as Bell did, while helping Virginia rank No. 2 broadly in balanced defensive effectiveness.
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