Ranking the Big 12 Point Guards

Kevin Flaherty of 247 Sports tweeted this morning about how good point guard play has been in the Big 12 this year, which was something I had thought about in the past couple weeks as well, so I thought hey I’ll turn a tweet into a post and everyone likes lists. For the record I am using KenPom’s lineup data when determining who a point guard is. All other stats are from T-Rank.

1. Trae Young, Oklahoma

Young has been nothing short of outstanding and is the favorite for national player of the year. His usage rate is almost at 40 and his offensive rating is still at 126.9. He’s great. Far from just a scorer, he leads the nation in assist rate. He’s struggled defensively but that’s sort of like saying your supermodel girlfriend gave you a Porsche instead of a Bugatti.

2. Devonte Graham, Kansas

Graham has had a comparable season this year to Frank Mason last year, with a usage rate roughly 1 percent lower and an offensive rating roughly 1 point higher. His assist rate is more than double his turnover rate, and after a slow start he’s shooting 44 percent from three.

3. Jevon Carter, West Virginia

Carter lags behind a couple other point guards lower than him on the list in offensive rating (119.5), but he’s third in the league in assist rate and the fact that he’s the best perimeter defender in the conference means I can’t rank him any lower than 3.

4. Keenan Evans, Texas Tech

Evans is a strong defender as well, and even though he’s more of a scorer than distributor, with an assist rate under 25 percent, his low turnover rate (14 percent) makes that matter less.

5. Jaylen Fisher, TCU

It’s wild that a guy with an assist rate of 31.7 percent and an offensive rating of 121.5 is barely in the top half of point guards in a conference, but here we are. Fisher is also the only point guard other than Young shooting over 50 percent from two and 40 percent from three.

6. Nick Babb, Iowa State

Babb was lower on my original list, thanks to the lowest usage of all the starting point guards in the league, but he has the second highest assist rate in the league and is the best rebounding point guard in the league with a defensive rebound rate nearing 20 percent.

7. Kamau Stokes, Kansas State

Stokes has rebounded from a tough 2017 season, posting a 118 offensive rating thus far this season. He still struggles to shoot inside the arc (43 percent), but he’s cut his turnover rate from 22 percent to 16 percent while also raising his usage.

8. Brandon Averette, Oklahoma State

Averette has played just over half of Oklahoma State’s minutes this year, is 8th among PGs in the league in assist rate, and hasn’t been a very good defender.

9. Manu Lecomte, Baylor

I really missed on Lecomte. His play at Miami made him seem like a potential all Big 12 point guard, but while he’s shot well from three and the line, he’s shooting just 39 percent on twos and has a paltry 17 percent assist rate.

10. Matt Coleman, Texas

Coleman is a 4 star recruit, and just a freshman, so one has to assume he will end up better than this, but he has an offensive rating under 100, a low usage rate, is shooting under 40 percent on twos, and 26 percent from three. He has had a nice start to conference play, so he’ll likely finish at least a couple spots higher, but for now Texas needs a lot more than his full season numbers.