The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

I see Khaliq Spicer was recognized as one of the top 5 defenders in the MAC. I wish I knew he was a good defender, we could have used him during the last 10 minutes of some of these games.

(03-08-2016 02:10 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  I see Khaliq Spicer was recognized as one of the top 5 defenders in the MAC. I wish I knew he was a good defender, we could have used him during the last 10 minutes of some of these games.

Spicer just won DPOY

(03-08-2016 02:29 PM)luckyflash Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 02:10 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  I see Khaliq Spicer was recognized as one of the top 5 defenders in the MAC. I wish I knew he was a good defender, we could have used him during the last 10 minutes of some of these games.

Spicer just won DPOY

Uhhhh....he must have packed a ton of defense in that 22.5 minutes per game.

(03-08-2016 02:10 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  I see Khaliq Spicer was recognized as one of the top 5 defenders in the MAC. I wish I knew he was a good defender, we could have used him during the last 10 minutes of some of these games.

The press just looks at blocks and steals when they pick these players. They have little or no knowledge of how they defend their assignments throughout the game.

(03-08-2016 02:47 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 02:29 PM)luckyflash Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 02:10 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  I see Khaliq Spicer was recognized as one of the top 5 defenders in the MAC. I wish I knew he was a good defender, we could have used him during the last 10 minutes of some of these games.

Spicer just won DPOY

Uhhhh....he must have packed a ton of defense in that 22.5 minutes per game.

I'm glad we had that great defender in the middle, otherwise opposing guards would have been able to drive the lane uncontested. We would have given up thirty points a game to that. Akron, and Bowling Green and Buffalo would have walked all over us

(03-08-2016 03:06 PM)burden Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 02:10 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  I see Khaliq Spicer was recognized as one of the top 5 defenders in the MAC. I wish I knew he was a good defender, we could have used him during the last 10 minutes of some of these games.

The press just looks at blocks and steals when they pick these players. They have little or no knowledge of how they defend their assignments throughout the game.

I know the coaches used to have a vote - do they not anymore?

Not sure if they do. They didn't at one time. That would change the equation no doubt. Does anybody know?

Coaches voted on yesterday's awards. The others are the media, I believe.

At least on the women's side, the media votes only for player, freshman and coach of year.

(03-08-2016 03:16 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 02:47 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 02:29 PM)luckyflash Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 02:10 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  I see Khaliq Spicer was recognized as one of the top 5 defenders in the MAC. I wish I knew he was a good defender, we could have used him during the last 10 minutes of some of these games.

Spicer just won DPOY

Uhhhh....he must have packed a ton of defense in that 22.5 minutes per game.

I'm glad we had that great defender in the middle, otherwise opposing guards would have been able to drive the lane uncontested. We would have given up thirty points a game to that. Akron, and Bowling Green and Buffalo would have walked all over us

(03-07-2016 09:48 PM)KSU93 Wrote:  Joel will be shown the door

Do you think? I'm not trying to argue with you, but what makes you say so? It's not like bad football and even basketball is new on campus.

(03-08-2016 04:24 PM)burden Wrote:  Not sure if they do. They didn't at one time. That would change the equation no doubt. Does anybody know?

Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own player when I was in school.

First off, congrats to Khaliq. Personally, I think it is well deserved.

A little surprised by some of the previous posts. There are two important FACTS to consider. 1) Spicer is an elite defender. 2) Without him Kent was not a good defensive team. The first half of last night's game was a perfect microcosm of Spicer's defensive impact. He was controlling the paint and BG was settling for a lot of jumpers but as soon as he went out they would start attacking the rim. In the first half last night Kent was +13 with Spicer on the floor -6 with him on the bench. He didn't have the same impact in the second half of course. I felt part of it had to do with foul trouble which changed how his aggression. He picked up two fouls in the second half on plays where he had to leave his man because a teammate got beat then he had to foul his man while scrambling to recover.

Long story short, I feel Spicer's defensive impact is incredibly underrated by Kent fans. It's nice to see that the voters respected what he does. Some numbers to support this, our team was 246th out of 351 teams in points allowed per 100 possessions at 105.5. I would quantify that as very bad. When Spicer is on the floor that number is 102.9. The next closest is Edwin at 104.6. So if we were 246th total, we know we were 1.6 points better when Spicer was on the court, and he played over half the minutes, how horrible were we when he was off the court?

There aren't many advanced defensive metrics out there for MAC teams but Sports-Reference.com has a stat called "Defensive Box Plus/Minus" which they describe as "A box score estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above the league-average player, translated to an average team." On this scale Spicer scored a 3.2. There were only three other players with a positive score, Hall at 0.4, Edwin at 0.2, and Cancer at 0.2. They also have Defensive Win Shares on there and if you adjust it for minutes he's, again, easily our best defender. Heck, if you are a fan of win shares, his WS/40 is easily the best on our team at 0.164. The next closest is Pollard at 0.134. (You might think this supports the fact that he should've played more minutes, but that's an argument for another time). He doesn't lead the MAC in any of these metrics but pretty much any individual defensive metric is influenced by team performance which I've already illustrated was poor.

So bottom line, without Spicer I think we are an elitely bad defensive team. So the fact that we were able to finish tied for 3rd is a testament to the impact Spicer has defensively. Therefore, I think he was VERY deserving of the award. I sincerely hope our perimeter defense improves and Marvin Jones and Danny Pippen can do something to fill his defensive void or we might be in for some gaudy numbers being put up against us next year. But thanks for four years Khaliq and congrats on the well deserved honor.

(03-08-2016 07:54 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  First off, congrats to Khaliq. Personally, I think it is well deserved.

A little surprised by some of the previous posts. There are two important FACTS to consider. 1) Spicer is an elite defender. 2) Without him Kent was not a good defensive team. The first half of last night's game was a perfect microcosm of Spicer's defensive impact. He was controlling the paint and BG was settling for a lot of jumpers but as soon as he went out they would start attacking the rim. In the first half last night Kent was +13 with Spicer on the floor -6 with him on the bench. He didn't have the same impact in the second half of course. I felt part of it had to do with foul trouble which changed how his aggression. He picked up two fouls in the second half on plays where he had to leave his man because a teammate got beat then he had to foul his man while scrambling to recover.

Long story short, I feel Spicer's defensive impact is incredibly underrated by Kent fans. It's nice to see that the voters respected what he does. Some numbers to support this, our team was 246th out of 351 teams in points allowed per 100 possessions at 105.5. I would quantify that as very bad. When Spicer is on the floor that number is 102.9. The next closest is Edwin at 104.6. So if we were 246th total, we know we were 1.6 points better when Spicer was on the court, and he played over half the minutes, how horrible were we when he was off the court?

There aren't many advanced defensive metrics out there for MAC teams but Sports-Reference.com has a stat called "Defensive Box Plus/Minus" which they describe as "A box score estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above the league-average player, translated to an average team." On this scale Spicer scored a 3.2. There were only three other players with a positive score, Hall at 0.4, Edwin at 0.2, and Cancer at 0.2. They also have Defensive Win Shares on there and if you adjust it for minutes he's, again, easily our best defender. Heck, if you are a fan of win shares, his WS/40 is easily the best on our team at 0.164. The next closest is Pollard at 0.134. (You might think this supports the fact that he should've played more minutes, but that's an argument for another time). He doesn't lead the MAC in any of these metrics but pretty much any individual defensive metric is influenced by team performance which I've already illustrated was poor.

So bottom line, without Spicer I think we are an elitely bad defensive team. So the fact that we were able to finish tied for 3rd is a testament to the impact Spicer has defensively. Therefore, I think he was VERY deserving of the award. I sincerely hope our perimeter defense improves and Marvin Jones and Danny Pippen can do something to fill his defensive void or we might be in for some gaudy numbers being put up against us next year. But thanks for four years Khaliq and congrats on the well deserved honor.

(03-09-2016 08:08 AM)luckyflash Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 07:54 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  First off, congrats to Khaliq. Personally, I think it is well deserved.

A little surprised by some of the previous posts. There are two important FACTS to consider. 1) Spicer is an elite defender. 2) Without him Kent was not a good defensive team. The first half of last night's game was a perfect microcosm of Spicer's defensive impact. He was controlling the paint and BG was settling for a lot of jumpers but as soon as he went out they would start attacking the rim. In the first half last night Kent was +13 with Spicer on the floor -6 with him on the bench. He didn't have the same impact in the second half of course. I felt part of it had to do with foul trouble which changed how his aggression. He picked up two fouls in the second half on plays where he had to leave his man because a teammate got beat then he had to foul his man while scrambling to recover.

Long story short, I feel Spicer's defensive impact is incredibly underrated by Kent fans. It's nice to see that the voters respected what he does. Some numbers to support this, our team was 246th out of 351 teams in points allowed per 100 possessions at 105.5. I would quantify that as very bad. When Spicer is on the floor that number is 102.9. The next closest is Edwin at 104.6. So if we were 246th total, we know we were 1.6 points better when Spicer was on the court, and he played over half the minutes, how horrible were we when he was off the court?

There aren't many advanced defensive metrics out there for MAC teams but Sports-Reference.com has a stat called "Defensive Box Plus/Minus" which they describe as "A box score estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above the league-average player, translated to an average team." On this scale Spicer scored a 3.2. There were only three other players with a positive score, Hall at 0.4, Edwin at 0.2, and Cancer at 0.2. They also have Defensive Win Shares on there and if you adjust it for minutes he's, again, easily our best defender. Heck, if you are a fan of win shares, his WS/40 is easily the best on our team at 0.164. The next closest is Pollard at 0.134. (You might think this supports the fact that he should've played more minutes, but that's an argument for another time). He doesn't lead the MAC in any of these metrics but pretty much any individual defensive metric is influenced by team performance which I've already illustrated was poor.

So bottom line, without Spicer I think we are an elitely bad defensive team. So the fact that we were able to finish tied for 3rd is a testament to the impact Spicer has defensively. Therefore, I think he was VERY deserving of the award. I sincerely hope our perimeter defense improves and Marvin Jones and Danny Pippen can do something to fill his defensive void or we might be in for some gaudy numbers being put up against us next year. But thanks for four years Khaliq and congrats on the well deserved honor.

I would add my congrats as well - enjoyed seeing him play for four years - good kid - only wish we could have brought home a MAC Tourney championship. He will be difficult to replace

OK - I respect your opinion anti-zip that he's a quality defender, and I'll admit he's been a great team member, but I'm still trying to wrap my brain around Khaliq Spicer as MAC Defensive Player of the Year...

First of all, thinking about Derek Jackson last year, we saw him shutting down the opponent's top guard last year, all season. We expected him to be DPOY, but he didn't get any recognition last year at all. Maybe it's harder to see an inside player having a disruptive effect on the other offense, but I didn't see other teams making changes because of Spicer's defense. I didn't hear commentators commentating on Spicer's effect. And I didn't see the top forwards and centers that played us have a drop in their scoring or rebounding. I haven't looked back in box scores to check this, but I should.

Next, one stat that I always look at to see how much a coach values a player is minutes played. Last year, D-Jack led the MAC with 1181 minutes, 34 minutes per game. I know it's different for inside players, because they pick up more fouls, and you want to keep them in the game more, but Khaliq played 22.5 minutes per game? Again, I need to look back in the play-by-plays, but I don't remember seeing him a lot in the last 10 minutes of games. That's when he really would have been needed, with our late-game struggles. We lost a bunch of late leads and if Senderhoff thought Spicer was a great defender, he should have been on the court then.

And the numbers don't make sense. I would have expected lots of rebounds from a top inside defender. 6.2 per game isn't a lot. Yes, the blocks do cause disruption, but 10 rebounds per game are more disruptive than 2 blocks per game. Even looking at the crazy new stats they have out there for defense, on Sports-reference.com, 'Defensive Rating' - he's not in the top 10. 'Defensive Win Shares' - not in the top 10. OK - 'Defensive Box Plus/Minus', yes he's third there.

I will give you, looking deeply into all this now, the question is "If not Spicer, then who", and I'm not coming up with a good answer. The obvious answers would be the top guys with rebounds, blocks, and steals, Thompson, Boothe, and Campbell, but the coaches didn't vote any of these guys on the all-defensive team. I respect the coaches' vote somewhat. I can also guess that the defensive votes might go to guys that the voters know likely won't be on the other All-MAC teams. The other guys on the All-Defense team, I come up with the same arguments as I have with Spicer - not a lot of minutes, not a lot of numbers. Looking at the sports-reference.com stats, Marin Maric looks like the top defender, but he wasn't in the top 5 of the coaches' vote.

OK - I've come around somewhat. Maybe I'm the kind of basketball fan that needs the media to tell me what I'm seeing so I can see it during the game. I do value defense in basketball, and It's hard for me to see that the DPOY isn't worth being on All-MAC 1st team, 2nd team, 3rd team or Honorable Mention.

Also - I always have the attitude that any Kent State player who plays here 4 years isn't successful if he doesn't ever make one of the All-MAC teams. If someone has the opportunity to play at KSU 4 years, he should develop enough to be at least an Honorable Mention, and the DPOY is worth more in my mind than 4th team Honorable Mention. Congratulations, Khaliq!

(03-08-2016 07:54 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  First off, congrats to Khaliq. Personally, I think it is well deserved.

A little surprised by some of the previous posts. There are two important FACTS to consider. 1) Spicer is an elite defender. 2) Without him Kent was not a good defensive team. The first half of last night's game was a perfect microcosm of Spicer's defensive impact. He was controlling the paint and BG was settling for a lot of jumpers but as soon as he went out they would start attacking the rim. In the first half last night Kent was +13 with Spicer on the floor -6 with him on the bench. He didn't have the same impact in the second half of course. I felt part of it had to do with foul trouble which changed how his aggression. He picked up two fouls in the second half on plays where he had to leave his man because a teammate got beat then he had to foul his man while scrambling to recover.

Long story short, I feel Spicer's defensive impact is incredibly underrated by Kent fans. It's nice to see that the voters respected what he does. Some numbers to support this, our team was 246th out of 351 teams in points allowed per 100 possessions at 105.5. I would quantify that as very bad. When Spicer is on the floor that number is 102.9. The next closest is Edwin at 104.6. So if we were 246th total, we know we were 1.6 points better when Spicer was on the court, and he played over half the minutes, how horrible were we when he was off the court?

There aren't many advanced defensive metrics out there for MAC teams but Sports-Reference.com has a stat called "Defensive Box Plus/Minus" which they describe as "A box score estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above the league-average player, translated to an average team." On this scale Spicer scored a 3.2. There were only three other players with a positive score, Hall at 0.4, Edwin at 0.2, and Cancer at 0.2. They also have Defensive Win Shares on there and if you adjust it for minutes he's, again, easily our best defender. Heck, if you are a fan of win shares, his WS/40 is easily the best on our team at 0.164. The next closest is Pollard at 0.134. (You might think this supports the fact that he should've played more minutes, but that's an argument for another time). He doesn't lead the MAC in any of these metrics but pretty much any individual defensive metric is influenced by team performance which I've already illustrated was poor.

So bottom line, without Spicer I think we are an elitely bad defensive team. So the fact that we were able to finish tied for 3rd is a testament to the impact Spicer has defensively. Therefore, I think he was VERY deserving of the award. I sincerely hope our perimeter defense improves and Marvin Jones and Danny Pippen can do something to fill his defensive void or we might be in for some gaudy numbers being put up against us next year. But thanks for four years Khaliq and congrats on the well deserved honor.

Amen!

(03-09-2016 10:03 AM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  First of all, thinking about Derek Jackson last year, we saw him shutting down the opponent's top guard last year, all season. We expected him to be DPOY, but he didn't get any recognition last year at all. Maybe it's harder to see an inside player having a disruptive effect on the other offense, but I didn't see other teams making changes because of Spicer's defense. I didn't hear commentators commentating on Spicer's effect. And I didn't see the top forwards and centers that played us have a drop in their scoring or rebounding. I haven't looked back in box scores to check this, but I should.

To start, I agree that Jackson was an insane defender but it's tough to argue with Richard Holmes winning that award. Also, it's difficult to compare the defensive impact of Jackson and Spicer. An elite defender on the perimeter usually affects one player, the guy he's guarding. An elite rim protector has an impact on the entire offensive game plan of the opponent. Maybe announcers weren't talking about it but I noticed several games where opponents looked hesitant to drive when he was in the game and attacked as soon as he went to the bench.

A good example of what I'm talking about is the National Champion Louisville team from a few years ago. They were a crazy elite defensive team and throughout the NCAA tournament they were always talking about the defense of Russ Smith and Peyton Silva (both averaging over 2 steals). However, the real reason they were so good was because of Gorgui Dieng controlling the middle and allowing those two to gamble for steals. I felt at the time Dieng was the most underrated player in college basketball. If you dig into all the metrics I mentioned about Spicer for that team you'll see that not only was Dieng their best defender, it wasn't even close. I think a lot of NBA GM's now realize how good Dieng really was and is as he's 79th out of 446 players in Defensive Real Plus Minus despite playing on one of the worst defensive teams in the league. Don't even get me started on the Cavs (who have always lacked a rim protector) passing on him and Rudy Gobert for the great Serge Karasev...

Quote:Next, one stat that I always look at to see how much a coach values a player is minutes played. Last year, D-Jack led the MAC with 1181 minutes, 34 minutes per game. I know it's different for inside players, because they pick up more fouls, and you want to keep them in the game more, but Khaliq played 22.5 minutes per game? Again, I need to look back in the play-by-plays, but I don't remember seeing him a lot in the last 10 minutes of games. That's when he really would have been needed, with our late-game struggles. We lost a bunch of late leads and if Senderhoff thought Spicer was a great defender, he should have been on the court then.

It's no secret I thought Spicer should've played more minutes. Maybe his minutes were limited a little to keep him fresh and effective? Maybe it was because they wanted to create more space inside for Hall to work late in games and removing the only other post presence is the easiest way to do that? At any rate, he played 34 minutes against BG so that could be taken as an indication of how Sendy viewed his importance in the biggest game of the year.

Quote:And the numbers don't make sense. I would have expected lots of rebounds from a top inside defender. 6.2 per game isn't a lot. Yes, the blocks do cause disruption, but 10 rebounds per game are more disruptive than 2 blocks per game. Even looking at the crazy new stats they have out there for defense, on Sports-reference.com, 'Defensive Rating' - he's not in the top 10. 'Defensive Win Shares' - not in the top 10. OK - 'Defensive Box Plus/Minus', yes he's third there.

Don't confuse defensive rebounds with playing defense. To get a defensive rebound the opponent has to first miss a shot. Spicer blocked a lot of shots this year but he also altered a lot of shots that resulted in rebounds for teammates. Often when you go for a block you're giving up the ability to rebound it because you'll be out of position. With that said, if you adjust his rebound for minutes he was still our best rebounder. He's at 11.0 per 40 minutes Hall was second at 10.6.

As for him not being in the top 10 in those defensive metrics, as I mentioned before individual defensive metrics are always heavily influenced by team defense. Fact is Kent was a below average defensive team so comparing those numbers to players on other teams isn't necessarily fair. For example, if you put Spicer on Akron (71st in DRtg) he would look much better on those defensive metrics than on Kent (247th in DRtg).

(03-08-2016 03:06 PM)burden Wrote:  

(03-08-2016 02:10 PM)Slinkin Street Flash Wrote:  I see Khaliq Spicer was recognized as one of the top 5 defenders in the MAC. I wish I knew he was a good defender, we could have used him during the last 10 minutes of some of these games.

coaches pick the DPOY Award ... not the media

The press just looks at blocks and steals when they pick these players. They have little or no knowledge of how they defend their assignments throughout the game.

BG just beat CMU. Apparently, they aren't going to lay down and play dead for anyone.