Torvik's site is great in my opinion, he pretty much nailed ECU's finish 2 seasons ago, but last year was off pretty heavily. This season his projections are pretty interesting. He already has the projections up and has ECU ranked 125th going into next season. That's a pretty generous ranking for a team that can't shoot at all.
2023-24 Projections (8th AAC)
Digging into his own numbers shows how he believes this improvement would happen.
ECU was 227th in Adjusted offense and 157th in Adjusted Defense last year by his own metrics which were already much higher than the raw finishes. He has those numbers improving to 138th and 118th respectively in his adjusted projections for next season.
The offense making a near 100 spot jump is the one I would be most skeptical on, but even the defense improving by replacing Debaut's minutes with freshman is hard to really expect. If he had Ausar or Johnson making massive jumps then perhaps it would be easier to see, but these are his individual projections.
Of course, a lot of this changes if Hayes doesn't get his waiver. As you can see he's projected as one of the best players, and I believe he is the best nonbig on the team. I don't see his case given the new NCAA wavier release for him getting to play immediately. I think the NCAA is going to crack down more this year.
If you subtract Hayes the projected ranking drops to 139th.
What ECU does have going for it is returning 79% of its minutes. It appears like at least this first year of the process that has mostly worked. There is still a ways to go to graduate these players and call it a success, but so far pretty good. What I don't see is a lot of help that was added outside of the one guy that is the most questionable to even play. Zero improvements on one of the worst outside shooting teams in the nation (315th), and even by Torviks own projections little help replacing Debaut's 12 minutes a game and strong defensive impact.
Torvik even has Ausar as an under 20 minute a game player. If that's the case this is a team that's really playing small next season, which makes that defensive projection more questionable. Maybe that's even fair considering Ausar is coming off a major surgery. That alone made the need to go into the portal and get proven players, especially in the post more important than two high schooler. Maybe it's even fair considering Ausar only played 22 minutes a game. I would expect him to play more.
Playing with the Roster
Hayes is clearly a positive, if he isn't able to play that's detrimental. What's interesting is if you subtract Pettiford and add no one the team actually improves to 117th from 125th.
The option to add players like Justin Wright is there but doesn't work for some reason. Torvik has him projected as averaging 13ppg, 4rpg with a 2.6 PRPG which would be nearly the best on ECU's team. It's unfortunate we can't plug in some of those players as tradeoffs and see where ECU would be projected then. Pretty clearly much better over players like Pettiford and LaCount.
You can still add available transfers. A pretty fair stand in is probably Kam Woods from NC A&T who ECU was reportedly in contact with at one point. It doesn't seem like he has great options, and would have been realistic. When you swap him for Pettiford the team improves to 118th. Unfortunately, when you swap him for LaCount the team gets worse, mostly because the model takes even more minutes away from Ausar for some weird reason. 14 minutes a game. If we could set the minutes I think we could get to something more realistic.
To adjust for that we'll trade a whole block of players and see what comes up. Here is a pretty realistic group of transfers that are still left in the portal I think ECU could have landed.
Kam Woods NC A&T
Kam Woods College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
Jay Pal Campbell
Jay Pal College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
Elijah Hawkins Howard
Elijah Hawkins College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
These three are at least similar type of transfers to what I think ECU could have gotten given all the pool that have already committed to mid majors so we'll pick similar level of players.
These are Torvik's above PRPG Points Over Replacement stat which is pretty good. These are his projections next season. Brandon Johnson is #1 at ECU at 3.0
1.7 Bobby Pettiford Jr.
1.1 Quentin Diboundje
0.5 Kalib LaCount
0.2 Benjamin Bayela
0.2 Cyr Malonga
2.8 Kamar Robertson- Western Carolina
2.6 Justin Wright- Loyola Marymount
2.3 Toneari Lane - Georgia State
2.0 Tahlik Chavez - La Tech
1.7 David Craig - Tennessee Tech
Trading those three for Pettiford, LaCount and Malonga takes ECU from 125th to 100th in his model. That's with none of them projected as major players. Just quality depth surrounding the already key players in his model.
If you want to get real crazy adding the three best players left in the portal (Rayj Dennis, Jordan Dingle, Isaac Jones instead that still only gets you to 100. That's because they take some of the minutes of already productive players. I think the guys I offered up actually would fit very well and would improve ECU.
There was still room to improve the team with just a few spots and insulate itself from injuries or Hayes not getting a waiver.
We'll keep the three above and add some more realistic type of players and see what we can do adding a couple more.
Kam Woods NC A&T
Jay Pal Campbell
Elijah Hawkins Howard
Greg Dolan Cornell
Greg Dolan College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
Daniel Deaver Navy
Daniel Deaver College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
| PLAYER | YR | HT | MINS | ORTG | USAGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RJ Felton | Jr | 6-3 | 81 | 106 | 22 |
| Brandon Johnson | Jr | 6-8 | 77 | 114 | 19 |
| Greg Dolan | Sr | 6-3 | 70 | 118 | 17 |
| Jaden Walker | Sr | 6-5 | 67 | 101 | 18 |
| Cam Hayes | Sr | 6-2 | 62 | 113 | 21 |
| Kam Woods | Jr | 6-2 | 52 | 102 | 21 |
| Daniel Deaver | Sr | 6-8 | 36 | 105 | 24 |
| Ezra Ausur | So | 6-9 | 30 | 104 | 22 |
| Jay Pal | Sr | 6-9 | 17 | 115 | 16 |
| Elijah Hawkins | Jr | 5-11 | 9 | 103 | 22 |
That got it up to 89th. We'll see where they end up but all of those were realistic type of gets at this point. Gets or at least a prototype of what should have been able to get looking around at what the mid-majors have landed.
Even without Hayes it would still be 89th. A group like that insulates the team from injury or attrition because you know they are deep.
| PLAYER | YR | HT | MINS | ORTG | USAGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RJ Felton | Jr | 6-3 | 81 | 106 | 22 |
| Brandon Johnson | Jr | 6-8 | 78 | 114 | 19 |
| Greg Dolan | Sr | 6-3 | 70 | 118 | 17 |
| Jaden Walker | Sr | 6-5 | 67 | 101 | 18 |
| Kam Woods | Jr | 6-2 | 60 | 102 | 21 |
| Daniel Deaver | Sr | 6-8 | 49 | 105 | 24 |
| Ezra Ausur | So | 6-9 | 36 | 104 | 22 |
| Jay Pal | Sr | 6-9 | 31 | 115 | 15 |
| Elijah Hawkins | Jr | 5-11 | 18 | 103 | 22 |
| Quentin Diboundje | Jr | 6-5 | 10 | 107 | 19 |
That group could even take the loss of Ausar and Hayes and still be projected top 100 in his model.
| PLAYER | YR | HT | MINS | ORTG | USAGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RJ Felton | Jr | 6-3 | 81 | 106 | 22 |
| Brandon Johnson | Jr | 6-8 | 78 | 114 | 19 |
| Greg Dolan | Sr | 6-3 | 70 | 118 | 18 |
| Jaden Walker | Sr | 6-5 | 67 | 101 | 19 |
| Kam Woods | Jr | 6-2 | 60 | 102 | 21 |
| Daniel Deaver | Sr | 6-8 | 49 | 105 | 24 |
| Jay Pal | Sr | 6-9 | 36 | 115 | 16 |
| Elijah Hawkins | Jr | 5-11 | 31 | 103 | 23 |
| Quentin Diboundje | Jr | 6-5 | 18 | 107 | 19 |
| Benjamin Bayela | Sr | 6-6 | 10 | 100 | 16 |
His rostercast model is a little clunky not allowing minutes to be adjusted, and I think he's a little high overall on the prospects but it's pretty fun. Overall what I do agree with him on is a minimal positive impact from Pettiford, LaCount, or Pinedo. There was certainly a block that could have been improved there. Their are still players that are available that could do it and are realistic. If Hayes can't play that's going to be a big problem if/when it elevates the roles of Pettiford and LaCount. If Ausar doesn't start the season 100% leaning on Pinedo or freshman more becomes a problem too. More that was even know before last week.
