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Going Portaling: Colin Smith
Going Portaling: Colin Smith
Welcome back to the Going Portaling column, where I break down every incoming transfer that Chris Collins brings to Evanston. If you’ve missed the previous iterations, we’ve done Jack Karasinski, Luke McEldon and LA Pratt, which you can find at those links. Some of my guesses on fit from those articles, specifically Karasinski and McEldon, have changed as the roster has filled out, but the majority of the analysis stands.
Today’s edition is UC Santa Barbara graduate transfer wing Colin Smith, who will plug a shooting, size and wing defense hole at either the small forward or power forward position next year for Northwestern. Unfortunately for us all, I couldn’t find a game tape for UCSB to cut film from. I’ve seen some of Smith’s plays, but this will be a number-heavy analysis. The good news is that Smith probably grades out as the best transfer, metrically, that Northwestern has picked up. That gives us a lot of good stuff to work with.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAs always, all stats were pulled from Hoop Explorer and College Basketball Reference.
I want to start on defense because Smith grades out better here than offensively. It doesn’t show up in the box score, where Smith posted just 16 steals and six blocks across 31 starts at UCSB with a fine but not impressive 4.2 rebounds per game. But looking beyond the box score, Smith’s impact is apparent.
Smith earned a luck-adjusted defensive rating of 107.3, a few points better than the nationwide average for a team that finished 30 spots lower than the median defense. He earned a -1.2 defensive regularized adjusted plus-minus (RAPM), which is essentially the defensive half of his 2.8 net rating. Negative is good for defense.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhere he really grades out impressively is in the on/off splits section of Hoop Explorer.
There are a lot of numbers and colors (which we’ll mostly ignore), but I’m going to walk you through what all of this stuff means and why it impresses me so much.
The three sections that each contain two rows are metrics with Smith on the floor, followed by metrics with Smith off the floor and finally Smith’s Same-4 rate stats, meaning lineups with Smith on/off, where the other four players on the floor are the same, to account for the fact that on/off splits don’t take into account other lineup changes. All the numbers in the Same-4 rows are differences between when he’s on and when he’s off. And as astute eyes have caught by now, the top row of each section is the offensive rates and the bottom row is defense.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe first number that jumps out is the on/off difference in Adjusted Points Allowed per 100 possessions, which is 9.9 points better with Smith on the floor, and 9.1 points better using Same-4 numbers. That is a noticeable, tangible impact on the opponent’s ability to score the basketball that Smith brings to the floor. He’s a long, versatile wing who can guard anyone on the floor, and while he doesn’t juice the turnover rates for the opposition a ton, he can stay in front of his man and make shots more difficult. He’s very solid in help and covers the floor well.
While the end goal is to improve points allowed, it takes more than that to establish why Smith is good defensively. For that, we can start with the Four Factors. The Four Factors, which are the next four columns and include effective field goal percentage, turnover rate, offensive rebound rate and free throw rate, are widely used by the smartest minds in college basketball for analyzing why teams win basketball games. Effective field goal percentage is simple: if you make more shots, you’re going to win more games. Offensive rebound and turnover rates both seek to establish the same idea: If you take more shots, you’re going to win more games. Teams that have high OREB and TO forced rates, and/or teams that allow few OREBs and don’t turn the ball over, take more shots per game, which allows that team a higher margin of error for actually making said shots. Free throw rate captures a team’s ability to get to the line and earn easy points, ones that don’t show up in effective field goal percentage or the field goals attempted column. Taken together, they’re a reliable recipe for winning.
Looking at Smith’s Four Factors, we can see that he’s in the green in all four categories in the defensive row of the Same-4 grouping. UCSB allowed an eFG% two points worse, forced more turnovers, grabbed more defensive rebounds and fouled much less when Smith was on the floor. He was a stabilizing force for the Gauchos and he allowed their defensive system to operate much more effectively.
Further along the columns, the other notable numbers lie in the 2p% for opponents. When Smith was on the floor, opposing players actually shot better from three-point land, but struggled mightily at the rim (5% worse, 3.6 points worse using Same-4) and from two overall. Luckily for Northwestern’s sake, two-point numbers are a lot less volatile year-over-year. It’s not as if Northwestern is getting a good defender who benefited from a lot of missed threes against him. On the contrary, he actually suffered from slightly bad luck as a defender, and his solid 2-point defense numbers should carry over.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWe’ll use the same chart for offense, which I’ll paste again below so you don’t need to keep scrolling up and back. I’m also adding his basic individualized offensive numbers and play style, which can give us some valuable insight into what he does well.
Smith actually gets more of his RAPM from the offensive side of the ball than on defense, but it could be attributed to UCSB being an offense-first squad. However, the mostly green row is encouraging nonetheless. It starts with Smith’s best skill and most translatable one: his three-point shooting. The 6-foot-8 wing took 48.1% of his shots from three and knocked down over 40%. All 47 threes that Smith made were assisted, speaking to a guy who doesn’t need the ball in his hands to be effective and will knock down the passes thrown his way. The midrange shooting is a concern, as he took about a quarter of his shots there but made under 29%. However, if he can continue past the midrange and to the rim, Smith is dynamite as a cutter and rim attacker, finishing amongst the top 200 players in rim field goal percentage at 68.7%.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementGoing back to the on/off splits, there are a few telling numbers to me. The first is looking at 3Pr compared to 3p%. With Smith off the floor, UCSB shot 6% more threes but made 3% fewer as a team. They also got to the rim as a team 3.8% less often. Using the Same-4 numbers, the 3Pr is up 3.4 points while the 3p% is down 3.3%, with the rim rate still dropping by 2.5. The numbers are telling. When Smith didn’t play, UCSB struggled with spacing, making it harder to get to the rim and forcing more threes to go up. Instead of being drive-and-kick open looks to one of the best shooters on the team, the Gauchos were forced to launch contested off-the-dribble treys that went in much less frequently. Smith, even though he’s not on the ball often, opens up the floor for others and hits shots at an elite rate when the defense collapses.
Smith is an exemplary fit in the roster at its current iteration. Northwestern struggled to shoot the ball last year and couldn’t contain bigger players. Smith brings both to the table without taking the ball away from Jake West and Karasinski, who should be the team’s most dynamic scorers. He isn’t an exceptionally talented movement shooter, so Collins may not run a lot of sets for him, but he will draw defenders further away from the paint and give Northwestern a strong body to finish cuts inside. His play style shows a guy whose most frequent offensive involvement came on catch-and-shoot attempts, cuts and second-chance opportunities. Very infrequently, if ever, will Smith insist on a dribble jumper, a post-up, or any other sort of plodding action that puts the ball in his hands. He should be a great connector for a roster that feels more cohesive than last year’s.
On the defensive end, Smith should effectively be Karasinski’s insurance. The Wildcats brought in the high-scoring forward from Bellarmine to be one of their most important offensive pieces next year, but Karasinski was one of the worst defenders on the worst defensive team in the country last year. Smith allows Karasinski to hide, per se, on defense and guard the least impactful front-court piece without Northwestern having to sacrifice offensive talent in ways they often did by playing a guy like Justin Mullins. Smith feels like a favorite to start at this point and could very well end up being a linchpin that makes the whole thing work.