BYU-Kansas State talk might be focused on wrong matchup
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Everybody wants to know how second-seeded Kansas State will stop BYU's Jimmer Fredette in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday. Jimmer, Jimmer, Jimmer. That's all you hear around the Ford Center. Jimmer had 49 earlier this season against Arizona. Jimmer had 45 against TCU. Jimmer had 37 on Thursday against Florida.
How will Kansas State stop Jimmer?
And I get that. Shoot, I'm more than a little guilty of the Jimmer-hype myself. Media members at the Oklahoma City are still giving me a hard time about revving up the Jimmer Fredette bandwagon with my story on Wednesday, and with my incessant tweeting about Jimmer before tipoff Thursday. And then Fredette went out and lit up Florida in BYU's double-overtime victory.
And he did it so bizarrely. Yes, Fredette can shoot from distances of 25 feet, and he makes his free throws, but he scores in some weird ways. Fredette isn't terribly explosive, and at 6-feet-2 he plays far below the rim, yet he scores heavily from point-blank range. It's baffling.
So how is Kansas State going to stop the guard from BYU?
That's the question around here, and it's a relevant question. But I have another one.
How is BYU going to stop the guards from Kansas State?
They're awfully good, these guards from Kansas State. Maybe BYU can stop them. Maybe not. Probably not -- and I say that intending no disrespect to BYU. I say that only because very few teams have been able to stop Kansas State guards Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente. And frankly, given BYU's particular backcourt personnel, it's difficult to imagine the Cougars would be among the first.
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We'll get to BYU's particular personnel in a second, but first, some more words about Kansas State's guards. They're good, maybe great. Have I already said that? Pullen averages 18.8 points per game, and Clemente comes in at 16.2 ppg, but in the last month, Clemente has averaged more like 18. He's playing his best basketball right now, and that's when BYU has to stop him. Right now.
BYU might want to wear track shoes onto the court Saturday, because Clemente is a sprinter. Kansas State coach Frank Martin says Clemente has been timed from one foul line to the opposite baseline -- a distance of about 80 feet -- in 2.6 seconds. And that's while he's dribbling the ball.
"Fastest I've ever seen," Martin said.
If the Cougars have faced a player with this much speed, I'd like to know who. BYU guard Jackson Emery was telling me Friday that UTEP's Randy Culpepper compares to Clemente. He was telling me that Arizona's Nic Wise compares to Clemente. All due respect to Emery ... but he's nuts. Or at the very least, he's wrong. The foot speed of those guys doesn't compare to the foot speed of Clemente, and nobody else on the BYU schedule compares either. I have the BYU schedule, and Kentucky (John Wall) isn't on there. Neither is Wake Forest (Ishmael Smith). Nor is Jamaica (Usain Bolt).
Speed is Clemente's shtick. He's a decent shooter, hitting 34 percent of his 3-pointers -- including a 3-for-7 day from distance in Kansas State's first-round victory against North Texas -- but his best weapon is his speed. Turnovers and even defensive rebounds become layups for Clemente.
"He's so fast with the ball," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "He can get from one end of the court to the other as quick as anybody. We're going to have to devote a secondary defender to try to slow him down somehow, and that causes problems."
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| Jacob Pullen might not be blazing fast, but he's still a lethal threat. (US Presswire) |
"Ideally I'll gap him -- give him enough room that he can't blow by me," Emery said. "But if I give him too much room, he'll shoot right over me and he can make those shots. Ideally I'll find the happy medium."
Ideally, yes. He will. But realistically? Realistically Emery will have to back off Clemente and hope the Kansas State guard isn't shooting like he did against Iowa State (6-for-8 on 3-pointers) or Nebraska (5-for-9) or Oklahoma (5-for-9) or Dayton (4-for-6) or ...
And that's just Clemente. The other guard, Pullen, is Kansas State's leading scorer. Pullen isn't a speedster like Clemente, but he has good quickness -- certainly more quickness than Jimmer Fredette, whose forte is not, shall we say, his foot speed. BYU's lack of quickness on the perimeter is the biggest reason Rose often uses a zone defense. Against a Kansas State team that makes nine 3-pointers per game, that could be a fatal strategy.
While Clemente is a jet, Pullen is more of a tank -- strong at 6-0, 200 pounds, both a better shooter on 3-pointers (38.3 percent) and a better driver than Clemente. With 228 foul shots, Pullen has gone to the line 104 times more than Clemente, and Pullen makes 80.7 percent of his attempts.
So what will BYU do to stop Pullen? Don't know, but it better not be what Alabama did. Pullen had 30 against the Tide. He had 28 against Texas Tech and UNLV, 27 against Iowa State and 26 against Dayton and Baylor. He also had games with 25, 23, 22, 21 and 20. He never scored less than double digits, and if he comes back to Kansas State for his senior season, he will almost certainly reach 2,000 career points.
And Clemente is the hotter one.
All of this is a moot point, probably, if Jimmer Fredette hangs 40 on Kansas State. And if you're expecting me to announce right here and now that he can't do that, forget it. He can, and he just might. And if Michael Loyd Jr., who stunned Florida with 26 points, does that again vs. Kansas State ... well, like I said. All of this could be moot.
But the story today out of Oklahoma City is Jimmer, Jimmer, Jimmer, and what Kansas State can do to stop him. I'm just telling you, there's a flip side to that story: What can BYU do to stop Pullen and Clemente?
Can they do anything?
Sounds to me like BYU has a strategy: wishful thinking. Let Fredette explain.
"They can get to the basket," Fredette said of Pullen and Clemente. "They push it hard in transition, as hard as anybody in the country, and we've got to stop their transition and get out to them when they shoot the ball. And hopefully they'll miss."
