39 Days Until KU Basketball: Ranking The Rotation: #9 Dwight Coleby

Dwight Coleby transferred from Mississippi after playing 10.4 minutes and 16.5 minutes per game in his first two seasons at the school. However, a quick peek at his tempo free stats reveals he probably didn’t play much at least in part because Mississippi’s coaching staff didn’t know what the hell they were doing.

Coleby’s freshman year was fairly nondescript, but in his sophomore year the 6-9 native of the Bahamas really broke out in SEC play. Coleby posted a 120 offensive rating to rank 7th in the league, shot 50.7 percent from two, had a 12.6 percent offensive rebound rate (7th), a 20.1 defensive rebounding rate (9th), a very low turnover rate (11 percent, 3rd) and was a good interior defender as well (6.5 block percentage, 6th). To top it off, Coleby has been compared to Thomas Robinson physique wise.

So why isn’t he much higher on this list? For starters, it is notable he saw his playing time decrease in SEC play despite his fantastic numbers (although, again, that could be just a matter of not fitting the system), and doing it in the SEC is a lot different than doing it in the Big 12.

Finally, Coleby shredded his knee last year and had to miss an entire year of practice. That, coupled with the fact that Bill Self said he was only at about 80 percent right now, makes it tough to put Coleby higher than this.

Coleby attempted a close to a team high 53 percent of his field goals at the rim in his sophomore season at Mississippi, and showed the ability to step out and shoot it as well, shooting roughly 35 percent from the midrange. If Coleby hits his ceiling at KU, I think it is as a better defensively Tarik Black (with less foul trouble, hopefully). Black was very efficient inside the arc, shooting 70 percent, and on a percentage basis was the 2nd best rebounder on the team after Joel Embiid. Coleby looks like he could play with both Bragg and Lucas, although probably fits better as a rim protector to back up Bragg or give Lightfoot/Azubuike some veteran cover at the rim. If he can get to 100 percent after his injury, this ranking will look woefully low.